National Socialist German Workers Party
Encyclopedia
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party
in Germany
between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party
(DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The term Nazi is German and stems from Nationalsozialist, due to the pronunciation of Latin -tion- as -tsion- in German (rather than -shon- as it is in English), with German Z
being pronounced as 'ts' as well.
The party was founded out of the current of the far-right racist
völkisch
German nationalist
movement and the violent anti-communist
Freikorps
paramilitary
culture that fought against the uprisings of communist revolution
aries in post-World War I
Germany
. The party was created by Anton Drexler
as a means to draw workers away from communism
and into völkisch nationalism. Initially Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business
, anti-bourgeois
, and anti-capitalist
rhetoric, though such aspects were later downplayed in the 1930s to gain the support from industrial owners for the Nazis, focus was shifted to anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist themes.
The party's last leader, Adolf Hitler
, was appointed Chancellor of Germany
by president Paul von Hindenburg
in 1933. Hitler rapidly established a totalitarian
regime known as the Third Reich
.
Nazi ideology
denounced many political and economic ideologies and systems as being associated with parasitical Jewry, such as: capitalism
, democracy
, the Enlightenment
, industrialisation
, liberalism
, Marxism
, parliamentary politics
, and trade union
ism. To maintain the purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to exterminate
or impose exclusionary segregation upon "degenerate
" and "asocial
" groups that included: Jews, homosexuals
, Romani, blacks
, the physically
and mentally handicapped
, Jehovah's Witnesses
and political opponents. The persecution reached its climax when the party and the German state which it controlled organized the systematic murder of approximately six million Jews and six million other people from the other targeted groups, in what has become known as the Holocaust
.
The Nazis were presented by Hitler and other proponents and viewed by some scholars as being neither left-wing
nor right-wing
but politically syncretic
. Hitler in Mein Kampf
directly attacked both left-wing and right-wing politics in Germany, such as saying: "Today our left-wing politicians in particular are constantly insisting that their craven-hearted and obsequious foreign policy necessarily results from the disarmament of Germany, whereas the truth is that this is the policy of traitors [...] But the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms." However a majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as being a far right form of politics.
)
The term Nazi was originally used by southern German opponents of the NSDAP, and may have been influenced by the Bavaria
n term Nazi, which was a familiar form of the name Ignatz, which was used colloquially to mean a "clumsy or awkward person". The earlier term Inter-Nazi, which was a German abbreviation of Internationale, may have also contributed to the adoption of the term.
Members of the NSDAP referred to themselves as Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists), rarely as Nazis. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler
assumed power of the German government, usage of the term Nazi diminished in Germany, although Austrian anti-Nazis continued to use the term as an insult. Many Neo-Nazis
still refer to themselves as National Socialists. According to Joseph Goebbels
in an official explanation of Nazism, the synthesis of the words nationalism and socialism was to "counter the Internationalism of Marxism
with the nationalism of a German Socialism".
orientation that formed in the last years of World War I. In the early months of 1918, a party called the Freier Ausschuss für einen deutschen Arbeiterfrieden ("Free Committee for a German Workers' Peace") was created in Bremen
, Germany. On 7 March 1918, Anton Drexler
, an avid German nationalist, formed a branch of this league in Munich
called the Committee of Independent Workmen. Drexler was a local locksmith in Munich who had been a member of the militarist Fatherland Party
during World War I, and was bitterly opposed to the armistice
of November 1918 and to the revolutionary upheavals that followed in its wake. Drexler followed the typical views of militant nationalists of the day, such as opposing the Treaty of Versailles
, having anti-Semitic, anti-monarchist and anti-Marxist views, as well as believing in the superiority of Germans whom nationalists claimed to be part of the Aryan
"master race
" (Herrenvolk), but he also accused international capitalism of being a Jewish-dominated movement and denounced capitalists for war profiteering in World War I. Drexler saw the situation of political violence and instability in Germany as the result of the new Weimar Republic
being out-of-touch with the masses, especially the lower classes. Drexler emphasized the need for a synthesis of völkisch nationalism, a strong central government movement, with economic socialism in order that a popular, centrist nationalist-oriented workers movement might be created that could challenge the rise of Communism, as well as the internationalist
left and right in general.
On 5 January 1919, Drexler created a new political party based on the political principles which he endorsed by combining his Committee of Independent Workmen with a similar group, The Political Worker's Circle, led by newspaper reporter Karl Harrer
. Drexler proposed that the party be named the German Socialist Worker's Party, but Harrer objected to using the term "socialist" in the name; the issue was settled by removing the term from the name, and it was agreed that the party be named the German Workers' Party
(Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP). To ease concerns among potential middle-class nationalist supporters, Drexler made clear that unlike Marxists, the party supported middle-class citizens, and that the party's socialist policy was meant to give social welfare to German citizens deemed part of the Aryan race. They became one of many völkisch movements
that existed in Germany at the time. Like other völkisch groups, the DAP advocated the belief that through profit-sharing instead of socialisation Germany should become a unified "national community" (Volksgemeinschaft) rather than a society divided along class and party lines. This ideology was explicitly anti-Semitic as it declared that the "national community" must be judenfrei ("free of Jews"). As early as 1920, the party was raising money by selling a tobacco called Anti-Semit.
From the outset, the DAP was opposed to non-nationalist political movements, especially on the left, including the Social Democratic Party of Germany
(SPD) and the newly formed Communist Party of Germany
(KPD). Members of the DAP saw themselves as fighting against "Bolshevism
" and anyone considered to be part of or aiding so-called "international Jewry
". The DAP was also deeply opposed to the Versailles Treaty. The DAP did not attempt to make itself public, and meetings were kept in relative secrecy, with public speakers discussing what they thought of Germany's present state of affairs
, or writing to like-minded societies in Northern Germany.
The DAP was a comparatively small group with fewer than 60 members. Nevertheless, it attracted the attention of the German authorities, who were suspicious of any organisation that appeared to have subversive tendencies. A young corporal, Adolf Hitler
, stationed in Munich
, was sent by Captain Mayr
, head of press and propaganda in the Bavarian section of the army to investigate the DAP. While attending a party meeting on September 12, 1919, where Gottfried Feder
was speaking on 'How and by what means is capitalism to be eliminated?', Hitler got involved in a heated political argument with a visitor who questioned the soundness of Feder's arguments and who proposed that Bavaria
should break away from Prussia
and found a new South German nation with Austria
. In vehemently attacking the man's arguments he made an impression on the other party members with his oratory skills and, according to Hitler, the "professor" left the hall acknowledging unequivocal defeat. According to August Kubizek
, Drexler was so impressed that he whispered to a neighbour, "My he's got a gift of the gab. We could use him." He was invited to join, and after some deliberation, chose to accept. Among the party's earlier members were Ernst Röhm
of the Army's District Command VII; well-to-do journalist Dietrich Eckart
; student at the University of Munich and later deputy of the party Rudolf Hess
; Freikorps
soldier Hans Frank
; and Alfred Rosenberg
, often credited as the philosopher of the movement. All of the above were later prominent in the Nazi regime.
Hitler became the DAP's 55th member and received the number 555, as the DAP added '500' to every member's number to exaggerate the party's strength. He later claimed to be the seventh party member (he was in fact the seventh executive member of the party's central committee; he would later wear the Golden Party Badge
number one). Hitler's first speech was held in the Hofbräukeller
, where he spoke in front of a hundred and eleven people as the second speaker of the evening. He later declared that this was when he realised he could really "make a good speech". At first Hitler only spoke to relatively small groups on behalf of the party, however in early 1920 he took over the propaganda
work for the Party and began to take a more prominent role in its organisation; consequently, his public speaking began to attract larger audiences. Hitler began to make the party much more public, and he organised the party's biggest meeting yet of 2,000 people, for 24 February 1920 in the Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München. Such was the significance of this particular move in publicity that Harrer
resigned from the party in disagreement. It was in this speech that Hitler, for the first time, enunciated the twenty-five points of the German Worker's Partys manifesto that had been drawn up by Drexler
, Feder
, and Hitler. Through these points he gave the organisation a much bolder stratagem with a clear foreign policy (abrogation of Versailles, a Greater Germany
, Eastern expansion, exclusion of Jews from citizenship), and among his specific points were: confiscation of war profits
, abolition of unearned incomes, the State to share profits of land, and land for national needs to be taken away without compensation. In general, the manifesto was anti-Semitic, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic
, anti-Marxist, and anti-liberal
. On 24 February 1920, the party also added "National Socialist" to its official name, in order to appeal to both nationalists and socialists, becoming the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) (or Nazis for short), although Hitler earlier suggested the party to be renamed the "Social Revolutionary Party"; it was Rudolf Jung
who persuaded Hitler to follow the NSDAP naming. Hitler quickly became the party's most active orator, and he appeared in public as a speaker thirty-one times within the first year after his self-discovery. Hitler always spoke about the same subjects: The Treaty of Versailles and the Jewish question
. This deliberate technique and effective publicising of the party contributed significantly to his early success, about which a contemporary poster wrote 'Since Herr Hitler is a brilliant speaker, we can hold out the prospect of an extremely exciting evening'. Over the following months, the DAP continued to attract new members, while remaining too small to have any real significance in German politics. By the end of 1920, the party numbered 3,000, many of whom Hitler and Röhm had brought into the party personally, or whom Hitler's oratory had been their reason for joining.
Hitler discovered that he had talent as an orator, and his ability to draw new members, combined with his characteristic ruthlessness, soon made him the dominant figure. Drexler recognized this, and Hitler became party chairman on 28 July 1921. When the party had been established, it consisted of a leadership board elected by the members, which in turn elected a chairman. Hitler scrapped this arrangement. He acquired the title Führer
("leader") and, after a series of sharp internal conflicts, it was accepted that the party would be governed by the Führerprinzip
("leader principle"): Hitler was the sole leader of the party, and he alone decided its policies and strategy. Hitler at this time saw the party as a revolutionary organization, whose aim was the violent overthrow of the Weimar Republic
, which he saw as controlled by the socialists, Jews and the "November criminals" who had betrayed the German soldiers in 1918. The SA
("storm troopers", also known as "Brownshirts") were founded as a party militia in 1921, and began violent attacks on other parties.
Unlike Drexler and other party members, Hitler was less interested in the "socialist" aspect of "national socialism" beyond moving Social Welfare administration from the Church to the State. Himself of provincial lower-middle-class origins, he disliked the mass working class of the big cities, and had no sympathy with the notions of attacking private property or the business class (which some early Nazis such as the Strasser brothers espoused). For Hitler the twin goals of the party were always German nationalist expansionism and Antisemitism. These two goals were fused in his mind by his belief that Germany's external enemies – Britain, France and the Soviet Union – were controlled by the Jews, and that Germany's future wars of national expansion would necessarily entail a war against the Jews. For Hitler and his principal lieutenants, national and racial issues were always dominant. This was symbolised by the adoption as the party emblem of the swastika
or Hakenkreuz, at the time widely used in the western world
. In German nationalist circles, the swastika was considered a symbol of an "Aryan race
". The Swastika
symbolized the replacement of the Christian Cross with allegiance to a National Socialist State.
During 1921 and 1922, the Nazi Party grew significantly, partly through Hitler's oratorical skills, partly through the SA's appeal to unemployed young men, and partly because there was a backlash against socialist and liberal politics in Bavaria as Germany's economic problems deepened and the weakness of the Weimar regime became apparent. The party recruited former World War I soldiers, to whom Hitler as a decorated frontline veteran could particularly appeal, as well as small businessmen and disaffected former members of rival parties. Nazi rallies were often held in beer halls, where downtrodden men could get free beer. The Hitler Youth
was formed for the children of party members, although it remained small until the late 1920s. The party also formed groups in other parts of Germany. Julius Streicher
in Nuremberg
was an early recruit, and became editor of the racist magazine Der Stürmer
. Others to join the party around this time were WW I flying ace Hermann Göring
and Heinrich Himmler
. In December 1920 the party acquired a newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter
, of which NSDAP ideological chief Alfred Rosenberg
became editor.
In 1922, a party with remarkably similar policies and objectives came into power in Italy, the National Fascist Party
under the leadership of the charismatic Benito Mussolini
. The Fascists, like the Nazis, promoted a national rebirth of their country; opposed communism and liberalism; appealed to the working-class; opposed the Treaty of Versailles
; and advocated the territorial expansion of their country. The Italian Fascists used a straight-armed Roman salute
and wore black-shirted uniforms. Hitler was inspired by Mussolini and the Fascists, borrowing their use of the straight-armed salute as a Nazi salute. When the Fascists came to power in 1922 in Italy through their coup attempt called the "March on Rome
", Hitler began planning his own coup which would materialize one year later.
In January 1923 France occupied the Ruhr
industrial region as a result of Germany's failure to meet its reparations
payments. This led to economic chaos, the resignation of Wilhelm Cuno
's government, and an attempt by the German Communist Party (KPD) to stage a revolution. The reaction to these events was an upsurge of nationalist sentiment. Nazi Party membership grew sharply, to about 20,000. By November, Hitler had decided that the time was right for an attempt to seize power in Munich, in the hope that the Reichswehr
(the post-war German military) would mutiny against the Berlin government and join his revolt. In this he was influenced by former General Erich Ludendorff
, who had become a supporter—though not a member—of the Nazis.
On the night of 8 November, the Nazis used a patriotic rally in a Munich beer hall to launch an attempted putsch (coup d'état
). This so-called Beer Hall Putsch
attempt failed almost at once when the local Reichswehr commanders refused to support it. On the morning of 9 November the Nazis staged a march of about 2,000 supporters through Munich in an attempt to rally support. Troops opened fire, and 16 Nazis were killed. Hitler, Ludendorff and a number of others were arrested, and were tried for treason in March 1924. Hitler and his associates were given very lenient prison sentences. While Hitler was in prison, he wrote his semi-autobiographical political manifesto Mein Kampf
("My Struggle").
The Nazi Party was banned, though with support of the nationalist Völkisch-Social Bloc
("Völkisch-Sozialer Block"), continued to operate under the name of the "German Party" (Deutsche Partei or DP) from 1924 to 1925. The Nazis failed to remain unified in the German Party, as in the north, the right-wing Volkish
nationalist supporters of the Nazis moved to the new German Völkisch Freedom Party
, leaving the north's left-wing Nazi members, such as Joseph Goebbels
retaining support for the party.
Adolf Hitler was released in December 1924. In the following year he re-founded and reorganized the Nazi Party, with himself as its undisputed Leader. The new Nazi Party was no longer a paramilitary organization, and disavowed any intention of taking power by force. In any case, the economic and political situation had stabilized and the extremist upsurge of 1923 had faded, so there was no prospect of further revolutionary adventures. The Nazi Party of 1925 was divided into the "Leadership Corps" (Korps der politischen Leiter), appointed by Hitler, and the general membership (Parteimitglieder). The party and the SA were kept separate, and the legal aspect of the party's work was emphasized. In a sign of this, the party began to admit women. The SA and the SS
(founded in April 1925 as Hitler's bodyguard, commanded by Himmler) were described as "support groups", and all members of these groups had first to become regular party members.
The party's nominal Deputy Leader was Rudolf Hess
, but he had no real power in the party. By the early 1930s the senior leaders of the party after Hitler were Himmler
, Goebbels
and Göring
. Beneath the Leadership Corps were the party's regional leaders, the Gauleiter
s, each of whom commanded the party in his Gau ("region"). There were 98 Gaue for Germany and an additional seven for Austria, the Sudetenland
(in Czechoslovakia
), Danzig
and the Territory of the Saar Basin
(then under French occupation).
