National Socialist German Workers' Party

Alternative assembly of the NSDAP.

The National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei; abbreviated as NSDAP), known colloquially as the Nazi Party, was an extreme right-wing political party active in Germany between 1920 and 1945 whose ideology was National Socialism or Nazism. Its predecessor was the German Workers' Party (DAP), which existed from 1919 to 1920.

The party arose out of the racist and ultranationalist culture of the Freikorps, paramilitary units that fought the communist uprisings that followed World War I. Advocacy of a form of "conservative socialism" was common in sectors of the right from the time of Bismarck and until years after World War I, sectors that influenced National Socialism. Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, of the Conservative Revolutionary Movement, coined the term "Third Reich" and advocated an ideology that combined nationalism and socialism. In practice, the party used the term socialism to try to attract the working class away from communism (KPD) and social democracy (SPD), by time that it used the term nationalism to attract nationalist and conservative sectors. Initially, the party's discourse focused on the fight against big business, with a marked anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist rhetoric; however, they later softened these postulates and obtained the support and financing of large industrial companies and wealthy personalities. Since the 1930s, the party oriented its postulates to anti-Semitism and anti-Marxism.

From 1921, the party's leader was Adolf Hitler, who was appointed chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg in 1933, after the party had won two simple majority victories in democratic parliamentary elections in 1932. Quickly, Hitler established a totalitarian regime, liquidating the democratic institutions of the Weimar Republic and establishing the so-called Third Reich. The Nazis imposed their dictatorship undemocratically but with an appearance of formal legality thanks to the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Law of 1933. The first allowed them to eliminate the KPD as a political force and the second authorized the government to legislate without the intervention of the cameras. The approval of this law implied a modification of the Constitution and, therefore, required its approval by two thirds of the members of the Reichstag, a majority that could only be obtained with the forced absence of all the communist parliamentarians and by negotiating the favorable vote of the Catholics. center.

Racism was a central axis of Nazi ideology. The Nazis tried to enlarge the area of expansion of the Germanic peoples through racial purity, eugenics, extensive social welfare programs and a systematic disregard for the value of the individual, which could be sacrificed for the good of the Nazi state and in after a "superior Aryan race." To maintain the supposed purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis exterminated Jews, Roma, the disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Africans and fundamentally left-wing political dissidents for all of Europe, which they had occupied during the first half of World War II. If they were not killed, they were segregated and excluded from society. In total, some 11 million people would die as a result of these policies, which in the Jewish case (between five and six million victims) is known as the Holocaust.. Today, the racial theories of Nazi ideology are universally dismissed as lacking scientific foundations.

After the German defeat in World War II in 1945, it was declared an illegal and criminal organization, and the leaders who had not committed suicide were arrested, charged, and tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and against peace in the United States. Nuremberg trials, held between November 1945 and October 1946.

History

Origins

Assembly of the Nazi Party at the Bürgerbräukeller brewery in Munich, 1923.

In January 1919, the railway mechanic Anton Drexler founded in Munich (together with Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart, Alfred Rosenberg, Hermann Esser and Karl Harrer) the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), as one of the ethnicist movements (in German völkisch) that existed in Bavaria and Germany as a result of the Teutonic defeat in World War I. To investigate the different political groups in Munich, the German Army Intelligence Service sent the young Corporal Adolf Hitler to monitor the activities of that party.

Hitler participates in a meeting on September 16, 1919 and is invited to join the movement because of his skills as an orator, although much later he declared himself "member number 7 of the Party", to make believe that he had been one of the founders. He was actually the 7th member of the central committee and responsible for propaganda. During his management, the members of the party began to be counted, beginning the count at number 500 to give an idea of a large number, for which 555 was assigned to Hitler. According to the book Data for the history of the NSDAP, a Nazi publication of the time, the party had 64 members in 1919.

