Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

eastern Europe was, for instance, not fully incorporated until the middle of the decade. It was only in the two years or so following the putsch debacle, therefore, that his ideas finally came together to form the characteristic fully-fledged
Weltanschauung
that thereafter remained unaltered.
    But all this is to run ahead of the crucial developments which shaped the first passage of Hitler’s political ‘career’ as the beerhall agitator of an insignificant Munich racist party and the circumstances under which he came to lead that party.

II

    Hitler’s part in the early development of the German Workers’ Party (subsequently the NSDAP) is obscured more than it is clarified by his own tendentious account in
Mein Kampf.
As usual, this is characterized less by pure invention than by selective memory and distortion of facts. And, as throughout his book, Hitler’s version of events is aimed, more than all else, at elevating his own role as it denigrates, plays down, or simply ignores that of all others involved. It amounts, as always in Hitler’s own account, to the story of a political genius going his way in the face of adversity, a heroic triumph of the will. The story was the core of the ‘party legend’ which in later years Hitler never tired of retelling at inordinate length as the preface to his major speeches. It was that of the political genius who joined a tiny body with grandiose ideas but no hope of realizing them, raising it single-handedly to a force of the first magnitude which would come to rescue Germany from its plight.
    Hitler wrote contemptuously of the organization he had joined. The state of the party was depressing in the extreme. The committee constituted practically the whole membership. Though it attacked parliamentary rule, its own matters were decided, after ‘interminable argument’, by majority vote. It met in the dingy back rooms of Munich pubs. It had no permanent headquarters. In fact, it had no membership forms, no printed matter, not even a rubber stamp. Invitations to party meetings were handwritten or produced on a typewriter. The same few people turned up. 30 Eventually, a move to mimeographed notices brought a modest rise in numbers attending, and funds were raised to allow a newspaper advertisement in the
Münchener Beobachter
for a meeting on
16
October 1919 which attracted 111 people to the Hofbräukeller, the large drinking saloon attached to one of Munich’s big breweries, situated in Wienerstraße to the east of the city centre (and not to be confused with the better-known Hofbräuhaus, located in the city centre itself). The main speaker was a Munich professor, but Hitler – according to his own account – then spoke for the first time in public (apart from to captive audiences in the Lechfeld Camp), for half an hour instead of his scheduled twenty minutes. He electrified his audience and prompted a collection of 300 Marks for the party coffers. He brought some of his army contacts into the movement, breathing much-needed new life into it. The party leaders, Harrer and Drexler, were in his view uninspiring: they were neither good speakers, nor had they served in the war. Hitler and theparty leadership were at odds about future strategy. On the basis of his initial success, Hitler insisted on more frequent and larger meetings. He got his way, and these took place in the Eberlbräukeller and the ‘Gasthaus Zum Deutschen Reich’, on Dachauerstraße near the barracks area, with Hitler speaking to bigger audiences and with great success. 31 By the seventh meeting, a few weeks later, the attendance had swollen to over 400 people. Hitler’s star was now in the ascendant within the party. Early in 1920, his account went on, he urged the staging of the first great mass meeting. Again there were major differences of opinion within the party leadership, doubters arguing that it was premature and would be a disastrous failure. The cautious Harrer, the party’s first chairman, resigned because of his disagreement with Hitler, and was replaced by Drexler. Again, Hitler prevailed. The mass meeting was organized for 24 February 1920 in the Festsaal of the Hofbräuhaus in the centre of Munich. The big, noisy hall on the first floor – above the even rougher and rowdier ‘Schwemme’ down below – had, like all the city’s numerous big drinking establishments, rows of tables stacked with the stone beermugs and benches groaning under the weight of thick-set men in Bavarian