Joseph Goebbels
began his ascent through the party hierarchy as Gauleiter of Berlin-Brandenburg in 1926. Streicher was Gauleiter of Franconia
, where he published his anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer
. Beneath the Gauleiter were lower-level officials, the Kreisleiter
("county leaders"), Zellenleiter
("cell leaders") and Blockleiter
("block leaders"). This was a strictly hierarchical structure in which orders flowed from the top, and unquestioning loyalty was given to superiors. Only the SA retained some autonomy. Being composed largely of unemployed workers, many SA men took the Nazis' socialist rhetoric seriously. At this time, the Hitler salute
(borrowed from the Italian fascists
) and the greeting "Heil Hitler!" were adopted throughout the party.
The Nazis contested elections to the national parliament, the Reichstag
, and to the state legislatures, the Landtag
s, from 1924, although at first with little success. The "National-Socialist Freedom Movement" polled 3% of the vote in the December 1924 Reichstag elections
, and this fell to 2.6% in 1928
. State elections produced similar results. Despite these poor results, and despite Germany's relative political stability and prosperity during the later 1920s, the Nazi Party continued to grow. This was partly because Hitler, who had no administrative ability, left the party organization to the head of the secretariat, Philipp Bouhler
, the party treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz
and business manager Max Amann
. The party had a capable propaganda head in Gregor Strasser
, who was promoted to national organizational leader in January 1928. These men gave the party efficient recruitment and organizational structures. The party also owed its growth to the gradual fading away of competitor nationalist groups, such as the DNVP
. As Hitler became the recognized head of the German nationalists, other groups declined, or were absorbed.
The party expanded in the 1920s beyond its Bavarian base. Catholic Bavaria maintained its right-wing ennui for a Catholic monarch; and Westphalia
, along with working-class "Red Berlin", were always the Nazis' weakest areas electorally, and even during the Third Reich itself. The areas of strongest Nazi support were in rural Protestant areas such as Schleswig-Holstein
, Mecklenburg
, Pomerania
and East Prussia
. Depressed working-class areas such as Thuringia
also gave a strong Nazi vote, while the workers of the Ruhr
and Hamburg
largely remained loyal to the SPD, the KPD, or the Catholic Centre Party
. Nuremberg remained a party stronghold, and the first Nuremberg Rally
was held there in 1927. These rallies soon became massive displays of Nazi paramilitary power, and attracted many recruits. The Nazis' strongest appeal was to the lower middle-class – farmers, public servants, teachers, small businessmen – who had suffered most from the inflation of the 1920s, so who feared Bolshevism more than anything else. The small business class were receptive to Hitler's anti-Semitism, since they blamed Jewish big business for their economic problems. University students, disappointed at being too young to have served in World War I and attracted by the Nazis' radical rhetoric, also became a strong Nazi constituency. By 1929, the party had 130,000 members.
Despite these strengths, the Nazi Party might never have come to power, had it not been for the Great Depression
and its effects on Germany. By 1930 the German economy was beset with mass unemployment and widespread business failures. The SPD and the KPD parties were bitterly divided and unable to formulate an effective solution: This gave the Nazis their opportunity, and Hitler's message, blaming the crisis on the Jewish financiers and the Bolsheviks, resonated with wide sections of the electorate. At the September 1930 Reichstag elections
the Nazis won 18.3% of the vote, and became the second-largest party in the Reichstag after the SPD. Hitler proved to be a highly effective campaigner, pioneering the use of radio and aircraft for this purpose. His dismissal of Strasser and appointment of Goebbels as the party's propaganda chief was a major factor. While Strasser had used his position to promote his own leftish version of national socialism, Goebbels was totally loyal to Hitler, and worked only to burnish Hitler's image.
The 1930 elections changed the German political landscape by weakening the traditional nationalist parties, the DNVP and the DVP, leaving the Nazis as the chief alternative to the discredited SPD and the Zentrum, whose leader, Heinrich Brüning
, headed a weak minority government. The inability of the democratic parties to form a united front, the self-imposed isolation of the KPD, and the continued decline of the economy, all played into Hitler's hands. He now came to be seen as de facto leader of the opposition, and donations poured into the Nazi Party's coffers. Some major business figures such as Fritz Thyssen
were Nazi supporters and gave generously, as well as alleged involvement of Wall Street figures; but many other businessmen were suspicious of the extreme nationalist tendencies of the Nazis, and preferred to support the traditional conservative parties instead.
During 1931 and into 1932, Germany's political crisis deepened. In March 1932 Hitler ran for President against the incumbent President Paul von Hindenburg
, polling 30.1% in the first round and 36.8% in the second against Hindenburg's 49 and 53%. By now the SA had 400,000 members, and its running street battles with the SPD and KPD paramilitaries (who also fought each other) reduced some German cities to combat zones. Paradoxically, although the Nazis were among the main instigators of this disorder, part of Hitler's appeal to a frightened and demoralised middle class was his promise to restore law and order. Overt anti-Semitism was played down in official Nazi rhetoric, but was never far from the surface. Germans voted for Hitler primarily because of his promises to revive the economy (by unspecified means), to restore German greatness and overturn the Treaty of Versailles
, and to save Germany from communism.
On 20 July 1932, the Prussian government was ousted by a coup—the Preussenschlag, and a few days later at the July 1932 Reichstag election
the Nazis made another leap forward, polling 37.4% and becoming the largest party in the Reichstag by a wide margin. Furthermore, the Nazis and the KPD between them won 52% of the vote and a majority of seats. Since both parties opposed the established political system, and neither would join or support any ministry, this made the formation of a majority government impossible. The result was weak ministries governing by decree. Under Comintern
directives, the KPD maintained its policy of treating the SPD as the main enemy, calling them "social fascists
", thereby splintering opposition to the Nazis. Later, both the SPD and the KPD accused each other of having facilitated Hitler's rise to power
by their unwillingness to compromise.
Chancellor Franz von Papen
called another Reichstag election in November, hoping to find a way out of this impasse. The electoral result was the same, with the Nazis and the KPD winning 50% of the vote between them and more than half the seats, rendering this Reichstag no more workable than its predecessor. But support for the Nazis had fallen to 33.1%, suggesting that the Nazi surge had passed its peak – possibly because the worst of the Depression had passed, possibly because some middle-class voters had supported Hitler in July as a protest, but had now drawn back from the prospect of actually putting him into power. The Nazis interpreted the result as a warning that they must seize power before their moment passed. Had the other parties united, this could have been prevented, but their shortsightedness made a united front impossible. Papen, his successor Kurt von Schleicher
, and the nationalist press magnate Alfred Hugenberg
spent December and January in political intrigues that eventually persuaded President Hindenburg it was safe to appoint Hitler Reich Chancellor at the head of a cabinet including only a minority of Nazi ministers—which he did on 30 January 1933.
The votes that the Nazis received in the 1932 elections established the Nazi Party as the largest parliament
ary faction of the Weimar Republic government. Adolf Hitler was appointed as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.
The Reichstag fire
on 27 February 1933, was Adolf Hitler’s raison d’état for suppressing his political opponents. The following day, 28 February, he persuaded Weimar Republic President Paul von Hindenburg
to grant him, as German Chancellor, an emergency-powers decree suspending civil liberties
and the governments of the German federal states. On 23 March, with an Enabling Act
(four-year Presidential decree-law power circumventing the Reichstag), the Reichstag
conferred dictatorial powers to Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who subsequently personally managed the political emergencies of the German State, by decree
. Moreover, then possessing virtually absolute power, the Nazis established totalitarian
control; they abolished labour unions and political parties; and imprisoned their political opponents, first at wilde Lager, improvised camps, then in concentration camps. Nazism had been established, yet the Reichswehr remained impartial, Nazi power over Germany remained virtual, not absolute.
, with its own sub-units.
Below the Führer's chancellery was first the "Staff of the Deputy Führer" (headed by Rudolf Hess from April 21, 1933 to May 10, 1941) and then the "Party Chancellery" (Parteikanzlei) headed by Martin Bormann.
s ("Reich Leader"), whose number was gradually increased to eighteen. They held power and influence comparable to the Reich Ministers' in Hitler's Cabinet. The eighteen Reichsleiters formed the "Reich Leadership of the Nazi Party" (Reichsleitung der NSDAP), which was established at the so-called Brown House
, in Munich. Unlike the Gauleiters, the Reichsleiters did not have individual geographic areas under their command, but were responsible of specific spheres of interest.
The political leadership corps encompassed a vast array of paramilitary titles
at the top of which were the Gauleiter
s, who were Party leaders of large geographical areas. From the Gauleiters extended downwards through Nazi positions encompassing county
, city
, and town
leaders, all of whom were unquestioned rulers in their particular areas and regions.
To the very end of its existence, the Nazi Party claimed to respect the traditional government of Germany and, to that that end, local and state governments were allowed to exist side-by-side with regional Nazi leaders. However, by 1936, the local governments had lost nearly all power to their Nazi counterparts or were now controlled by persons who held both government and Nazi titles alike. This led to the continued existence of German titles such as Bürgermeister
, as well as the existence of German state legislatures (Landesrat), but without any real power to speak of.
. The only insignia for the Parteimitglieder was a Nazi Party lapel pin and there was no uniform designed for Nazi Party members who were not political leaders. Such persons, however, often wore uniforms of other Nazi groups, uniforms of German government agencies, and could also serve in the German armed forces.
developed for each of the various paramilitary groups.
The major Nazi Party paramilitary groups were as follows:
The Hitler Youth
was a paramilitary group divided into an adult leadership corps and a general membership open to boys aged fourteen to eighteen. The League of German Girls
was the equivalent group for girls.
process a rigidly hierarchal structure was established in the Nazi Party, which it later carried through in the whole of Germany in order consolidate total power under the person of Hitler (Führerstaat). It was regionally sub-divided into a number of Gaue (singular: Gau) headed by a Gauleiter
, who received their orders directly from Hitler. The name (originally a term for sub-regions of the Holy Roman Empire
headed by a Gaugraf) for these new provincial structures was deliberately chosen because of its mediaeval
connotations. The term is approximately equivalent to the English shire
.
After the Anschluss
a new type of administrative unit was introduced called a Reichsgau
. In these territories the Gauleiters also held the position of Reichsstatthalter
, thereby formally combining the spheres of both party and state offices. The establishment of this type of district was subsequently carried out for any further territorial annexations of Germany both before and during World War II
.
The Gaue and Reichsgaue (state or province) were further sub-divided into Kreise (counties) headed by a Kreisleiter, which were in turn sub-divided into Zellen (cells) and Blocken (blocks), headed by a Zellenleiter and Blockleiter respectively.
A reorganization of the Gaue was enacted on 1 October 1928. The given numbers were the official ordering numbers. The statistics are from 1941, for which the Gau organization of that moment in time forms the basis. Their size and populations are not exact; for instance according to the official party statistics the Gau Kurmark/Mark Brandenburg was the largest in the German Reich.
The below table uses the organizational structure that existed before its dissolution in 1945. More information on the older Gaue is in the second table.
Later Gaue:
branch of the NSDAP also established a number of Party Gaue in that country, most of them named after their regional capitals. These included Gau Basel-Solothurn
, Gau Schaffhausen
, Gau Luzern, Gau Bern and Gau Zürich
. The cantons of St. Gallen
, Thurgau und Appenzell were administered under Gau Ostschweiz (East Switzerland).
in the three Gaue: Gau Ost (East), Gau West, and Gau Midwest. Together the three Gaue had 69 Ortsgruppen, with 40 of them being in Gau Ost (17 in New York), 10 in Gau West and 19 in Gau Midwest. Each Gau had its own Gauleiter
and staff to direct the Bund operations in the region in accordance with the Führerprinzip
.
es. 7% belonged to the upper class
, another 7% were peasant
s, 35% were industrial
workers and 51% were what can be described as middle class
. In early 1933, just before Hitler's appointment to the chancellorship, the party showed an under-representation of "workers", who made up 29.7% of the membership but 46.3% of German society. Conversely, white-collar employees (18.6% of members and 12% of Germans), the 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) had joined in proportions greater than their share of the general population. These members were affiliated with local branches of the party, of which there were 1,378 throughout the country in 1928. In 1932, the number had risen to 11,845, reflecting the party's growth in this period.
When it came to power in 1933, the Nazi Party had over members. Once in power, it attracted many more members and by the time of its dissolution it had members. Many of these were nominal members who joined for careerist reasons, but the party had an active membership of at least a million, including virtually all the holders of senior positions in the national government.
, but a great number enlisted in the Wehrmacht and even more were drafted for service after World War II began. Early regulations required that all Wehrmacht members be non-political, and therefore any Nazi member joining in the 1930s was required to resign from the Nazi Party.
This regulation was soon waived, however, and there is ample evidence that full Nazi Party members served in the Wehrmacht in particular after the outbreak of World War II. The Wehrmacht Reserves also saw a high number of senior Nazis enlisting, with Reinhard Heydrich
and Fritz Todt
joining the Luftwaffe
, and Major Ronald von Brysonstofen of the Waffen-SS, as well as Karl Hanke
who served in the Army.
(NSDStB). A group for university lecturers, National Socialist German University Lecturers' League (NSDDB) existed until July 1944.
, "Foreign Organization"). The organization was limited only to so-called "Imperial Germans
"; "Ethnic Germans" (Volksdeutsche
) who did not hold German citizenship were not permitted to join.
status. It is not to be confused with the post-war right-wing Deutsche Gemeinschaft (see :de:Deutsche Gemeinschaft) party founded in 1949.
Notable members included:
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party
German Workers' Party
The German Workers' Party was the short-lived predecessor of the Nazi Party .-Origins:The DAP was founded in Munich in the hotel "Fürstenfelder Hof" on January 5, 1919 by Anton Drexler, a member of the occultist Thule Society. It developed out of the "Freien Arbeiterausschuss für einen guten...
(DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The term Nazi is German and stems from Nationalsozialist, due to the pronunciation of Latin -tion- as -tsion- in German (rather than -shon- as it is in English), with German Z
Z
Z is the twenty-sixth and final letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Name and pronunciation:In most dialects of English, the letter's name is zed , reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta but in American English, its name is zee , deriving from a late 17th century English dialectal...
being pronounced as 'ts' as well.
The party was founded out of the current of the far-right racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
völkisch
Völkisch movement
The volkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic"...
German nationalist
German nationalism
German nationalism refers to the nationalism of Germans or of German culture. The origins of the beginning of a sense of German identity began with the Protestant Reformation begun by Martin Luther that resulted in the spread of a standardized common German language and literature...
movement and the violent anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
Freikorps
Freikorps
Freikorps are German volunteer military or paramilitary units. The term was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Between World War I and World War II the term was also used for the paramilitary organizations that arose during...
paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
culture that fought against the uprisings of communist revolution
Communist revolution
A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism as an intermediate stage...
aries in post-World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. The party was created by Anton Drexler
Anton Drexler
Anton Drexler was a German right-wing political leader of the 1920s, known for being Adolf Hitler's mentor during his early days in politics.-Biography:...
as a means to draw workers away from communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and into völkisch nationalism. Initially Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business
Big Business
Big business is a term used to describe large corporations, in either an individual or collective sense. The term first came into use in a symbolic sense subsequent to the American Civil War, particularly after 1880, in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at...
, anti-bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
, and anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
rhetoric, though such aspects were later downplayed in the 1930s to gain the support from industrial owners for the Nazis, focus was shifted to anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist themes.
The party's last leader, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, was appointed Chancellor of Germany
Chancellor of Germany
The Chancellor of Germany is, under the German 1949 constitution, the head of government of Germany...
by president Paul von Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....
in 1933. Hitler rapidly established a totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
regime known as the Third Reich
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
.