On February 24, 1920, at the request of Hitler, the first mass meeting of the party was held in Munich, where Hitler himself read the 25 points of the National Socialist Program, written by him and Anton Drexler and which they intended, mixing anti-communism, pan-Germanism and anti-Semitism, winning over the proletariat to the nationalist cause. These points constituted the dogmatic program of National Socialism and were never changed. In this same assembly it was decided to change the name of the movement, becoming known as the "German National Socialist Workers' Party", whose acronym in German is NSDAP. In 1921, Hitler was its highest leader, and his oratory was considered the main reason for the growth of the party, which in 1923 had 50,000 members. The German journalist George Sylvester Viereck interviewed him for The Fatherland newspaper:

"...unlike Marxism, socialism is patriotic. We could have chosen the name of the Liberal Party, but we decided to call ourselves National Socialists. We are not internationalists; our socialism is national. We demand that the State meet the fair claims of the production classes on the basis of racial solidarity. For us, state and race are the same thing. "

After staging the unsuccessful Munich Putsch on November 9, 1923, the NSDAP was banned and, with Hitler in prison, there was some fragmentation of the Nazi movement. Lifted the ban, the party was refounded on February 25, 1925 with the same name, and Hitler got the leadership of the party. While Hitler focused on political activity and the cult of his image, he bequeathed the administration of the party to others; Philip Bouhler, Franz Xaver Schwarz and Max Amann were largely responsible for rebuilding the party. Franz Xaver Schwarz, conscientious and exhaustive, became the party's national treasurer and rebuilt the administrative and financial structure of the NSDAP. He was also Schwarz who put up the money to finance the publication of Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, and who negotiated the acquisition of the new party headquarters, the so-called "Casa Parda&# 34;, in 1930. In his book, Hitler autobiographically describes his anti-Semitic and anti-Communist political ideologies along with his future plans for Germany. He also explained the origins of his party and its propaganda tactics, such as appropriating the color red on its flags to attract the working class away from left-wing parties.

After their coup attempt failed in Bavaria, the Nazis participated in the remaining elections of the 1920s. In the elections of the 1930s, driven by Germany's economic problems due to the incipient Great Depression, they increased their votes considerably becoming the second largest party in the Reichstag, which improved their position in the years to come.

Hitler's speech against Marxism at the Berlin sports palace in 1933, during the election campaign.

In the parliamentary elections of July 1932, despite the threat of outlawing the SA (Sturmabteilung, Storm Sections, the party's private army) in 1932, the Nazis reached a total of 13.57 million votes, and they became the block with the most votes in Parliament. However, this victory was insufficient for Hitler to access the Chancellery.

Seizure of power

Men's Parade of the Reich Labour Service to Adolf Hitler, in 1937.

After forging an alliance with the Catholic Center and the Nationalists in Parliament, and in view of the fact that the Nazis had won 2 electoral processes, Hitler was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg on January 30, 1933. new parliamentary elections, and the Nazis and their nationalist allies reached the majority that they used to pass the Enabling Law of 1933, designed to put absolute power in the hands of Hitler.

After the proscription or cancellation of all other parties (July 5, 1933) and the prohibition of forming new ones (July 14, 1933), the National Socialists become the only remaining political party. This was part of the Gleichschaltung (literally 'synchronization', a term used in a political sense to describe the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control over the individual).

They named the SA as the armed wing of the Regime and the SS as an auxiliary body of the SA, in addition to creating the Secret State Police (in German: Geheime Staats Polizei, with the initials Gestapo).

The Nazi Party anthem was the Horst-Wessel-Lied (Horst Wessel Song) dedicated to one of the early martyrs of the movement, Horst Wessel, who died during the usual street fights with political opponents. Upon joining, each Party member received a written certificate that lasted six months, renewable for another six months. A year later, he received a cardboard stating that the person was an active militant and had a space to affix the twelve stamps corresponding to the monthly payment, since the party was financed by its own members. Two years later, he received a red membership book containing the information and photos of the militant, his political and financial contributions, as well as his duties and rights as a party member.

The End

The war effort carried out by the Allies in Europe resulted in the entire territory of the Nazi Reich coming under the control of the victors of World War II. In "Proclamation No. 1" to the German people of March 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces, announced various measures to be taken in occupied Germany, among which were the dissolution of the NSDAP, the Gestapo, the SS, the People's Court and any other special court created during the Third Reich. The proclamation also warned of the Allies' intention to try all civilian and military leaders of the party found responsible for the commission of any crime or atrocity.

A few months after the end of the war, the four occupying powers of Germany signed the agreement of September 20, 1945, section 11.1 of which officially declared the Nazi Party illegal.

