Hitler

sections from the second volume as a separate pamphlet in February 1926. When the issue flared up again in 1928, he was driven to outline his position at length. Probably financial considerations – Amann may well have advised against having the ‘Second Book’ compete against the second volume of
Mein Kampf
, with its disappointing and diminishing sales – dissuaded Hitler from publishing the book. But in addition, as the South Tyrol question lost its urgency, new issues like the Young Plan arose, and Hitler had neither time nor inclination to revise the text, it may have been felt that its publication would have offered political hostages to fortune.
    If occasioned by the South Tyrol question, the ‘Second Book’ went far beyond it, ranging more expansively than
Mein Kampf
had doneover Hitler’s broad ideas on foreign policy and ‘territorial issues’ (
Raumfragen
), linking them, as always, with his racial interpretation of history and, in the final pages, with the need to destroy what he saw as the threat of ‘Jewish domination’. But the ‘Second Book’ offered nothing new. As we have seen, the essence of Hitler’s ‘world-view’ was fully developed by the time he wrote the second volume of
Mein Kampf
in 1926, existent in embryonic form, in fact, since late 1922. The ideas dominating the ‘Second Book’ – including the issue of South Tyrol and his interest in the growing economic power of the United States of America – were repeatedly advanced in Hitler’s speeches and writings from 1927 onwards. Several passages from these speeches recur almost verbatim at key points in the ‘Second Book’.
    Long before the dictation of the ‘Second Book’, then, Hitler was a fixated ideologue. His own inner certainty of the ‘truths’ about history as racial struggle, and Germany’s future mission to obtain ‘living space’ and, at the same time, eradicate the power of the Jews for ever, were of immense importance as a personal driving-force. Their significance in attracting support for National Socialism can, however, easily be exaggerated. The growth of the NSDAP to a mass party had little directly to do with the arcanum of Hitler’s personalized ‘world-view’. More complex processes have to be taken into account.
    IV
    At the end of January 1927, Saxony became the first large German state to lift the speaking ban on Hitler. On 5 March, the Bavarian authorities finally conceded to the pressure to allow Hitler to speak again. His return to the public arena caused little of a stir. Reports from the Bavarian provinces indicated little interest in the NSDAP, for all its vigorous propaganda. Party meetings were often badly attended. Hitler’s magic was no longer working, even in Munich. In January 1928, the Munich police reported that ‘the advances of the National Socialist Movement repeatedly claimed by Hitler are not true, especially in Bavaria. In reality, interest in the movement both in the countryside and in Munich is strongly in decline. Branch meetings attended by 3–400 people in 1926 now have an attendance of at most 60–80 members.’ Even the Party Rally, held for the first time at Nuremberg, on19–21 August 1927, despite careful orchestration for maximum propaganda effect, failed to raise the expected level of support or interest.
    Most other German states followed the examples of Saxony and Bavaria in lifting the ban on Hitler speaking in public. Only Prussia, the largest state, and Anhalt held out until autumn 1928. The authorities, it seemed with justification, could believe that the Nazi menace had passed. Hitler no longer appeared a threat. A confidential report by the Reich Minister of the Interior in 1927 had already judged that the NSDAP was no more than a ‘splinter group incapable of exerting any noticeable influence on the great mass of the population and the course of political events’.
    Though outwardly making little or no headway in the more settled political climate of the mid-1920s, as Germany’s new democracy at last showed signs of stability, significant developments were taking place within the NSDAP. Eventually, these would help to place the party in a stronger position to exploit the new economic crisis that was to hit Germany in autumn 1929.
    Most importantly, the NSDAP had become a self-conscious ‘leader-movement’, focused ideologically and organizationally on the Hitler cult. In retrospect, the ‘leaderless time’ of 1924, and Hitler’s