Nazi ideology
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
denounced many political and economic ideologies and systems as being associated with parasitical Jewry, such as: capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
, the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, industrialisation
Industrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
, liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
, Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, parliamentary politics
Parliamentary system
A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined....
, and trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ism. To maintain the purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to exterminate
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
or impose exclusionary segregation upon "degenerate
Degeneration
The idea of degeneration had significant influence on science, art and politics from the 1850s to the 1950s. The social theory developed consequently from Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution...
" and "asocial
Asociality
Asociality is a symptom frequently observed in schizophrenia patients. It is characterised by an inability to 'empathise', to feel intimacy with, or to form close relationships with others ....
" groups that included: Jews, homosexuals
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, Romani, blacks
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
, the physically
Physical disability
A physical disability is any impairment which limits the physical function of one or more limbs or fine or gross motor ability. Other physical disabilities include impairments which limit other facets of daily living, such as respiratory disorders and epilepsy....
and mentally handicapped
Developmental disability
Developmental disability is a term used in the United States and Canada to describe lifelong disabilities attributable to mental or physical impairments, manifested prior to age 18. It is not synonymous with "developmental delay" which is often a consequence of a temporary illness or trauma during...
, Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
and political opponents. The persecution reached its climax when the party and the German state which it controlled organized the systematic murder of approximately six million Jews and six million other people from the other targeted groups, in what has become known as the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.
The Nazis were presented by Hitler and other proponents and viewed by some scholars as being neither left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
nor right-wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
but politically syncretic
Syncretic politics
Syncretic politics or spectral-syncretic refers to a form of politics outside of the conventional left-right political spectrum, this term is especially used by some scholars to describe the political nature of fascism...
. Hitler in Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
directly attacked both left-wing and right-wing politics in Germany, such as saying: "Today our left-wing politicians in particular are constantly insisting that their craven-hearted and obsequious foreign policy necessarily results from the disarmament of Germany, whereas the truth is that this is the policy of traitors [...] But the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms." However a majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as being a far right form of politics.
Etymology
The term Nazi derives from the first two syllables of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP, Nazi Party). The German term Nazi parallels the term Sozi , an abbreviation of Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of GermanySocial Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
)
The term Nazi was originally used by southern German opponents of the NSDAP, and may have been influenced by the Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n term Nazi, which was a familiar form of the name Ignatz, which was used colloquially to mean a "clumsy or awkward person". The earlier term Inter-Nazi, which was a German abbreviation of Internationale, may have also contributed to the adoption of the term.
Members of the NSDAP referred to themselves as Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists), rarely as Nazis. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
assumed power of the German government, usage of the term Nazi diminished in Germany, although Austrian anti-Nazis continued to use the term as an insult. Many Neo-Nazis
Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....
still refer to themselves as National Socialists. According to Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
in an official explanation of Nazism, the synthesis of the words nationalism and socialism was to "counter the Internationalism of Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
with the nationalism of a German Socialism".
Origins and early existence: 1918–1923
The party grew out of smaller political groups with a nationalistNationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
orientation that formed in the last years of World War I. In the early months of 1918, a party called the Freier Ausschuss für einen deutschen Arbeiterfrieden ("Free Committee for a German Workers' Peace") was created in Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
, Germany. On 7 March 1918, Anton Drexler
Anton Drexler
Anton Drexler was a German right-wing political leader of the 1920s, known for being Adolf Hitler's mentor during his early days in politics.-Biography:...
, an avid German nationalist, formed a branch of this league in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
called the Committee of Independent Workmen. Drexler was a local locksmith in Munich who had been a member of the militarist Fatherland Party
Fatherland Party (Germany)
German Fatherland Party was a pro-war party in the German Empire.The party was founded close to the end of 1917 and represented political circles supporting the war. Among founding members were Wolfgang Kapp and Alfred von Tirpitz . Walter Nicolai, head of the military secret service, was also...
during World War I, and was bitterly opposed to the armistice
Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)
The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...
of November 1918 and to the revolutionary upheavals that followed in its wake. Drexler followed the typical views of militant nationalists of the day, such as opposing the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
, having anti-Semitic, anti-monarchist and anti-Marxist views, as well as believing in the superiority of Germans whom nationalists claimed to be part of the Aryan
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
"master race
Master race
Master race was a phrase and concept originating in the slave-holding Southern US. The later phrase Herrenvolk , interpreted as 'master race', was a concept in Nazi ideology in which the Nordic peoples, one of the branches of what in the late-19th and early-20th century was called the Aryan race,...
" (Herrenvolk), but he also accused international capitalism of being a Jewish-dominated movement and denounced capitalists for war profiteering in World War I. Drexler saw the situation of political violence and instability in Germany as the result of the new Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
being out-of-touch with the masses, especially the lower classes. Drexler emphasized the need for a synthesis of völkisch nationalism, a strong central government movement, with economic socialism in order that a popular, centrist nationalist-oriented workers movement might be created that could challenge the rise of Communism, as well as the internationalist
Internationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
left and right in general.
On 5 January 1919, Drexler created a new political party based on the political principles which he endorsed by combining his Committee of Independent Workmen with a similar group, The Political Worker's Circle, led by newspaper reporter Karl Harrer
Karl Harrer
Karl Harrer was a German journalist and politician, one of the founding members of the "Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" in 1919, the party that soon would become the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei .Harrer was also a member of the Thule Society, which gave him the task of founding a...
. Drexler proposed that the party be named the German Socialist Worker's Party, but Harrer objected to using the term "socialist" in the name; the issue was settled by removing the term from the name, and it was agreed that the party be named the German Workers' Party
German Workers' Party
The German Workers' Party was the short-lived predecessor of the Nazi Party .-Origins:The DAP was founded in Munich in the hotel "Fürstenfelder Hof" on January 5, 1919 by Anton Drexler, a member of the occultist Thule Society. It developed out of the "Freien Arbeiterausschuss für einen guten...
(Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP). To ease concerns among potential middle-class nationalist supporters, Drexler made clear that unlike Marxists, the party supported middle-class citizens, and that the party's socialist policy was meant to give social welfare to German citizens deemed part of the Aryan race. They became one of many völkisch movements
Völkisch movement
The volkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic"...
that existed in Germany at the time. Like other völkisch groups, the DAP advocated the belief that through profit-sharing instead of socialisation Germany should become a unified "national community" (Volksgemeinschaft) rather than a society divided along class and party lines. This ideology was explicitly anti-Semitic as it declared that the "national community" must be judenfrei ("free of Jews"). As early as 1920, the party was raising money by selling a tobacco called Anti-Semit.
From the outset, the DAP was opposed to non-nationalist political movements, especially on the left, including the Social Democratic Party of Germany
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
(SPD) and the newly formed Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
(KPD). Members of the DAP saw themselves as fighting against "Bolshevism
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
" and anyone considered to be part of or aiding so-called "international Jewry
Antisemitic canard
An antisemitic canard is a false story inciting antisemitism. Despite being thoroughly disproved, antisemitic canards are often part of broader theories of Jewish conspiracies. According to Kenneth S. Stern,Historically, Jews have not fared well around conspiracy theories. Such ideas fuel...
". The DAP was also deeply opposed to the Versailles Treaty. The DAP did not attempt to make itself public, and meetings were kept in relative secrecy, with public speakers discussing what they thought of Germany's present state of affairs
State of affairs
The state of affairs is that combination of circumstances applying within a society or group at a particular time. The current state of affairs may be considered acceptable by many observers, but not necessarily by all. The state of affairs may present a challenge, or be complicated, or contain a...
, or writing to like-minded societies in Northern Germany.
The DAP was a comparatively small group with fewer than 60 members. Nevertheless, it attracted the attention of the German authorities, who were suspicious of any organisation that appeared to have subversive tendencies. A young corporal, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, stationed in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, was sent by Captain Mayr
Karl Mayr
Captain Karl Mayr was a General Staff officer and Adolf Hitler's immediate superior in an Army Intelligence Division in the Reichswehr, 1919-1920. Mayr was particularly known as the man who introduced Hitler to politics...
, head of press and propaganda in the Bavarian section of the army to investigate the DAP. While attending a party meeting on September 12, 1919, where Gottfried Feder
Gottfried Feder
Gottfried Feder was an economist and one of the early key members of the Nazi party. He was their economic theoretician. Initially, it was his lecture in 1919 that drew Hitler into the party.- Biography :...
was speaking on 'How and by what means is capitalism to be eliminated?', Hitler got involved in a heated political argument with a visitor who questioned the soundness of Feder's arguments and who proposed that Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
should break away from Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
and found a new South German nation with Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. In vehemently attacking the man's arguments he made an impression on the other party members with his oratory skills and, according to Hitler, the "professor" left the hall acknowledging unequivocal defeat. According to August Kubizek
August Kubizek
August Kubizek was a close friend of Adolf Hitler when both were in their late teens. He later wrote about their friendship.-Early life:...
, Drexler was so impressed that he whispered to a neighbour, "My he's got a gift of the gab. We could use him." He was invited to join, and after some deliberation, chose to accept. Among the party's earlier members were Ernst Röhm
Ernst Röhm
Ernst Julius Röhm, was a German officer in the Bavarian Army and later an early Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung , the Nazi Party militia, and later was its commander...
of the Army's District Command VII; well-to-do journalist Dietrich Eckart
Dietrich Eckart
Dietrich Eckart was a German journalist and politician, together with Adolf Hitler one of the early key members of the Nazi Party and a participant of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.-Biography:...
; student at the University of Munich and later deputy of the party Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s...
; Freikorps
Freikorps
Freikorps are German volunteer military or paramilitary units. The term was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Between World War I and World War II the term was also used for the paramilitary organizations that arose during...
soldier Hans Frank
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany...
; and Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
, often credited as the philosopher of the movement. All of the above were later prominent in the Nazi regime.
Hitler became the DAP's 55th member and received the number 555, as the DAP added '500' to every member's number to exaggerate the party's strength. He later claimed to be the seventh party member (he was in fact the seventh executive member of the party's central committee; he would later wear the Golden Party Badge
Golden Party Badge
The Golden Party Badge was a special badge of the Nazi Party. The first 100,000 members who had joined and had uninterrupted service in the Party were given the right to wear it...
number one). Hitler's first speech was held in the Hofbräukeller
Hofbräukeller
The Hofbräukeller is a restaurant in Haidhausen, Munich, Germany.It is a traditional Bavarian restaurant in a cellar with a beer garden, owned by Hofbräuhaus brewery. It is not a tourist spot like the Hofbräuhaus am Platzl. It is a part of the Wiener Platz, which it shares with the Wiener Markt...
, where he spoke in front of a hundred and eleven people as the second speaker of the evening. He later declared that this was when he realised he could really "make a good speech". At first Hitler only spoke to relatively small groups on behalf of the party, however in early 1920 he took over the propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
work for the Party and began to take a more prominent role in its organisation; consequently, his public speaking began to attract larger audiences. Hitler began to make the party much more public, and he organised the party's biggest meeting yet of 2,000 people, for 24 February 1920 in the Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München. Such was the significance of this particular move in publicity that Harrer
Karl Harrer
Karl Harrer was a German journalist and politician, one of the founding members of the "Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" in 1919, the party that soon would become the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei .Harrer was also a member of the Thule Society, which gave him the task of founding a...
resigned from the party in disagreement. It was in this speech that Hitler, for the first time, enunciated the twenty-five points of the German Worker's Partys manifesto that had been drawn up by Drexler
Anton Drexler
Anton Drexler was a German right-wing political leader of the 1920s, known for being Adolf Hitler's mentor during his early days in politics.-Biography:...
, Feder
Gottfried Feder
Gottfried Feder was an economist and one of the early key members of the Nazi party. He was their economic theoretician. Initially, it was his lecture in 1919 that drew Hitler into the party.- Biography :...
, and Hitler. Through these points he gave the organisation a much bolder stratagem with a clear foreign policy (abrogation of Versailles, a Greater Germany
German question
The German question was a debate in the 19th century, especially during the Revolutions of 1848, over the best way to achieve the Unification of Germany. From 1815–1871, a number of 37 independent German-speaking states existed within the German Confederation...
, Eastern expansion, exclusion of Jews from citizenship), and among his specific points were: confiscation of war profits
War profiteering
A war profiteer is any person or organization that profits from warfare or by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war. The term has strong negative connotations. General profiteering may also occur in peace time.-International arms dealers:...
, abolition of unearned incomes, the State to share profits of land, and land for national needs to be taken away without compensation. In general, the manifesto was anti-Semitic, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic
Aristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
, anti-Marxist, and anti-liberal
Anti-liberal
Anti-liberal philosophies:*Authoritarianism*Communism*Fascism*Revolutionary Socialism*Conservatism*Traditionalist School...
. On 24 February 1920, the party also added "National Socialist" to its official name, in order to appeal to both nationalists and socialists, becoming the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) (or Nazis for short), although Hitler earlier suggested the party to be renamed the "Social Revolutionary Party"; it was Rudolf Jung
Rudolf Jung
Rudolf Jung was an instrumental force and agitator of German-Czech National Socialism and, later on, became a member of the German Nazi Party....
who persuaded Hitler to follow the NSDAP naming. Hitler quickly became the party's most active orator, and he appeared in public as a speaker thirty-one times within the first year after his self-discovery. Hitler always spoke about the same subjects: The Treaty of Versailles and the Jewish question
The Jewish Question
The Jewish Question is an 1843 book by German historian and theologian Bruno Bauer, written and published in German ....
. This deliberate technique and effective publicising of the party contributed significantly to his early success, about which a contemporary poster wrote 'Since Herr Hitler is a brilliant speaker, we can hold out the prospect of an extremely exciting evening'. Over the following months, the DAP continued to attract new members, while remaining too small to have any real significance in German politics. By the end of 1920, the party numbered 3,000, many of whom Hitler and Röhm had brought into the party personally, or whom Hitler's oratory had been their reason for joining.
Hitler discovered that he had talent as an orator, and his ability to draw new members, combined with his characteristic ruthlessness, soon made him the dominant figure. Drexler recognized this, and Hitler became party chairman on 28 July 1921. When the party had been established, it consisted of a leadership board elected by the members, which in turn elected a chairman. Hitler scrapped this arrangement. He acquired the title Führer
Führer
Führer , alternatively spelled Fuehrer in both English and German when the umlaut is not available, is a German title meaning leader or guide now most associated with Adolf Hitler, who modelled it on Benito Mussolini's title il Duce, as well as with Georg von Schönerer, whose followers also...
("leader") and, after a series of sharp internal conflicts, it was accepted that the party would be governed by the Führerprinzip
Führerprinzip
The Führerprinzip , German for "leader principle", prescribes the fundamental basis of political authority in the governmental structures of the Third Reich...
("leader principle"): Hitler was the sole leader of the party, and he alone decided its policies and strategy. Hitler at this time saw the party as a revolutionary organization, whose aim was the violent overthrow of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, which he saw as controlled by the socialists, Jews and the "November criminals" who had betrayed the German soldiers in 1918. The SA
Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
("storm troopers", also known as "Brownshirts") were founded as a party militia in 1921, and began violent attacks on other parties.
Unlike Drexler and other party members, Hitler was less interested in the "socialist" aspect of "national socialism" beyond moving Social Welfare administration from the Church to the State. Himself of provincial lower-middle-class origins, he disliked the mass working class of the big cities, and had no sympathy with the notions of attacking private property or the business class (which some early Nazis such as the Strasser brothers espoused). For Hitler the twin goals of the party were always German nationalist expansionism and Antisemitism. These two goals were fused in his mind by his belief that Germany's external enemies – Britain, France and the Soviet Union – were controlled by the Jews, and that Germany's future wars of national expansion would necessarily entail a war against the Jews. For Hitler and his principal lieutenants, national and racial issues were always dominant. This was symbolised by the adoption as the party emblem of the swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
or Hakenkreuz, at the time widely used in the western world
Western use of the Swastika in the early 20th century
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period and was first found in the Indus Valley Civilization of the Indian...