During the Nuremberg trials, the Tribunal declared the Nazi Party and its Leaders Corps a criminal organization, declaring it prohibited throughout Germany and sanctioning the dissemination of National Socialist ideas and its symbols. This responsibility was based mainly on:

• The mass participation of its militants in the acts of violence of the night of the broken crystals, of 9 and 10 November 1938, when thousands of Jewish-owned stores were destroyed, looted and burned throughout the German territory, of which were the teletypes that test the guidelines given to the militancy to organize and carry out these sabotages.
• The formal participation of the party at the Wannsee Conference, where it was determined to carry out the so-called "final solution" to exterminate the Jewish people, a fact of which several party leaders were more or less aware.
• The party was responsible through its agencies for the forced recruitment of workers in the conquered territories.
• The systematic monitoring by its members against the civilian population, detailing reports that would then go to the Gestapo, on the conduct and political vision of members of each community.
• In a systematic way, in support of the SS, the massacre known as the "Long Knive Night" of June 30, 1934, where much of the SA Leaders Corps were arrested and executed without any trial.

Eventually, all persons affiliated with the NSDAP were declared criminals excepting all those who had resigned any of their positions or membership before September 1, 1939. This prohibition continues today.

Political program

The National Socialist Program was a formulation of the party's policies. It contained 25 points and was therefore also known as the "25 point plan" or "25 point program". It was the official program of the party, with minor changes, from its proclamation as such by Adolf Hitler in 1920, when the party was still the German Workers' Party, until its dissolution.

Party congresses

The members of the Nazi Party in 1930.

Standard for the Old Guard of the Nazi Party.

Hitler decided to hold, if possible every year, a national congress of all party members. Units of the SA, SS, Hitler Youth, League of German Girls or BDM, NSKK and Party Leaders Corps were at these events.

The congresses were filmed from the beginning, but from 1933, with the incorporation of sound and under the direction of Leni Riefenstahl, they acquired the category of true cinematographic documentaries. In particular, the three that reflect the congresses held between 1933 and 1935: Der Sieg des Glaubens, Triumph des Willens and Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht. It was Hitler himself, not his Minister of Propaganda, who supervised the organization of the congresses, decided the main staging aspects, the speakers who had to intervene and, above all, the one who demanded that they be filmed in the best possible way.

Organization

Some of the top leaders of the Party at the 1938 Congress; Martin Bormann, Wilhelm Frick, Robert Ley and Julius Schaub can be observed, among others.

The party's highest authority was the Führer, Adolf Hitler, with whom none of his decisions were discussed.

Under the Führer was the Reichsleiter or Heads of the Reich, appointed by the Führer and made up of the titular ministers, without a portfolio, and some own party leaders who were assigned a national jurisdiction. All of them made up the Reichsleitung. This first managerial level was in charge of departments of organization, personnel, finance, propaganda and jurisdiction. Since taking power in 1933, all these leaders reproduced the bureaucratic organization of the party in the state government structure. The Reichsleitung also included sections devoted to foreign policy, press censorship, party archives, colonial policy, leadership of the Reichstag parliamentary group, and the Department of the Führer's Representatives for the control of Political and Ideological Education. of the Party.^{[citation required]}

The next level down was the Gau or district, run by the Gauleiter. The number of Gaue in Germany and in the occupied territories in 1943 was 43.

Each Gau was divided into several smaller administrative units called Kreise (circles), each headed by a Kreisleiter. The number of Kreise in 1943 was 920.

Each Kreis, in turn, was divided into several Ortsgruppen or local groups, led by the Ortsgruppenleiter (local group leader). The Ortsgruppe was the basic unit of the NSDAP and had to be made up of at least 15 militants. The 30,601 Ortsgruppen were divided into Zellen (cells), led by a Zellenleiter (cell leader) and the 121,406 Zellen i> were divided into 539,774 Blocks (blocks), led by a Blockleiter or block leader. The Blockleiter was responsible for 40 to 60 households and kept a file (Haushaltskarten) on all his dependents in which he assessed the attitudes of each citizen towards the party and the state.

For action abroad, the party had a special department: the NSDAP/AO, which began to function in 1931.

External financing

The Harriman Bank was Wall Street's main connection to Nazi companies and to the various US interests of Fritz Thyssen, who was one of the Nazi Party's leading early financiers until 1938. All transactions were fully approved by the US Treasury Department, which insisted that Americans manage German (Nazi) interests in the US. After war was declared in 1941, President Roosevelt signed the Trading With the Enemy Act (Trading With the Enemy Act). On October 20, 1942, the US government ordered the seizure of all Nazi assets in the country. Prescott Bush, the father of President George H. W. Bush and grandfather of President George W. Bush respectively, as well as his father-in-law Samuel Walker, were convicted under that law.