. In German nationalist circles, the swastika was considered a symbol of an "Aryan race
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
". The Swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
symbolized the replacement of the Christian Cross with allegiance to a National Socialist State.
During 1921 and 1922, the Nazi Party grew significantly, partly through Hitler's oratorical skills, partly through the SA's appeal to unemployed young men, and partly because there was a backlash against socialist and liberal politics in Bavaria as Germany's economic problems deepened and the weakness of the Weimar regime became apparent. The party recruited former World War I soldiers, to whom Hitler as a decorated frontline veteran could particularly appeal, as well as small businessmen and disaffected former members of rival parties. Nazi rallies were often held in beer halls, where downtrodden men could get free beer. The Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
was formed for the children of party members, although it remained small until the late 1920s. The party also formed groups in other parts of Germany. Julius Streicher
Julius Streicher
Julius Streicher was a prominent Nazi prior to World War II. He was the founder and publisher of Der Stürmer newspaper, which became a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine...
in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
was an early recruit, and became editor of the racist magazine Der Stürmer
Der Stürmer
Der Stürmer was a weekly tabloid-format Nazi newspaper published by Julius Streicher from 1923 to the end of World War II in 1945, with brief suspensions in publication due to legal difficulties. It was a significant part of the Nazi propaganda machinery and was vehemently anti-Semitic...
. Others to join the party around this time were WW I flying ace Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
and Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
. In December 1920 the party acquired a newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter
Völkischer Beobachter
The Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...
, of which NSDAP ideological chief Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
became editor.
In 1922, a party with remarkably similar policies and objectives came into power in Italy, the National Fascist Party
National Fascist Party
The National Fascist Party was an Italian political party, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of fascism...
under the leadership of the charismatic Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
. The Fascists, like the Nazis, promoted a national rebirth of their country; opposed communism and liberalism; appealed to the working-class; opposed the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
; and advocated the territorial expansion of their country. The Italian Fascists used a straight-armed Roman salute
Roman salute
The Roman salute is a gesture in which the arm is held out forward straight, with palm down, and fingers touching. In some versions, the arm is raised upward at an angle; in others, it is held out parallel to the ground. The former is a well known symbol of fascism that is commonly perceived to be...
and wore black-shirted uniforms. Hitler was inspired by Mussolini and the Fascists, borrowing their use of the straight-armed salute as a Nazi salute. When the Fascists came to power in 1922 in Italy through their coup attempt called the "March on Rome
March on Rome
The March on Rome was a march by which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party came to power in the Kingdom of Italy...
", Hitler began planning his own coup which would materialize one year later.
In January 1923 France occupied the Ruhr
Ruhr
The Ruhr is a medium-size river in western Germany , a right tributary of the Rhine.-Description:The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately 2,200 feet...
industrial region as a result of Germany's failure to meet its reparations
World War I reparations
World War I reparations refers to the payments and transfers of property and equipment that Germany was forced to make under the Treaty of Versailles following its defeat during World War I...
payments. This led to economic chaos, the resignation of Wilhelm Cuno
Wilhelm Cuno
Wilhelm Carl Josef Cuno was a German politician who was the Chancellor of Germany from 1922 to 1923. He was born in Suhl, Prussian Saxony. Cuno's government is best known for its passive resistance of the French occupation of the Ruhr Area . Cuno's government was also responsible for its poor...
's government, and an attempt by the German Communist Party (KPD) to stage a revolution. The reaction to these events was an upsurge of nationalist sentiment. Nazi Party membership grew sharply, to about 20,000. By November, Hitler had decided that the time was right for an attempt to seize power in Munich, in the hope that the Reichswehr
Reichswehr
The Reichswehr formed the military organisation of Germany from 1919 until 1935, when it was renamed the Wehrmacht ....
(the post-war German military) would mutiny against the Berlin government and join his revolt. In this he was influenced by former General Erich Ludendorff
Erich Ludendorff
Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was a German general, victor of Liège and of the Battle of Tannenberg...
, who had become a supporter—though not a member—of the Nazis.
On the night of 8 November, the Nazis used a patriotic rally in a Munich beer hall to launch an attempted putsch (coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
). This so-called Beer Hall Putsch
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed attempt at revolution that occurred between the evening of 8 November and the early afternoon of 9 November 1923, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff, and other heads of the Kampfbund unsuccessfully tried to seize power...
attempt failed almost at once when the local Reichswehr commanders refused to support it. On the morning of 9 November the Nazis staged a march of about 2,000 supporters through Munich in an attempt to rally support. Troops opened fire, and 16 Nazis were killed. Hitler, Ludendorff and a number of others were arrested, and were tried for treason in March 1924. Hitler and his associates were given very lenient prison sentences. While Hitler was in prison, he wrote his semi-autobiographical political manifesto Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
("My Struggle").
The Nazi Party was banned, though with support of the nationalist Völkisch-Social Bloc
Völkisch-Social Bloc
The Völkisch-Social Bloc was a right-wing electoral alliance in post World War I Germany...
("Völkisch-Sozialer Block"), continued to operate under the name of the "German Party" (Deutsche Partei or DP) from 1924 to 1925. The Nazis failed to remain unified in the German Party, as in the north, the right-wing Volkish
Völkisch movement
The volkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic"...
nationalist supporters of the Nazis moved to the new German Völkisch Freedom Party
German Völkisch Freedom Party
The German Völkisch Freedom Party was a right-wing and antisemitic political party of Weimar Germany that took its name from the Völkisch movement, a populist movement focused on folklore and the German Volk....
, leaving the north's left-wing Nazi members, such as Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
retaining support for the party.
Rise to power: 1925–1933
Adolf Hitler was released in December 1924. In the following year he re-founded and reorganized the Nazi Party, with himself as its undisputed Leader. The new Nazi Party was no longer a paramilitary organization, and disavowed any intention of taking power by force. In any case, the economic and political situation had stabilized and the extremist upsurge of 1923 had faded, so there was no prospect of further revolutionary adventures. The Nazi Party of 1925 was divided into the "Leadership Corps" (Korps der politischen Leiter), appointed by Hitler, and the general membership (Parteimitglieder). The party and the SA were kept separate, and the legal aspect of the party's work was emphasized. In a sign of this, the party began to admit women. The SA and the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
(founded in April 1925 as Hitler's bodyguard, commanded by Himmler) were described as "support groups", and all members of these groups had first to become regular party members.
The party's nominal Deputy Leader was Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s...
, but he had no real power in the party. By the early 1930s the senior leaders of the party after Hitler were Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
, Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
and Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
. Beneath the Leadership Corps were the party's regional leaders, the Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
s, each of whom commanded the party in his Gau ("region"). There were 98 Gaue for Germany and an additional seven for Austria, the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
(in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
), Danzig
Free City of Danzig
The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and surrounding areas....
and the Territory of the Saar Basin
Saar (League of Nations)
The Territory of the Saar Basin , also referred as the Saar or Saargebiet, was a region of Germany that was occupied and governed by Britain and France from 1920 to 1935 under a League of Nations mandate, with the occupation originally being under the auspices of the Treaty of Versailles...
(then under French occupation).
Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
began his ascent through the party hierarchy as Gauleiter of Berlin-Brandenburg in 1926. Streicher was Gauleiter of Franconia
Franconia
Franconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a small part of southern Thuringia, and a region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Tauberfranken...
, where he published his anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer
Der Stürmer
Der Stürmer was a weekly tabloid-format Nazi newspaper published by Julius Streicher from 1923 to the end of World War II in 1945, with brief suspensions in publication due to legal difficulties. It was a significant part of the Nazi propaganda machinery and was vehemently anti-Semitic...
. Beneath the Gauleiter were lower-level officials, the Kreisleiter
Kreisleiter
Kreisleiter was a Nazi Party political rank and title which existed as a political rank between 1930 and 1945 and as a Nazi Party title from as early as 1928...
("county leaders"), Zellenleiter
Zellenleiter
Zellenleiter was a Nazi Party political title which existed between the years of 1930 and 1945. A Zellenleiter was higher in rank than a Blockleiter and was in charge of a "Nazi Cell", composed of eight to twelve blocks....
("cell leaders") and Blockleiter
Blockleiter
Blockleiter was a Nazi Party political rank which existed between the years of 1930 and 1945. The Blockleiter was the lowest political official of the NSDAP, responsible for the political supervision of a neighborhood or city block and formed the link between the NSDAP and the general...
("block leaders"). This was a strictly hierarchical structure in which orders flowed from the top, and unquestioning loyalty was given to superiors. Only the SA retained some autonomy. Being composed largely of unemployed workers, many SA men took the Nazis' socialist rhetoric seriously. At this time, the Hitler salute
Hitler salute
The Nazi salute, or Hitler salute , was a gesture of greeting in Nazi Germany usually accompanied by saying, Heil Hitler! ["Hail Hitler!"], Heil, mein Führer ["Hail, my leader!"], or Sieg Heil! ["Hail victory!"]...
(borrowed from the Italian fascists
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
) and the greeting "Heil Hitler!" were adopted throughout the party.
Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...
, and to the state legislatures, the Landtag
Landtag
A Landtag is a representative assembly or parliament in German-speaking countries with some legislative authority.- Name :...
s, from 1924, although at first with little success. The "National-Socialist Freedom Movement" polled 3% of the vote in the December 1924 Reichstag elections
German election, December 1924
The German federal elections of 7 December 1924 was a parliamentary election in Weimar Republic Germany.-Results:...
, and this fell to 2.6% in 1928
German election, 1928
The 1928, or 5th, federal election in Germany, which occurred on May 20, came one year after the ban on Adolf Hitler participating in political activities was officially lifted. As a result, the recently reformed Nazi Party was present in the elections. However, as the table below shows, the NSDAP...
. State elections produced similar results. Despite these poor results, and despite Germany's relative political stability and prosperity during the later 1920s, the Nazi Party continued to grow. This was partly because Hitler, who had no administrative ability, left the party organization to the head of the secretariat, Philipp Bouhler
Philipp Bouhler
Philipp Bouhler was a senior Nazi Party official who was both a Reichsleiter and Chief of the Chancellery of the Führer of the NSDAP...
, the party treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz
Franz Xaver Schwarz
Franz Xaver Schwarz was a German politician who served as Reichsschatzmeister of the Nazi Party during most of the Party's existence.-Early life:...
and business manager Max Amann
Max Amann
Max Aman was a German Nazi official with the honorary rank of SS-Obergruppenführer, politician and journalist.-Biography:Amann was born in Munich on November 24, 1891...
. The party had a capable propaganda head in Gregor Strasser
Gregor Strasser
Gregor Strasser was a politician of the National Socialist German Workers Party...
, who was promoted to national organizational leader in January 1928. These men gave the party efficient recruitment and organizational structures. The party also owed its growth to the gradual fading away of competitor nationalist groups, such as the DNVP
German National People's Party
The German National People's Party was a national conservative party in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic. Before the rise of the NSDAP it was the main nationalist party in Weimar Germany composed of nationalists, reactionary monarchists, völkisch, and antisemitic elements, and...
. As Hitler became the recognized head of the German nationalists, other groups declined, or were absorbed.
The party expanded in the 1920s beyond its Bavarian base. Catholic Bavaria maintained its right-wing ennui for a Catholic monarch; and Westphalia
Westphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...
, along with working-class "Red Berlin", were always the Nazis' weakest areas electorally, and even during the Third Reich itself. The areas of strongest Nazi support were in rural Protestant areas such as Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
, Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
, Pomerania
Pomerania
Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...
and East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
. Depressed working-class areas such as Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
also gave a strong Nazi vote, while the workers of the Ruhr
Ruhr
The Ruhr is a medium-size river in western Germany , a right tributary of the Rhine.-Description:The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately 2,200 feet...
and Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
largely remained loyal to the SPD, the KPD, or the Catholic Centre Party
Centre Party (Germany)
The German Centre Party was a Catholic political party in Germany during the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic. Formed in 1870, it battled the Kulturkampf which the Prussian government launched to reduce the power of the Catholic Church...
. Nuremberg remained a party stronghold, and the first Nuremberg Rally
Nuremberg Rally
The Nuremberg Rally was the annual rally of the NSDAP in Germany, held from 1923 to 1938. Especially after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, they were large Nazi propaganda events...
was held there in 1927. These rallies soon became massive displays of Nazi paramilitary power, and attracted many recruits. The Nazis' strongest appeal was to the lower middle-class – farmers, public servants, teachers, small businessmen – who had suffered most from the inflation of the 1920s, so who feared Bolshevism more than anything else. The small business class were receptive to Hitler's anti-Semitism, since they blamed Jewish big business for their economic problems. University students, disappointed at being too young to have served in World War I and attracted by the Nazis' radical rhetoric, also became a strong Nazi constituency. By 1929, the party had 130,000 members.
Despite these strengths, the Nazi Party might never have come to power, had it not been for the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and its effects on Germany. By 1930 the German economy was beset with mass unemployment and widespread business failures. The SPD and the KPD parties were bitterly divided and unable to formulate an effective solution: This gave the Nazis their opportunity, and Hitler's message, blaming the crisis on the Jewish financiers and the Bolsheviks, resonated with wide sections of the electorate. At the September 1930 Reichstag elections
German election, 1930
The German federal election occurred on 14 September 1930 during the Weimar Republic. The number of seats increased from the last election in 1928 to 577 seats, however, the SPD, who remained the largest party saw their share decrease. The Nazi Party on the other hand increased their seats from 12...
the Nazis won 18.3% of the vote, and became the second-largest party in the Reichstag after the SPD. Hitler proved to be a highly effective campaigner, pioneering the use of radio and aircraft for this purpose. His dismissal of Strasser and appointment of Goebbels as the party's propaganda chief was a major factor. While Strasser had used his position to promote his own leftish version of national socialism, Goebbels was totally loyal to Hitler, and worked only to burnish Hitler's image.
The 1930 elections changed the German political landscape by weakening the traditional nationalist parties, the DNVP and the DVP, leaving the Nazis as the chief alternative to the discredited SPD and the Zentrum, whose leader, Heinrich Brüning
Heinrich Brüning
Heinrich Brüning was Chancellor of Germany from 1930 to 1932, during the Weimar Republic. He was the longest serving Chancellor of the Weimar Republic, and remains a controversial figure in German politics....
, headed a weak minority government. The inability of the democratic parties to form a united front, the self-imposed isolation of the KPD, and the continued decline of the economy, all played into Hitler's hands. He now came to be seen as de facto leader of the opposition, and donations poured into the Nazi Party's coffers. Some major business figures such as Fritz Thyssen
Fritz Thyssen
Friedrich "Fritz" Thyssen was a German businessman born into one of Germany's leading industrial families.-Youth:Thyssen was born in Mülheim in the Ruhr area...
were Nazi supporters and gave generously, as well as alleged involvement of Wall Street figures; but many other businessmen were suspicious of the extreme nationalist tendencies of the Nazis, and preferred to support the traditional conservative parties instead.
During 1931 and into 1932, Germany's political crisis deepened. In March 1932 Hitler ran for President against the incumbent President Paul von Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....
, polling 30.1% in the first round and 36.8% in the second against Hindenburg's 49 and 53%. By now the SA had 400,000 members, and its running street battles with the SPD and KPD paramilitaries (who also fought each other) reduced some German cities to combat zones. Paradoxically, although the Nazis were among the main instigators of this disorder, part of Hitler's appeal to a frightened and demoralised middle class was his promise to restore law and order. Overt anti-Semitism was played down in official Nazi rhetoric, but was never far from the surface. Germans voted for Hitler primarily because of his promises to revive the economy (by unspecified means), to restore German greatness and overturn the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
, and to save Germany from communism.