Internal composition

Party Offices

• Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP (RPA): Nazi Party Racial Policy Office
• Außenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP (APA): Office of Foreign Affairs of the Nazi Party
• Kolonialpolitisches Amt der NSDAP (KPA): Nazi Party Colonial Policy Office
• Wehrpolitisches Amt der NSDAP (WPA): Nazi Party Military Policy Office
• Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei der Auslands-Organization (NSDAP/AO): External organization of the NSDAP
• Amt Rosenberg (ARO): Rosenberg Office

Party Chancellery

• NSDAP Chancellery
• Foreign Ministry

Paramilitary groups

• Schutzstaffel (SS): Protection Squads (both Allgemeine SS like Waffen-SS)
• Sturmabteilung (SA): Assault Section
• Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps (NSFK): National Socialist Aviation Corps
• Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps (NSKK): National Socialist Motorists Corps

The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary group divided into a body of adult leaders and a general membership open to children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. The League of German Girls was the equivalent group for girls.

Affiliate Organizations

• Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAS): German Labour Front
• Nationalsozialistische Lehrerbund (NSLB): National Socialist League of Teachers
• Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (NSV): National Social Welfare
• Nationalsozialistische Kriegsopferversorgung (NSKOV): National Socialist Assistance for War Victims
• Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD): Reich Labour Service
• Deutsche Glaubensbewegung: Movement of the German Faith
• Reichskolonialbund (RKB): Colonial League of the Reich
• Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (DRK): German Red Cross
• Kyffhäuserbund: Kyffhäuser League
• Technische Nothilfe (TEN): Technical Emergency Help
• Reichsbund der Kinderreichen (RDK): Reich Numerous Families Union
• Reichsluftschutzbund (RLB): National League for the Protection of Air Attacks
• Bund Deutscher Osten (BDO): East German Federation
• Amerikadeutscher Bund (AB): German-American League
• National Socialist League for the Maintenance of the Law (NSRB, 1936-1945, formerly known as the German National Socialist Lawyers League)
• League of Nationalist Women (NS-Frauenschaft)
• National Socialist League of German Teachers (NSDD)
• National Socialist League of German Students (NSDStB)
• National Socialist League of German Universities (NSDDB)
• National Socialist Association of German Doctors (NSDÄB)
• German Officials ' Reich League (public officials ' union, predecessor of the German Federation of Public Officials)

Membership

General Membership

Party membership of 1939.

The general membership of the Party consisted mainly of the middle and lower classes, urban and rural. 7% belonged to the upper class, 7% were peasants, 35% were industrial workers and 51% were middle class. In early 1933, just before Hitler's registration for chancellorship, the party indicated an underrepresentation of "workers", constituting 29.7% of members but 46.3% of German society. By contrast, white-collar employees (18.6% of members and 12% of Germans), self-employed (19.8% of members and 9.6% of Germans) and civil servants (15.2% of members and 4.8% of the German population) united in larger proportions than their share in the general population. These members were affiliated with the local branches of the party, which numbered 1,378 nationwide in 1928. By 1932, the number had risen to 11,845, reflecting the growth of the party in this period.

When it came to power in 1933, the Nazi Party had more than 2 million members. In 1939, the total membership increased to 5.3 million, with 81% male and 19% female. It continues to attract many more and in 1945 the party reached its peak of 8 million, with 63% men and 37% women (about 10% of the German population of 80 million).

Military Membership

Nazi members with military ambitions were encouraged to join the Waffen-SS, but large numbers enlisted in the Wehrmacht and even more were conscripted into service after the start of World War II. World War. Early regulations required all members of the Wehrmacht to be non-political and any Nazi member who joined in the 1930s had to resign from the Nazi Party.

However, this regulation was soon waived and there is ample evidence that full members of the Nazi Party served in the Wehrmacht in particular after the outbreak of World War II. The Wehrmacht Reserves also saw large numbers of high-ranking Nazis enlisted, such as Reinhard Heydrich and Fritz Todt joining the Luftwaffe, as well as Karl Hanke serving in the army.