On 20 July 1932, the Prussian government was ousted by a coup—the Preussenschlag, and a few days later at the July 1932 Reichstag election
German election, July 1932
The German parliamentary election of 31 July 1932, held after the premature dissolution of the Reichstag, saw great gains by the Nazi Party, which for the first time became the largest party in parliament, though without winning a majority...
the Nazis made another leap forward, polling 37.4% and becoming the largest party in the Reichstag by a wide margin. Furthermore, the Nazis and the KPD between them won 52% of the vote and a majority of seats. Since both parties opposed the established political system, and neither would join or support any ministry, this made the formation of a majority government impossible. The result was weak ministries governing by decree. Under Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
directives, the KPD maintained its policy of treating the SPD as the main enemy, calling them "social fascists
Social fascism
Social fascism was a theory supported by the Communist International during the early 1930s, which believed that social democracy was a variant of fascism because, in addition to a shared corporatist economic model, it stood in the way of a complete and final transition to communism...
", thereby splintering opposition to the Nazis. Later, both the SPD and the KPD accused each other of having facilitated Hitler's rise to power
Hitler's rise to power
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in Germany in September 1919 when Hitler joined the political party that was known as the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei . This political party was formed and developed during the post-World War I era...
by their unwillingness to compromise.
Chancellor Franz von Papen
Franz von Papen
Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...
called another Reichstag election in November, hoping to find a way out of this impasse. The electoral result was the same, with the Nazis and the KPD winning 50% of the vote between them and more than half the seats, rendering this Reichstag no more workable than its predecessor. But support for the Nazis had fallen to 33.1%, suggesting that the Nazi surge had passed its peak – possibly because the worst of the Depression had passed, possibly because some middle-class voters had supported Hitler in July as a protest, but had now drawn back from the prospect of actually putting him into power. The Nazis interpreted the result as a warning that they must seize power before their moment passed. Had the other parties united, this could have been prevented, but their shortsightedness made a united front impossible. Papen, his successor Kurt von Schleicher
Kurt von Schleicher
Kurt von Schleicher was a German general and the last Chancellor of Germany during the era of the Weimar Republic. Seventeen months after his resignation, he was assassinated by order of his successor, Adolf Hitler, in the Night of the Long Knives....
, and the nationalist press magnate Alfred Hugenberg
Alfred Hugenberg
Alfred Ernst Christian Alexander Hugenberg was an influential German businessman and politician. Hugenberg, a leading figure within nationalist politics in Germany for the first few decades of the twentieth century, became the country's leading media proprietor within the inter-war period...
spent December and January in political intrigues that eventually persuaded President Hindenburg it was safe to appoint Hitler Reich Chancellor at the head of a cabinet including only a minority of Nazi ministers—which he did on 30 January 1933.
Ascension and consolidation
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
ary faction of the Weimar Republic government. Adolf Hitler was appointed as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.
The Reichstag fire
Reichstag fire
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....
on 27 February 1933, was Adolf Hitler’s raison d’état for suppressing his political opponents. The following day, 28 February, he persuaded Weimar Republic President Paul von Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....
to grant him, as German Chancellor, an emergency-powers decree suspending civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
and the governments of the German federal states. On 23 March, with an Enabling Act
Enabling Act
The Enabling Act was passed by Germany's Reichstag and signed by President Paul von Hindenburg on 23 March 1933. It was the second major step, after the Reichstag Fire Decree, through which Chancellor Adolf Hitler legally obtained plenary powers and established his dictatorship...
(four-year Presidential decree-law power circumventing the Reichstag), the Reichstag
Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...
conferred dictatorial powers to Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who subsequently personally managed the political emergencies of the German State, by decree
Decree
A decree is a rule of law issued by a head of state , according to certain procedures . It has the force of law...
. Moreover, then possessing virtually absolute power, the Nazis established totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
control; they abolished labour unions and political parties; and imprisoned their political opponents, first at wilde Lager, improvised camps, then in concentration camps. Nazism had been established, yet the Reichswehr remained impartial, Nazi power over Germany remained virtual, not absolute.
Federal election results
| Date | Total votes |
Votes, percentage |
Reichstag seats |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 1924 | Hitler in prison | |||
| December 1924 | Hitler released from prison | |||
| May 1928 | ||||
| September 1930 | After the financial crisis | |||
| July 1932 | After Hitler was candidate for presidency | |||
| November 1932 | ||||
| March 1933 | During Hitler's term as Chancellor of Germany |
Political program
The National Socialist Program is a formulation of the policies of the party. It contains 25 points and is thus also known as the '25 point plan' or the '25 point program'. It was the official party program, with minor changes, from its proclamation as such by Hitler in 1920, when the party was still the German Workers' Party, until its dissolution.Top leadership
At the top of the Nazi Party was the party chairman ("Der Führer"), who held absolute power and full command over the party. All other party offices were subordinate to his position and had to depend on his instructions. In 1934, Hitler founded a separate body for the chairman, Chancellery of the FührerHitler's Chancellery (Kanzlei des Führers)
Die Kanzlei des Führers , also known as Privatkanzlei des Führers, was the Chancellery responsible for the Nazi Party and associated organizations and their dealings directly with Hitler...
, with its own sub-units.
Below the Führer's chancellery was first the "Staff of the Deputy Führer" (headed by Rudolf Hess from April 21, 1933 to May 10, 1941) and then the "Party Chancellery" (Parteikanzlei) headed by Martin Bormann.
Reichsleiters
Directly subjected to the Führer were the ReichsleiterReichsleiter
Reichsleiter , was the second highest political rank of the NSDAP next only to the office of Führer. Reichsleiter also served as a paramilitary rank, for the Nazi Party and was the highest position attainable in any Nazi-Organisation.The Reichsleiter reported directly to Adolf Hitler, in whose...
s ("Reich Leader"), whose number was gradually increased to eighteen. They held power and influence comparable to the Reich Ministers' in Hitler's Cabinet. The eighteen Reichsleiters formed the "Reich Leadership of the Nazi Party" (Reichsleitung der NSDAP), which was established at the so-called Brown House
Brown House, Munich, Germany
The Brown House was the national headquarters of the Nazi Party in Germany.A large impressive stone structure, it was located at 45 Brienner Straße in Munich, Bavaria...
, in Munich. Unlike the Gauleiters, the Reichsleiters did not have individual geographic areas under their command, but were responsible of specific spheres of interest.
Political Leadership Corps
The political leadership corps of the Nazi Party are those persons who are most often associated as being "Nazis" in the stereotypical sense of the word, as it was these individuals who would wear brown paramilitary Nazi uniforms, enforce Nazi doctrine, and ran local government affairs in accordance with instructions from the Nazi PartyThe political leadership corps encompassed a vast array of paramilitary titles
Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party
Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party were paramilitary titles used by the National Socialist German Workers Party between approximately 1928 and the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945...
at the top of which were the Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
s, who were Party leaders of large geographical areas. From the Gauleiters extended downwards through Nazi positions encompassing county
County
A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...
, city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
, and town
Town
A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...
leaders, all of whom were unquestioned rulers in their particular areas and regions.
To the very end of its existence, the Nazi Party claimed to respect the traditional government of Germany and, to that that end, local and state governments were allowed to exist side-by-side with regional Nazi leaders. However, by 1936, the local governments had lost nearly all power to their Nazi counterparts or were now controlled by persons who held both government and Nazi titles alike. This led to the continued existence of German titles such as Bürgermeister
Burgomaster
Burgomaster is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or chairman of the executive council of a sub-national level of administration...
, as well as the existence of German state legislatures (Landesrat), but without any real power to speak of.
Nazi Party Membership
The general Nazi Party membership were known by the title of Parteimitglieder. This generic term was applied to any member of the Party who did not otherwise hold a political leadership position. Translated simply as "Party Member", the Parteimitglieder could (and did) hold positions in other Nazi groups, such as the SS or SturmabteilungSturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
. The only insignia for the Parteimitglieder was a Nazi Party lapel pin and there was no uniform designed for Nazi Party members who were not political leaders. Such persons, however, often wore uniforms of other Nazi groups, uniforms of German government agencies, and could also serve in the German armed forces.
NSDAP offices
The Nazi Party had a number of party offices dealing with various political and other matters. These included:- Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP (RPA): "NSDAP Office of Racial Policy"
- Außenpolitische Amt der NSDAPNSDAP Office of Foreign AffairsThe NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs was a Nazi Party organization. It was set up in April 1933 in the Hotel Adlon in Berlin immediately after the Nazis' 'Machtergreifung'. It was led by Alfred Rosenberg...
(APA): "NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs" - Kolonialpolitisches Amt der NSDAP (KPA): "NSDAP Office of Colonial Policy"
- Wehrpolitisches Amt der NSDAPNSDAP Office of Military PolicyThe NSDAP Office of Military Policy was a Nazi Party organization...
(WPA): "NSDAP Office of Military Policy" - Amt RosenbergAmt RosenbergAmt Rosenberg was an official body for cultural policy and surveillance within the Nazi party, headed by Alfred Rosenberg.It was established in 1934 under the name of Dienststelle Rosenberg , with offices at Margarethenstraße 17 in Berlin, to the west of Potsdamer Platz.Due to the long official...
(ARo): "RosenbergAlfred Rosenberg' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
Office"
Paramilitary groups
In addition to the NSDAP proper, several paramilitary groups existed which "supported" Nazi aims. All members of these paramilitary organizations were required to become regular Nazi Party members first and could then enlist in the group of their choice. A vast system of Nazi party paramilitary ranksNazi party paramilitary ranks
Nazi party paramilitary ranks were pseudo-military titles which were used by the National Socialist German Workers Party between the years of 1920 and 1945...
developed for each of the various paramilitary groups.
The major Nazi Party paramilitary groups were as follows:
- SchutzstaffelSchutzstaffelThe Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
(SS): "Protection Squadron" (both Allgemeine SSAllgemeine SSThe Allgemeine SS was the most numerous branch of the Schutzstaffel paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany. It was managed by the SS-Hauptamt...
and Waffen-SSWaffen-SSThe Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
) - SturmabteilungSturmabteilungThe Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
(SA): "Storm Division" - Nationalsozialistisches FliegerkorpsNational Socialist Flyers CorpsThe National Socialist Flyers Corps was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party that was founded in 1937 as a successor to the German Air Sports Association, during the years when a German Air Force was forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles...
(NSFK): "National Socialist Flyers Corps" - Nationalsozialistisches KraftfahrerkorpsNational Socialist Motor CorpsThe National Socialist Motor Corps , also known as the National Socialist Drivers Corps, was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party that existed from 1931 to 1945. The group was a successor organization to the older National Socialist Automobile Corps, which had existed since the beginning...
(NSKK): "National Socialist Motor Corps"
The Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
was a paramilitary group divided into an adult leadership corps and a general membership open to boys aged fourteen to eighteen. The League of German Girls
League of German Girls
The League of German Girls or League of German Maidens , was the girl's wing of the overall Nazi party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only female youth organization in Nazi Germany....
was the equivalent group for girls.
Affiliated organizations
Certain nominally independent organizations had their own legal representation and own property, but were supported by the Nazi Party. Many of these associated organizations were labor unions of various professions. Some were older organizations that were nazified according to the Gleichschaltung policy after the 1933 takeover:- Reich League of German Officials (union of civil servants, predecessor to German Civil Service Federation)
- German Labor Front (DAF)
- National Socialist German Physicians' League (NSDÄB)
- National Socialist League for the Maintenance of the Law (NSRB) (1936–1945, earlier National Socialist German Lawyers' League)
- National Socialist War Victim's CareNSKOVThe Nationalsozialistische Kriegsopferversorgung , meaning "National Socialist War Victim's Care" was a social welfare organization for seriously wounded veterans as well as frontline fighters of World War I...
(NSKOV) - National Socialist Teachers LeagueNational Socialist Teachers LeagueThe National Socialist Teachers League, Nationalsozialistische Lehrerbund , was established as a wing of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in 1927. This organization lasted until 1943. Its seat was in Bayreuth. The founder and first "Reichswalter" of the organization was Hans Schemm...
(NSLB) - National Socialist People's WelfareNational Socialist People's WelfareThe Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt , meaning "National Socialist People's Welfare" was a social welfare organization during the Third Reich. The NSV was established in 1933, shortly after the NSDAP took power in Germany...
(NSV) - Reich Labor Service (RAD)
- German Faith MovementGerman Faith MovementThe German Faith Movement was closely associated with Jakob Wilhelm Hauer during the Third Reich and sought to move Germany away from Christianity towards a religion based on "immediate experience" of God...
- German Colonial League (RKB)
- German Red CrossGerman Red CrossThe German Red Cross , or the DRK, is the national Red Cross Society in Germany.With over 4.5 million members, it is the third largest Red Cross society in the world. The German Red Cross offers a wide range of services within and outside Germany...
- Kyffhäuser LeagueKyffhäuserbundThe Kyffhäuserbund is an umbrella organization for War Veterans' and Reservists' Associations in Germany. It owes its name to the Kyffhäuser Monument , a memorial built on the summit of the 473 m high Kyffhäuser Mountain near Bad Frankenhausen in the state of Thuringia in central...
- Technical Emergency ReliefTENOTechnische Nothilfe was a German organisation. It was established by members of Technische Abteilung of the paramilitary Freikorps Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Division.-History:The TN was founded on September 30, 1919 by Otto Lummitzsch with the stated purpose to protect and maintain vital...
(TENO) - Reich's Union of Large FamiliesReichsbund der KinderreichenReichsbund der Kinderreichen or , Reich's Union of Large Families or, literally: "Reich's League of those wealthy in children", was one of the most important pronatalist groups founded in Germany after World War I....
- ReichsluftschutzbundReichsluftschutzbundThe Reichsluftschutzbund was a paramilitary organization of Nazi Germany founded in the 1933 as a branch of the German Aviation Ministry. The group's first function was to serve as Air Defense Crews during a period when Germany was forbidden an Air Force by the Treaty of Versailles...
(RLB) - ReichskolonialbundReichskolonialbundThe Reichskolonialbund was a collective body that absorbed all German colonial organizations during the time of the Third Reich...
(RKB) - Bund Deutscher OstenBund Deutscher OstenBund Deutscher Osten was a German Nazi organisation founded on 26 May 1933. The organisation was supported by the Nazi Party. The BDO was a national socialist version of German Eastern Marches Society, which was closed down by the Nazis in 1934...
(BDO)
Regional administration
For the purpose of centralization in the GleichschaltungGleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung , meaning "coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line", is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society. The historian Richard J...
process a rigidly hierarchal structure was established in the Nazi Party, which it later carried through in the whole of Germany in order consolidate total power under the person of Hitler (Führerstaat). It was regionally sub-divided into a number of Gaue (singular: Gau) headed by a Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
, who received their orders directly from Hitler. The name (originally a term for sub-regions of the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
headed by a Gaugraf) for these new provincial structures was deliberately chosen because of its mediaeval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
connotations. The term is approximately equivalent to the English shire
Shire
A shire is a traditional term for a division of land, found in the United Kingdom and in Australia. In parts of Australia, a shire is an administrative unit, but it is not synonymous with "county" there, which is a land registration unit. Individually, or as a suffix in Scotland and in the far...
.
After the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
a new type of administrative unit was introduced called a Reichsgau
Reichsgau
A Reichsgau was an administrative subdivision created in a number of the areas annexed to Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1945...
. In these territories the Gauleiters also held the position of Reichsstatthalter
Reichsstatthalter
The term Reichsstatthalter was used twice for different offices, in the imperial Hohenzollern dynasty's German Empire and the single-party Nazi Third Reich.- "Statthalter des Reiches" 1879-1918 in Alsace-Lorraine :...
, thereby formally combining the spheres of both party and state offices. The establishment of this type of district was subsequently carried out for any further territorial annexations of Germany both before and during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
The Gaue and Reichsgaue (state or province) were further sub-divided into Kreise (counties) headed by a Kreisleiter, which were in turn sub-divided into Zellen (cells) and Blocken (blocks), headed by a Zellenleiter and Blockleiter respectively.
A reorganization of the Gaue was enacted on 1 October 1928. The given numbers were the official ordering numbers. The statistics are from 1941, for which the Gau organization of that moment in time forms the basis. Their size and populations are not exact; for instance according to the official party statistics the Gau Kurmark/Mark Brandenburg was the largest in the German Reich.
The below table uses the organizational structure that existed before its dissolution in 1945. More information on the older Gaue is in the second table.
Nazi Party Gaue
| Nr. | Gau | Headquarters | Area (km²) | Inhabitants (1941) | Gauleiter (exl. deputies) |
| 01 | Baden Republic of Baden The Republic of Baden was a state of Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic, formed after the abolition of the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1918... -Elsaß Alsace Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²... |
Karlsruhe Karlsruhe The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states... , after 1940 Strasbourg Strasbourg Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,... |
23,350 | 2,502,023 | Robert Heinrich Wagner Robert Heinrich Wagner Robert Heinrich Wagner was Gauleiter of Baden and Head of the Civil Government of Alsace during the German occupation of France in World War II.... , from 1925 (later also Reichsstatthalter Reichsstatthalter The term Reichsstatthalter was used twice for different offices, in the imperial Hohenzollern dynasty's German Empire and the single-party Nazi Third Reich.- "Statthalter des Reiches" 1879-1918 in Alsace-Lorraine :... ) |
| 02 | Bayreuth Gau Bayreuth The Gau Bayreuth, until 1942 named Gau Bayerische Ostmark , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Lower Bavaria, Upper Palatinate and Upper Franconia, Bavaria from 1933 to 1945... , re-naming of Gau Bayerische Ostmark (Bavarian Eastern March) |
Bayreuth | 29,600 | 2,370,658 | Fritz Wächtler from 2 June 1942 to 19 April 1945, then from 19 April 1945 Ludwig Ruckdeschel. |
| 03 | Groß-Berlin | Berlin Berlin Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union... |
884 | 4,338,756 | Ernst Schlange from 1925 to 1926, then from 1 November 1926 to 30 April 1945 Joseph Goebbels Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism... |
| 04 | Danzig-Westpreußen Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia The Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia was a Nazi German province created on 8 October 1939 from the territory of the annexed Free City of Danzig, the annexed Polish province Greater Pomeranian Voivodship , and the Nazi German Regierungsbezirk West Prussia of Gau East Prussia. Before 2 November 1939,... |
Danzig | 26,057 | 2,287,394 | Hans Albert Hohnfeldt from 1926 to 1928, then from 1928 to 1930 Walter Maass, then from 15 October 1930 onwards Albert Forster Albert Forster Albert Maria Forster was a Nazi German politician. Under his administration as the Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia during the Second World War, the local non-German population suffered ethnic cleansing, mass murder, and forceful Germanisation... |
| 05 | Düsseldorf Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the... |
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the... |
2,672 | 2,261,909 | Friedrich Karl Florian Friedrich Karl Florian Friedrich Karl Florian was the Gauleiter of Düsseldorf in Nazi Germany.He worked as Gauleiter of the Düsseldorf Gau from 1 January 1930 to 8 May 1945 – eight days after Adolf Hitler's death.... from 1 Januaryy 1930 |
| 06 | Essen Essen - Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of... |
Essen Essen - Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of... |
2,825 | 1,921,326 | Josef Terboven Josef Terboven Josef Antonius Heinrich Terboven was a Nazi leader, best known as the Reichskommissar during the German occupation of Norway.-Early life:... (Oberpräsident) from 1928 |
| 07 | Franken Gau Franconia Gau Franconia , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Middle Franconia, Bavaria from 1933 to 1945. Previous to that, since 1926, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in this region.-History:... |
Nuremberg Nuremberg Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664... |
7,618 | 1,077,216 | from 1929 to 1940 Julius Streicher Julius Streicher Julius Streicher was a prominent Nazi prior to World War II. He was the founder and publisher of Der Stürmer newspaper, which became a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine... ("Frankenführer"), then from 16 February 1940 to 1942 Hans Zimmermann, then from 19 March 1942 Karl Holz Karl Holz Karl L. Holz is the current President for Disney Cruise Line as of February 14, 2009. Holz was moved back to his former role as part of the corporate merger of Disney Cruise Line and New Vacation Operations... |
| 08 | Halle-Merseburg Halle-Merseburg The Province of Halle-Merseburg was a province of the Free State of Prussia from 1944-45. The provincial capital was the city Merseburg.Halle-Merseburg was created on 1 July 1944, out of Regierungsbezirk Merseburg, an administrative region from the former Province of Saxony. The governor of the... |
Halle an der Saale | 10,202 | 1,578,292 | from 1925 to 30 July 1926 Walter Ernst 1 August 1926 to 1927, then from 1927 to 1930 Paul Hinkler, then from 1930 to 20 April 1937 Rudolf Jordan Rudolf Jordan Rudolf Jordan was a Nazi Gauleiter in Halle-Merseburg and Magdeburg-Anhalt in the time of the Third Reich.... , then from 20 April 1937 Joachim Albrecht Eggeling Joachim Albrecht Eggeling Joachim Albrecht Leo Eggeling was the Nazi Gauleiter of Saxony and Anhalt and the High President of the Province of Halle-Merseburg.Eggeling was born in Blankenburg am Harz, Province of Saxony... |
| 09 | Hamburg Hamburg -History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808... |
Hamburg Hamburg -History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808... |
747 | 1,711,877 | Joseph Klant from 1925 to 1926, then from 1927 to 1928 Albert Krebs Albert Krebs Albert Krebs was the Nazi Gauleiter in Hamburg in the time of the Third Reich.Krebs, a higher archive official's son, did his Abitur in 1917 after finishing school at the Gymnasium in Aschaffenburg and thereafter reported to the military as a volunteer... , then from 1928 to 15 April 1929 Hinrich Lohse Hinrich Lohse Hinrich Lohse was a Nazi German politician, best known for his World War II rule of the Baltic states.-Early life:... , then from 15 April 1929 Karl Kaufmann Karl Kaufmann - External links :* in Der Deutsche Reichstag, Wahlperiode nach d. 30. Jan. 1933, Bd.: 1938, Berlin, 1938... |
| 10 | Hessen-Nassau | Frankfurt Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010... |
15,030 | 3,117,266 | Jakob Sprenger Jakob Sprenger Jakob Sprenger was a Nazi politician.Sprenger was born in Oberhausen near Bad Bergzabern in the Palatinate. In 1922, the postal inspector Sprenger became a member of the Nazi Party... from 1933 |
| 11 | Kärnten Reichsgau Kärnten The Reichsgau Kärnten , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Carinthia and East Tyrol and Upper Carniola, Slovenia from 1938 to 1945.-Sources:* * Deutsches Historisches Museum website*... |
Klagenfurt Klagenfurt -Name:Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters... |
11,554 | 449,713 | Hans vom Kothen from February 1933 to July 1934, then Peter Feistritzer from October 1936 to 20 February 1938, then from 1938 to 1939 Hubert Klausner Hubert Klausner Hubert Klausner was an NSDAP Gauleiter and a Landeshauptmann of Carinthia.... , then from 1940 to 1941 Franz Kutschera, then from 1942 to 1944 Friedrich Rainer Friedrich Rainer Friedrich W. Rainer was a leader in the Nazi Party, as well as an Austrian State governor of Salzburg and Carinthia. He is the only Austrian governor who has ever held the same office in two separate states... |
| 12 | Köln-Aachen | Köln KOLN KOLN, digital channel 10, is the CBS affiliate in Lincoln, Nebraska. It operates a satellite station, KGIN, on digital channel 11 in Grand Island. KGIN repeats all KOLN programming, but airs separate commercials... |
8,162 | 2,432,095 | Joseph Grohé from 1931 |
| 13 | Kurhessen | Kassel Kassel Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :... |
9,200 | 971,887 | Walter Schultz from 1926 to 1927, then from 1928 to 1943 Karl Weinrich Karl Weinrich Karl Weinrich Karl Weinrich Karl Weinrich (2 December 1887 in Molmeck – 22 July 1973 in Hausen was NSDAP Gauleiter of Kurhessen.Karl Weinrich was a member of the Nazi Party from August 1922. From 1925 to 1927 he was the NSDAP's Gau Treasurer. From 1930 to 1933 he was a member of the Prussian... , then from 1943 Karl Gerland Karl Gerland Karl Gerland was a Nazi Gauleiter of Kurhessen.Gerland was born in Gottsbüren near Kassel. He joined the Nazi Party in 1929. As of 1930, he was district leader in Kreis Hofgeismar, and beginning in 1932, he was acting propaganda leader in the Gau of Kurhessen... |
| 14 | Magdeburg Magdeburg Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe.... -Anhalt Free State of Anhalt The Free State of Anhalt was formed after Joachim Ernst, Duke of Anhalt abdicated on 12 November 1918, ending the Duchy of Anhalt. It was a state of Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic... |
Dessau Dessau Dessau is a town in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it is part of the merged town Dessau-Roßlau. Population of Dessau proper: 77,973 .-Geography:... |
13,910 | 1,820,416 | from 1927 onwards, with a short-lived replacement by Paul Hofmann Paul Hofmann Paul Hofmann was an author, journalist, linguist, and political activist. The New York Times, for whom he was a foreign correspondent, described him as, fluent in German, Italian, French, and English, having a command of several other languages that was more than passable, as well as "a broad... in 1933, to 23 October 1935 Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper was a Nazi politician and a Nazi Gauleiter in the Gau of Magdeburg-Anhalt.- Life :... , then from 1935 to 1937 Joachim Albrecht Leo Eggeling, then from 1937 Rudolf Jordan Rudolf Jordan Rudolf Jordan was a Nazi Gauleiter in Halle-Merseburg and Magdeburg-Anhalt in the time of the Third Reich.... |
| 15 | Mainfranken Gau Mainfranken The Gau Mainfranken , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Lower Franconia, Bavaria, from 1933 to 1945... , re-naming of Gau Unterfranken |
Würzburg Würzburg Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian.... |
8,432 | 840,663 | Otto Hellmuth Otto Hellmuth Otto Hellmuth was a member of the Nazi Party.Born at Markt Einersheim, he was Gauleiter of the German region of Lower Franconia from 1928 to 1945. His home and office were in Würzburg, the capital of the Gau Mainfranken. By 1935, Hellmuth had his Gau renamed as Mainfranken... from 3 September 1928 |
| 16 | Mark Brandenburg Gau March of Brandenburg The Gau March of Brandenburg was formed in 1933 initially under the name Gau Kurmark in Nazi Germany initially as a district within the Free State of Prussia. In 1935, Germany's constituent states were dissolved and the gaus replaced the states and their responsibilities. In 1940, Kurmark was... |
Berlin Berlin Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union... |
38,278 | 3,007,933 | Wilhelm Kube Wilhelm Kube Wilhelm Kube was a German politician and Nazi official. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the occupying government of the Soviet Union, achieving the rank of Generalkommissar for... from 6 March 1933 to 7 August 1936, then Emil Stürtz |
| 17 | Mecklenburg Mecklenburg Mecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern... |
Schwerin Schwerin Schwerin is the capital and second-largest city of the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The population, as of end of 2009, was 95,041.-History:... |
15,722 | 900,427 | Friedrich Hildebrandt Friedrich Hildebrandt Friedrich Hildebrandt was an SS Obergruppenführer, a Gauleiter and judged for war crimes in the time of the Third Reich.... from 1925 onwards with a short-lived replacement by Herbert Albrecht Herbert Albrecht Dr. Herbert Albrecht was a Gauleiter of the National Socialist German Workers Party from 1930 until 1931.-Life:... from July 1930 to 1931 |
| 18 | Moselland, re-naming of Gau Koblenz-Trier in 1942 | Koblenz Koblenz Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the... |
11,876 | 1,367,354 | Gustav Simon Gustav Simon Gustav Simon was, as the Nazi Gauleiter in the Moselland Gau from 1940 until 1944, the Chief of the Civil Administration in Luxembourg, which was occupied at that time by Nazi Germany.... from 1 June 1931 |
| 19 | München-Oberbayern Gau München-Oberbayern The Gau München-Oberbayern was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Upper Bavaria, Bavaria from 1933 to 1945... , |
Munich Munich Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat... |
16,411 | 1,938,447 | Adolf Wagner Adolf Wagner Adolf Wagner was a German soldier and high-ranking Nazi Party official born in Algrange, Alsace-Lorraine.He served in World War I as an officer in the German Army... von 1933 to 1944, then from April 1944 Paul Giesler Paul Giesler Paul Giesler was a member of the NSDAP, from 1941 NSDAP Gauleiter of Westphalia-South and as of 1942 also acting Gauleiter of the Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria... |
| 20 | Niederdonau Reichsgau Niederdonau The Reichsgau Niederdonau , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Lower Austria and northern parts of Burgenland and parts of Southern Moravia, Czech Republic from 1938 to 1945.-Sources:*... |
Nominal capital: Krems, District Headquarters: Vienna Vienna Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre... |
23,502 | 1,697,676 | From 12 March 1938 to 24 May 1938 Roman Jäger, then from 24 May 1938 to 8 May 1945 Hugo Jury Hugo Jury Hugo Jury was an Austrian Nazi.... |
| 21 | Niederschlesien | Breslau | 26,985 | 3,286,539 | Karl Hanke Karl Hanke Karl August Hanke was an official of the National Socialist German Workers Party . He served as governor of Lower Silesia from 1941 to 1945 and as the final Reichsführer-SS for a few days in 1945.- Early life :Hanke was born in Lauban in Silesia, on 24 August 1903, the son of a locomotive... from 1940 |
| 22 | Oberdonau Reichsgau Oberdonau The Reichsgau Oberdonau , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Upper Austria, Austria and parts of Southern Bohemia, Czech Republic from 1938 to 1945. Parts of the Salzkammergut were annexed from Styria.... |
Linz Linz Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about... |
14,216 | 1,034,871 | Andreas Bolek Andreas Bolek Andreas Bolek was an Austrian politician and a leader in the Nazi Party .... from June 1927 to 1 August 1934, then from March 1935 August Eigruber August Eigruber August Eigruber was an Austrian-born Nazi Gauleiter of Oberdonau and Landeshauptmann of Upper Austria, later hanged by the Allies.-Early life and Nazi career:... |