British historian Richard J. Evans wrote that junior officers in the army were inclined to be especially zealous National Socialists, and that a third of them had joined the Nazi Party in 1941. Bolstering the work of junior leaders were the Officers of Orientation of the National Socialist Leadership that were created with the purpose of indoctrinating the troops for the "war of extermination" against Soviet Russia. Among the highest ranking officers, 29.2% were members of the NSDAP in 1941.

Student Membership

In 1926, the party formed a special division to involve the student population, known as the National Socialist League of German Students (NSDStB). Also a group for university professors, the National Socialist League of German University Students (NSDDB), existed until July 1944.

Female Membership

The National Socialist Women's League was the women's organization of the party and in 1938 had approximately 2 million members.

Membership outside of Germany

Party members living outside Germany were grouped into the Auslands Organization (NSDAP/AO, "Foreign Organization"). The organization was limited only to the so-called "Imperial Germans"; and "ethnic Germans" (Volksdeutsche), those without German citizenship, could not join.

According to Beneš Decree No. 16/1945 Coll., for citizens of Czechoslovakia, membership in the Nazi Party was punishable by between five and twenty years in prison.

Advertising

Party Newspapers

• Völkischer Beobachter: The Observer for the People
• Der Angriff: The Attack
• Der Stürmer: The Attacker
• Der Panzerbär: The Armored Bear
• Das Reich: The Empire
• Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung: Illustrated Newspaper of Berlin

Magazines

• Das Schwarze Korps: The Black Body
• Illustrierter Beobachter: The Illustrated Observer

Others

• Neues Volk: New Village

Party symbols

Main symbols

• National Socialist Flag: The National Socialist Party used a right-wing swastika as its symbol and it was said that the red and black colors represented Blut und Boden (Blut und Boden)Blood and land). Another definition of the flag describes the colors as representatives of the ideology of National Socialism, the swastika that represents the aria/white race and the aria nationalist agenda of the movement; the target represents nationalism and red representing the socialist branch of the movement. In fact, black, white and red were the colors of the former flag of the Northern German Confederation (invented by Otto von Bismarck, based on the black and white Prussian colors and the red used by the states of northern Germany). In 1871, with the foundation of the German Reich, the flag of the German Confederation of the North became the Reichsflagge German (“Bridge of the Reich”). Black, white and red became the colors of nationalists through the following story (e.g., the First World War and the Weimar Republic). The design Partiflagge, with the circle of the swastika centered, served as the party flag since 1920. Between 1933 (when the Nazi Party came to power) and 1935, it was used as the national flag (Nationalflagge) and the merchant flag (Handelsflagge), but indistinctly with the horizontal tricolour black-white-red. In 1935, the black-white-red horizontal tricolour was discarded (again) and the flag with the off-centered swastika and the circle was instituted as the national flag, and remained as such until 1945. The flag with the centered circle continued to be used after 1935, but only as the PartiflaggeThe party flag.

• Imperial Eagle: The National Socialist Party used the traditional German imperial eagle standing on a swastika inside a crown of oak leaves. It is also known as the "iron eagle". When the eagle looks to its left shoulder, it symbolizes the Nazi Party and is called Partiadler. On the contrary, when the eagle looks to its right shoulder, it symbolizes the country (Reich) and, therefore, is called Reichsadler. After the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, they replaced the traditional version of the German eagle with the symbol of the modified party throughout the country and in all its institutions.

Ranks and insignia

Slogans and songs

Slogans: "Sieg Heil!", "Heil Hitler!"
Anthem: Horst-Wessel-Lied

Election results

Electoral developments (1924-1933).

Elections	# Of vows	% of votes	# of seats	+/-	Note
1924 (may.)	1.918.329	6.55	32/472	-	Illegalized party.
1924 (Dec.)	907.242	3,00	14/492	18	Illegalized party.
1928	810.127	2.63	12/491	2
1930	6.379.672	18,25	107/577	95	After the "crac of 29".
1932 (jul.)	13.745.680	37,27	230/608	123	After the presidential elections.
1932 (nov.)	11.737.021	33,09	196/584	34
1933 (mar.)	17.277.180	43,91	288/647	92	After Hitler's appointment as Chancellor.
1933 (nov.)	39.655.224	92.11	639/661	351	The other 22 were “invited” chosen by the Nazis
1936	44.462.458	98.80	719/741	68	The other 22 were “invited” chosen by the Nazis
1938	44.451.092	99.01	791/813	50	The other 22 were “invited” chosen by the Nazis