| 23 | Oberschlesien Province of Upper Silesia The Province of Upper Silesia was a province of the Free State of Prussia created in the aftermath of World War I. It comprised much of the region of Upper Silesia and was eventually divided into two administrative regions , Kattowitz and Oppeln... |
Kattowitz | 20,636 | 4,341,084 | Fritz Bracht Fritz Bracht Fritz Bracht was Nazi Gauleiter of Upper Silesia. He was directly involved in the mass murder of Jews and Poles.... from 27 January 1941] |
| 24 | Ost-Hannover Gau Eastern Hanover Gau Eastern Hanover was a regional district of the NSDAP established in 1925 in the north eastern part of the Prussian Province of Hanover, comprising the governorates of Stade and Lunenburg in their then boundaries... (also known as Hannover-Ost) |
Harburg Harburg Harburg is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It takes its name from the town of Harburg upon Elbe, which used to be the capital of the district but is now part of Hamburg... , then Buchholz Buchholz -Places:In Germany*Buchholz in der Nordheide, a town in the district of Harburg, Lower Saxony*Französisch Buchholz, a part of Pankow in Berlin*Märkisch Buchholz, in the Dahme-Spreewald district, Brandenburg... , after 1 April 1937 Lüneburg Lüneburg Lüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs... |
18,006 | 1,060,509 | from 1 October 1928 Otto Telschow Otto Telschow Otto Telschow , German Nazi Party official, was born in Wittenberge and became a police official in Hamburg. He joined the Nazi Party in 1925, and was the founder of the regional Nazi newspaper, the Niedersachsen-Stürmer... |
| 25 | Ostpreußen Gau East Prussia Gau East Prussia was formed in 1933 in Nazi Germany initially as a district within the Free State of Prussia. In 1935, Germany's constituent states were dissolved and the gaus replaced the states and their responsibilities.... |
Königsberg Königsberg Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it... |
52,731 | 3,336,777 | Bruno Gustav Scherwitz from 1925 to 1927, then from 1928 Erich Koch Erich Koch Erich Koch was a Gauleiter of the Nazi Party in East Prussia from 1928 until 1945. Between 1941 and 1945 he was the Chief of Civil Administration of Bezirk Bialystok. During this period, he was also the Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine from 1941 until 1943... |
| 26 | Pommern | Stettin | 38,409 | 2,393,844 | Theodor Vahlen Theodor Vahlen Karl Theodor Vahlen was an Austrian-born mathematician who was an ardent supporter of the Nazi Party. He was a member of both the SA and SS.- Career :... from 1925 to 1927, then from 1928 to 1931 Walter von Corswant, then from 1931 to 1934 Wilhelm Karpenstein Wilhelm Karpenstein Wilhelm Karpenstein was a German Nazi Party politician. He served as Gauleiter of Pomerania during the early days of the Third Reich.... , then from 1935 Franz Schwede-Coburg |
| 27 | Sachsen | Dresden Dresden Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area.... |
14,995 | 5,231,739 | Albert Wierheim around 1925/1926, Martin Mutschmann Martin Mutschmann Martin Mutschmann was the Nazi Region Leader of the state of Saxony during the time of the Third Reich.-Biography:... from 1925 |
| 28 | Salzburg Reichsgau Salzburg The Reichsgau Salzburg , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Salzburg, Austria from 1938 to 1945.-Sources:* * Deutsches Historisches Museum website*... |
Salzburg Salzburg -Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for... |
7,153 | 257,226 | Leopold Malina from 1926 to ??, then Karl Scharizer from 1932 to 1934, then from 1939 to 1941 Friedrich Rainer Friedrich Rainer Friedrich W. Rainer was a leader in the Nazi Party, as well as an Austrian State governor of Salzburg and Carinthia. He is the only Austrian governor who has ever held the same office in two separate states... , then from 1941 Gustav Adolf Scheel Gustav Adolf Scheel Gustav Adolf Scheel was a German physician and "multifunctionary" in the time of the Third Reich... |
| 29 | Schleswig-Holstein Province of Schleswig-Holstein The Province of Schleswig-Holstein was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1868 to 1946. It was created from the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which had been conquered by Prussia and the Austrian Empire from Denmark in the Second War of Schleswig in 1864... |
Kiel Kiel Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the... |
15,687 | 1,589,267 | Hinrich Lohse Hinrich Lohse Hinrich Lohse was a Nazi German politician, best known for his World War II rule of the Baltic states.-Early life:... from 1925 |
| 30 | Schwaben Gau Swabia Gau Swabia was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Swabia, Bavaria from 1933 to 1945. Previous to that, since 1926, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in Swabia.... |
Augsburg Augsburg Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a... |
10,231 | 946,212 | Karl Wahl Karl Wahl Karl Wahl was the Nazi Gauleiter of Swabia from the Gau inception in 1928 until the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945.- Early life :... from 1928 |
| 31 | Steiermark Reichsgau Steiermark The Reichsgau Steiermark , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Styria, southern parts of Burgenland and Lower Styria, Slovenia from 1938 to 1945.-Sources:* * Deutsches Historisches Museum website*... |
Graz Graz The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students... |
17,384 | 1,116,407 | Walther Oberhaidacher from 25 November 1928 to 1934, then Sepp Helfrich from 1934 to 1938, then from 22 May 1938 Siegfried Uiberreither Siegfried Uiberreither Siegfried Uiberreither was an Austrian Nazi-Gauleiter in Styria, Austria in the time of the Third Reich.... |
| 32 | Sudetenland Sudetenland Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The... , until 1939 known as Gau Sudetengau |
Reichenberg Liberec Liberec is a city in the Czech Republic. Located on the Lusatian Neisse and surrounded by the Jizera Mountains and Ještěd-Kozákov Ridge, it is the fifth-largest city in the Czech Republic.... |
22,608 | 2,943,187 | Konrad Henlein Konrad Henlein Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein was a leading pro-Nazi ethnic German politician in Czechoslovakia and leader of Sudeten German separatists... from 1939 |
| 33 | Südhannover-Braunschweig Gau Southern Hanover-Brunswick Gau Southern Hanover-Brunswick was a regional district established in 1933 in Nazi Germany. Initially the gau was a territorial component of both the Free State of Prussia and the Free State of Brunswick from 1933 to 1935. However after the German constituent states were abolished in 1935, the... |
Hannover | 14,553 | 2,136,961 | from 1 October 1928 to November 1940 Bernhard Rust Bernhard Rust Dr. Bernhard Rust was Minister of Science, Education and National Culture in Nazi Germany. A combination of school administrator and zealous Nazi, he issued decrees, often bizarre, at every level of the German educational system to immerse German youth in the National Socialist philosophy... , then from November 1940 Hartmann Lauterbacher Hartmann Lauterbacher Hartmann Lauterbacher was a high area leader of the Hitler Youth, as well as Nazi Gauleiter of the Gau of South Hanover-Braunschweig and an SS Gruppenführer.... |
| 34 | Thüringen Gau Thüringen The Gau Thuringia , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Thuringia from 1933 to 1945. Previous to that, since 1926, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in this region.-Sources:*... |
Weimar Weimar Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899... |
15,763 | 2,446,182 | Artur Dinter Artur Dinter Artur Dinter was a German writer and Nazi politician.- Biography :Dinter was born in Mulhouse, in Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire to Josef Dinter, a customs adviser, and his wife Berta, née Hoffmann, and he was baptized in the Catholic Church.After doing his school-leaving examination, Dinter... from 1925 to 1927, then from 1927 Fritz Sauckel Fritz Sauckel Ernst Friedrich Christoph "Fritz" Sauckel was a Nazi war criminal, who organized the systematic enslavement of millions from lands occupied by Nazi Germany... |
| 35 | Tirol-Vorarlberg Reichsgau Tirol-Vorarlberg The Reichsgau Tirol-Vorarlberg , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Vorarlberg and North Tyrol from 1938 to 1945.-Sources:* * Deutsches Historisches Museum website*... |
Innsbruck Innsbruck - Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus... |
13,126 | 486,400 | Franz Hofer Franz Hofer Franz Hofer was, in the time of the Third Reich, the Nazi Gauleiter of the Tyrol and Vorarlberg.... from 1932 |
| 36 | Wartheland Reichsgau Wartheland Reichsgau Wartheland was a Nazi German Reichsgau formed from Polish territory annexed in 1939. It comprised the Greater Poland and adjacent areas, and only in part matched the area of the similarly named pre-Versailles Prussian province of Posen... , until 29 January 1940 known as Gau Warthegau) |
Posen Posen Posen may refer to:Places in Europe:* Poznań, Poland * Grand Duchy of Posen, autonomous province of Prussia, 1815–1848* Province of Posen, Prussian province, 1848–1918... |
43,905 | 4,693,722 | Arthur Karl Greiser from 21 October 1939 |
| 37 | Weser-Ems | Oldenburg Oldenburg Oldenburg is an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the western part of the state between the cities of Bremen and Groningen, Netherlands, at the Hunte river. It has a population of 160,279 which makes it the fourth biggest city in Lower Saxony after Hanover, Braunschweig... |
15,044 | 1,839,302 | Carl Röver Carl Röver Carl Georg Röver was a German Nazi Party official. His main posts were as Gauleiter of Weser-Ems and Reichsstatthalter of Oldenburg/Bremen.-Early years:... from 1929 to 1942, then from 1942 Paul Wegener Paul Wegener Paul Wegener was a German actor, writer and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema.-Stage and early film career:... |
| 38 | Westfalen-Nord Gau Westfalen-Nord The Gau Westphalia-North , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Free State of Lippe, Free State of Schaumburg-Lippe and the northern half of the Prussian Province of Westphalia from 1933 to 1945... |
Münster Münster Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland... |
14,559 | 2,822,603 | Alfred Meyer Alfred Meyer Dr. Alfred Meyer was a Nazi official, achieving the rank of Staatssekretär and Deputy Reichsminister in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories .-Early life:Meyer was born in Göttingen, the son of a government official... from 1932 |
| 39 | Westfalen-Süd | Bochum Bochum Bochum is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. It is located in the Ruhr area and is surrounded by the cities of Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Castrop-Rauxel, Dortmund, Witten and Hattingen.-History:... |
7,656 | 2,678,026 | Josef Wagner Josef Wagner Josef Wagner may refer to:* Josef Wagner , Austrian composer* Josef Wagner , Nazi official in the Third Reich* Josef Wagner , Czech painter and graphic artist* Joe Wagner, American baseball player... from 1932 to 1941, Paul Giesler Paul Giesler Paul Giesler was a member of the NSDAP, from 1941 NSDAP Gauleiter of Westphalia-South and as of 1942 also acting Gauleiter of the Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria... from 1941 to 1943/44, then from 1943/44 Albert Hoffmann |
| 40 | Westmark Gau Westmark The Gau Westmark was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. Previous to that, since 1926, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party.-History:... , re-naming of Gau Saar-Pfalz (also known as Saarpfalz) |
Neustadt an der Weinstraße Neustadt an der Weinstraße Neustadt an der Weinstraße is a town located in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With 53,892 inhabitants as of 2002, it is the largest town called Neustadt.-Etymology:... , after 1940 Saarbrücken Saarbrücken Saarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city is situated at the heart of a metropolitan area that borders on the west on Dillingen and to the north-east on Neunkirchen, where most of the people of the Saarland live.... |
14,713 | 1,892,240 | Josef Bürckel Josef Bürckel Joseph Bürckel was a German politician and a member of the German parliament... from 1935 to 28 September 1944, then from 28 September 1944 Willi Stöhr Willi Stöhr Willi Stöhr , German NSDAP official, was born in Wuppertal-Elberfeld. He joined the NSDAP in 1923. In 1932 he was made a senior official of the Hitler Youth movement, and in 1933, when the National Socialist movement came to power, he was appointed to administrative position in Frankfurt am Main,... |
| 41 | Wien Reichsgau Wien The Reichsgau Wien , was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Vienna, Austria from 1938 to 1945. Parts of Lower Austria were annexed in 1938 to establish Greater Vienna, which then became the biggest city of Nazi Germany by area.-Sources:* * Deutsches Historisches Museum website*... |
Vienna Vienna Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre... |
1,216 | 1,929,976 | Alfred Eduard Frauenfeld from 1932 to 1938, then from May 1938 to January 1939 Odilo Globocnik Odilo Globocnik Odilo Lotario Globocnik was a prominent Austrian Nazi and later an SS leader. He was an acquaintance of Adolf Eichmann, who played a major role in the extermination of Jews and others during the Holocaust... , then from 1939 to 1940 Josef Bürckel Josef Bürckel Joseph Bürckel was a German politician and a member of the German parliament... , and then from 1940 Baldur von Schirach Baldur von Schirach Baldur Benedikt von Schirach was a Nazi youth leader later convicted of being a war criminal. Schirach was the head of the Hitler-Jugend and Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Vienna.... |
| 42 | Württemberg Württemberg Württemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia.... -Hohenzollern |
Stuttgart Stuttgart Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million .... |
20,657 | 2,974,373 | Eugen Mander from 1925 to 1928, then from 1928 Wilhelm Murr Wilhelm Murr Wilhelm Murr was a Nazi politician... |
| 43 | Auslandsorganisation NSDAP/AO The NSDAP/AO was the Foreign Organization branch of the National Socialist German Workers Party . AO is the abbreviation of the German compound word Auslands-Organisation... (also known as NSDAP/AO) |
Berlin Berlin Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union... |
Hans Nieland Hans Nieland Hans Heinrich Nieland was a politician of the German Nazi-Party and Lord Mayor of Dresden from 1940 until 1945.- Life :... from 1930 to 1933, then from 8 May 1933 Ernst Wilhelm Bohle Ernst Wilhelm Bohle Ernst Wilhelm Bohle was the leader of the Foreign Organization of the German Nazi Party from 1933 until 1945.-Early life:... |
Later Gaue:
- FlandersReichsgau FlandernThe Reichsgau Flanders was a short-lived Reichsgau of Nazi Germany established in 1944. It encompassed the present-day Flemish Region in its old provincial borders, so including Comines-Warneton but excluding Voeren...
, existed from 15 December 1944 (Gauleiter in German exile: Jef van de WieleJef van de WieleFredegardus Jacobus Josephus van de Wiele was a Belgian Flemish Nazi politician.-Nazism:...
) - WalloniaReichsgau WallonienThe Reichsgau Wallonia was a short-lived Reichsgau of Nazi Germany established in 1944. It encompassed present-day Wallonia in its old provincial borders, so excluding Comines-Warneton but including Voeren...
, existed from 8 December 1944 (Gauleiter in German exile: Léon DegrelleLéon DegrelleLéon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle was a Walloon Belgian politician, who founded Rexism and later joined the Waffen SS which were front-line troops in the fight against the Soviet Union...
)
Former Gaue dissolved before 1945
Simple re-namings of existing Gaue without territorial changes is marked with the initials RN in the column "later became". The numbering is not based on any official former ranking, but merely listed alphabetically.| Nr. | Gau | consisted of | later became | …together with | Gauleiter |
| 01 | Anhalt | Magdeburg-Anhalt (1927) | Elbe-Havel | Gustav Hermann Schmischke | |
| 02 | Baden | Baden-Elsaß (22 March 1941) RN | see above | ||
| 03 | Bayerische Ostmark | Oberfranken & Niederbayern-Oberpfalz (II) (19 January 1933) | Bayreuth (2 Juni 1942) RN | Hans Schemm Hans Schemm Hans Schemm was a Gauleiter in Nazi Germany.-Life:Schemm, whose parents ran a shoemaker's shop, first went to a Volksschule for five years and then as of 1905 a teaching seminary. In 1915 he got married; in 1917 a son was born... from 19 January 1933 to 5 March 1935, then from 5 March 1935 Fritz Wächtler |
|
| 04 | Berlin | Berlin-Brandenburg (1. Oktober 1928) | Groß-Berlin RN | Dr. Joseph Goebbels Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism... |
|
| 05 | Berlin-Brandenburg | Berlin & Brandenburg (1 October 1928) | Ernst Schlange from 1925 to 1926, then from 1 November 1926 Joseph Goebbels Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism... |
||
| 06 | Brandenburg | Berlin-Brandenburg (1 October 1928) | Kurmark (6 March 1933) | Ostmark | from 1 October 1928 to 1932 Emil Holtz and from 18 October 1932 to 16 March 1933 Dr. Ernst Schlange |
| 07 | Braunschweig | Süd-Hannover-Braunschweig (1 Oktober 1928) | Hannover-Süd | from 1925 to 30 September 1928 Ludolf Haase (perhaps also only for Hannover-Süd) | |
| 08 | Danzig | Danzig-Westpreußen (1939) RN | see above | ||
| 09 | Elbe-Havel | Magdeburg-Anhalt (1927) | Anhalt | from 25 November 1925 to 1926 [?] Alois Bachschmidt | |
| 10 | Groß-München ("Traditionsgau") | München-Oberbayern (1933) | Oberbayern | [?] | |
| 11 | Hannover-Süd | Süd-Hannover-Braunschweig (1 October 1928) | Braunschweig | from 1925 to 30 September 1928 Ludolf Haase (perhaps also only Braunschweig) | |
| 12 | Hessen-Darmstadt | Hessen-Nassau (1933) | Hessen-Nassau-Süd | from 1 March 1927 to 9 January 1931 Friedrich Ringshausen, then only in 1931 Peter Gemeinder, then from 1932 to 1933 Karl Lenz | |
| 13 | Hessen-Nassau-Nord | Kurhessen (1934) | [?] | ||
| 14 | Hessen-Nassau-Süd | Hessen-Nassau (1933) | Hessen-Darmstadt | from 1925 to 1926 Anton Haselmayer, then from 1926 to 1927 Dr. Walter Schultz, then from 1927 to 1933 Jakob Sprenger Jakob Sprenger Jakob Sprenger was a Nazi politician.Sprenger was born in Oberhausen near Bad Bergzabern in the Palatinate. In 1922, the postal inspector Sprenger became a member of the Nazi Party... |
|
| 15 | Koblenz-Trier | Rheinland-Süd (1931) | Moselland (1942) merger | [?] | |
| 16 | Kurmark | Ostmark & Brandenburg ([?]) | Mark Brandenburg (1938) RN | see above | |
| 17 | Lüneburg-Stade | Ost-Hannover (1928) RN | from 22 March 1925 to 30 September 1928 Bernhard Rust Bernhard Rust Dr. Bernhard Rust was Minister of Science, Education and National Culture in Nazi Germany. A combination of school administrator and zealous Nazi, he issued decrees, often bizarre, at every level of the German educational system to immerse German youth in the National Socialist philosophy... |
||
| 18 | Mittelfranken | Franken (1929) | Nuremberg-Forth-Erlangen | Julius Streicher Julius Streicher Julius Streicher was a prominent Nazi prior to World War II. He was the founder and publisher of Der Stürmer newspaper, which became a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine... ("Frankenführer") |
|
| 19 | Niederbayern | Niederbayern-Oberpfalz (I) (1 Oktober 1928) | Niederbayern-Oberpfalz (II) (1 April 1932) | Oberpfalz | from 1 October 1928 to 1929 Gregor Strasser Gregor Strasser Gregor Strasser was a politician of the National Socialist German Workers Party... , then from 1929 to 1 April 1932 Otto Erbersdobler |
| 20 | Niederbayern-Oberpfalz (I) | Oberpfalz & Niederbayern (1 Oktober 1928) | from 1925 to 30 September 1928 Gregor Strasser Gregor Strasser Gregor Strasser was a politician of the National Socialist German Workers Party... |
||
| 21 | Niederbayern-Oberpfalz (II) | Oberpfalz & Niederbayern (1 April 1932) | Bayerische Ostmark (19 January 1933) | Oberfranken | from 1 April 1932 to 19 January 1933 Franz Mayerhofer |
| 22 | Niederösterreich | Niederdonau ([?]) RN [??] | from 1927 to 1937 Josef Leopold Josef Leopold Josef Leopold was a leading member of the Nazi Party in Austria. He was the Landesleiter of the party from 1935 to 1938 and the head of the Sturmabteilung in Austria... [possibly Lücke from 1937 to 1939, since he is the first Gauleiter for Niederdonau who is actually known] |
||
| 23 | Nuremberg-Forth-Erlangen | Franken (1929) | Mittelfranken | from 3 September 1928 Wilhelm Grimm Wilhelm Grimm Wilhelm Carl Grimm was a German author, the younger of the Brothers Grimm.-Life and work:... |
|
| 24 | Oberbayern | München-Oberbayern (1933) | Groß-München | [?] | |
| 25 | Oberfranken | Bayerische Ostmark (19 January 1933) | Niederbayern-Oberpfalz (II) | from 1928 Hans Schemm Hans Schemm Hans Schemm was a Gauleiter in Nazi Germany.-Life:Schemm, whose parents ran a shoemaker's shop, first went to a Volksschule for five years and then as of 1905 a teaching seminary. In 1915 he got married; in 1917 a son was born... |
|
| 26 | Oberösterreich | Oberdonau ([?]) RN | [precise moment of leader designation unknown, see also "Oberdonau"] | ||
| 27 | Oberpfalz | Niederbayern-Oberpfalz (I) (1 October 1928) | Niederbayern-Oberpfalz (II) (1 April 1932) | Niederbayern | from 1 October 1928 to 1 April 1932 Franz Mayerhofer |
| 28 | Ostmark | Kurmark (6 March 1933) | Brandenburg | from 2 January 1928 to 1933 Wilhelm Kube Wilhelm Kube Wilhelm Kube was a German politician and Nazi official. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the occupying government of the Soviet Union, achieving the rank of Generalkommissar for... |
|
| 29 | Rheinland | Saar-Pfalz (1935) | Saar(land) | from 1926 Josef Bürckel Josef Bürckel Joseph Bürckel was a German politician and a member of the German parliament... (from 1 March 1933 also administrator of Saarland) |
|
| 30 | Rheinland-Nord | Ruhr (1926) | Westfalen | from 1925 to 1926 Karl Kaufmann | |
| 31 | Rheinland-Süd | [?Koblenz-Trier also autonomous before 1931?] | Köln-Aachen & Koblenz-Trier (1931) | 1925 Heinrich Haake (also known as "Heinz Haake"), then from 1925 to 1931 Robert Ley Robert Ley Robert Ley was a Nazi politician and head of the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. He committed suicide while awaiting trial for war crimes.- Early life :... |
|
| 32 | Ruhr | Rheinland-Nord & Westfalen (1926) | Westfalen-Nord & Westfalen-Süd (1932) | Düsseldorf (1930) partially; creation of Düsseldorf nicht gesichert | from 1926 to 1929 Karl Kaufmann, then from 1929 to 1931 [?not 1932?] Josef Wagner Josef Wagner Josef Wagner may refer to:* Josef Wagner , Austrian composer* Josef Wagner , Nazi official in the Third Reich* Josef Wagner , Czech painter and graphic artist* Joe Wagner, American baseball player... |
| 33 | Saarland, also merely Saar | Saar-Pfalz (1935) | Rheinland | from August 1929 to 28 February 1933 Karl Brück, from 1 March 1933 Josef Bürckel Josef Bürckel Joseph Bürckel was a German politician and a member of the German parliament... (also administrator of Rheinland) |
|
| 34 | Saar-Pfalz, also Saarpfalz | Rheinland & Saar(land) (1935) | Westmark (1937) RN | see above | |
| 35 | Schlesien | Niederschlesien & Oberschlesien (1940) | from 15 March 1925 to 25 Dezember 1935 (possibly until only 12 December 1934) Helmuth Brückner, then to 1940 Josef Wagner Josef Wagner (Gauleiter) Josef Wagner was from 1928 the Nazi Gauleiter of the Gau of Westphalia-South, and as of January 1935 also of the Gau of Silesia.-Early life and First World War:... |
||
| 36 | Sudetengau | Sudetenland (1939) RN | [?] | ||
| 37 | Unterfranken | Mainfranken (1935) RN | see above | ||
| 38 | Warthegau | Wartheland (29 January 1940) RN | see above | ||
| 39 | Westfalen | Ruhr (1926) | Rheinland-Nord | from 1925 to 1926 Franz Pfeffer von Salomon Franz Pfeffer von Salomon Franz Pfeffer von Salomon was the first commander of the SA after its 1925 restoration, which followed its temporary abolition in 1923 after the abortive Beer Hall Putsch.... |
Gaue in Switzerland
The illegal SwissSwitzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
branch of the NSDAP also established a number of Party Gaue in that country, most of them named after their regional capitals. These included Gau Basel-Solothurn
Canton of Solothurn
Solothurn is a canton of Switzerland. It is located in the northwest of Switzerland. The capital is Solothurn.-History:The territory of the canton comprises land acquired by the capital...
, Gau Schaffhausen
Canton of Schaffhausen
The Canton of is a canton of Switzerland. The principal city and capital of the canton is Schaffhausen.- History:Schaffhausen was a city-state in the Middle Ages, documented to have struck its own coins starting in 1045. It was then known as Villa Scafhusun. Around 1049 Count Eberhard von...
, Gau Luzern, Gau Bern and Gau Zürich
Canton of Zürich
The Canton of Zurich has a population of . The canton is located in the northeast of Switzerland and the city of Zurich is its capital. The official language is German, but people speak the local Swiss German dialect called Züritüütsch...
. The cantons of St. Gallen
Canton of St. Gallen
The Canton of St. Gallen is a canton of Switzerland. St. Gallen is located in the north east of Switzerland. It covers an area of 2,026 km², and has a population of . , the population included 97,461 foreigners, or about 20.9% of the total population. The capital is St. Gallen. Spelling...
, Thurgau und Appenzell were administered under Gau Ostschweiz (East Switzerland).
Gaue of the German American Bund
Mimicking the regional administrative subdivision of the Nazi Party, the German American Bund divided the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the three Gaue: Gau Ost (East), Gau West, and Gau Midwest. Together the three Gaue had 69 Ortsgruppen, with 40 of them being in Gau Ost (17 in New York), 10 in Gau West and 19 in Gau Midwest. Each Gau had its own Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
and staff to direct the Bund operations in the region in accordance with the Führerprinzip
Führerprinzip
The Führerprinzip , German for "leader principle", prescribes the fundamental basis of political authority in the governmental structures of the Third Reich...
.
General membership
The general membership of the Nazi Party, known as the Parteimitglieder, mainly consisted of the urban and rural lower middle classLower middle class
In developed nations across the world, the lower middle class is a sub-division of the greater middle class. Universally the term refers to the group of middle class households or individuals who have not attained the status of the upper middle class associated with the higher realms of the middle...
es. 7% belonged to the upper class
Upper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
, another 7% were peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s, 35% were industrial
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
workers and 51% were what can be described as middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
. In early 1933, just before Hitler's appointment to the chancellorship, the party showed an under-representation of "workers", who made up 29.7% of the membership but 46.3% of German society. Conversely, white-collar employees (18.6% of members and 12% of Germans), the 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) had joined in proportions greater than their share of the general population. These members were affiliated with local branches of the party, of which there were 1,378 throughout the country in 1928. In 1932, the number had risen to 11,845, reflecting the party's growth in this period.
When it came to power in 1933, the Nazi Party had over members. Once in power, it attracted many more members and by the time of its dissolution it had members. Many of these were nominal members who joined for careerist reasons, but the party had an active membership of at least a million, including virtually all the holders of senior positions in the national government.
Military membership
Nazi members with military ambitions were encouraged to join the Waffen-SSWaffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
, but a great number enlisted in the Wehrmacht and even more were drafted for service after World War II began. Early regulations required that all Wehrmacht members be non-political, and therefore any Nazi member joining in the 1930s was required to resign from the Nazi Party.
This regulation was soon waived, however, and there is ample evidence that full Nazi Party members served in the Wehrmacht in particular after the outbreak of World War II. The Wehrmacht Reserves also saw a high number of senior Nazis enlisting, with Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
and Fritz Todt
Fritz Todt
Fritz Todt was a German engineer and senior Nazi figure, the founder of Organisation Todt. He died in a plane crash during World War II.- Life :Todt was born in Pforzheim to a father who owned a small factory...
joining the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
, and Major Ronald von Brysonstofen of the Waffen-SS, as well as Karl Hanke
Karl Hanke
Karl August Hanke was an official of the National Socialist German Workers Party . He served as governor of Lower Silesia from 1941 to 1945 and as the final Reichsführer-SS for a few days in 1945.- Early life :Hanke was born in Lauban in Silesia, on 24 August 1903, the son of a locomotive...
who served in the Army.
Student membership
In 1926, the NSDAP formed a special division to engage the student population, known as the National Socialist German Students' LeagueNational Socialist German Students' League
The National Socialist German Students' League was founded in 1926 as a division of the NSDAP with the mission of integrating University-level education and academic life within the framework of the National Socialist worldview...
(NSDStB). A group for university lecturers, National Socialist German University Lecturers' League (NSDDB) existed until July 1944.
Female membership
The National Socialist Women's League was the women's organization of the party. By 1938 it had approximately 2 million members.Membership outside of Germany
Party members who lived outside of Germany were pooled into the Auslands-Organisation (NSDAP/AONSDAP/AO
The NSDAP/AO was the Foreign Organization branch of the National Socialist German Workers Party . AO is the abbreviation of the German compound word Auslands-Organisation...
, "Foreign Organization"). The organization was limited only to so-called "Imperial Germans
Imperial Germans
Imperial Germans is the common translation of the German word Reichsdeutsche . It refers to German citizens, and by the word sense means people coming from the German Empire, i.e...
"; "Ethnic Germans" (Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
) who did not hold German citizenship were not permitted to join.
Deutsche Gemeinschaft
Deutsche Gemeinschaft was a branch of the Nazi Party founded in 1919, created for Germans with VolksdeutscheVolksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
status. It is not to be confused with the post-war right-wing Deutsche Gemeinschaft (see :de:Deutsche Gemeinschaft) party founded in 1949.
Notable members included:
- Oswald MenghinOswald MenghinOswald Menghin was an Austrian Prehistorian and University professor. He established an international reputation before the War, while he was professor at the University of Vienna. His work on race and culture was serviceable to the German nationalist movement of the 1930s...
(ViennaViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
) - Herbert CzajaHerbert CzajaDr. Herbert Czaja was a German Christian Democratic politician and advocate for Germans expelled after World War II...
(Province of SilesiaProvince of SilesiaThe Province of Silesia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1815 to 1919.-Geography:The territory comprised the bulk of the former Bohemian crown land of Silesia and the County of Kladsko, which King Frederick the Great had conquered from the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy in the 18th...
inside PrussiaPrussiaPrussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
) - Hermann NeubacherHermann NeubacherHermann Neubacher was an Austrian Nazi politician who held a number of diplomatic posts in the Third Reich. During the Second World War, he was appointed as the leading German official for the Balkans.-Austrian activism:...
who was responsible for invading Yugoslavia. - Rudolf MuchRudolf MuchRudolf Much , the son of archaeologist Matthäus Much, was an Austrian Germanist, considered one of the founding fathers of Germanic studies....
(ViennaViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
) - Arthur Seyß-Inquart (ViennaViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
)
Party symbols
- Nazi FlagsFlag of GermanyThe flag of Germany is a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany: black, red, and gold....
: The Nazi party used a right-facing swastikaSwastikaThe swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und BodenBlood and soilBlood and Soil refers to an ideology that focuses on ethnicity based on two factors, descent and homeland/Heimat...
("blood and soil"). Another definition of the flag describes the colours as representing the ideology of National Socialism, the swastika representing the Aryan race and the Aryan nationalist agenda of the movement; white representing Aryan racial purity; and red representing the socialist agenda of the movement. Black, white and red were in fact the colors of the old North German ConfederationNorth German ConfederationThe North German Confederation 1866–71, was a federation of 22 independent states of northern Germany. It was formed by a constitution accepted by the member states in 1867 and controlled military and foreign policy. It included the new Reichstag, a parliament elected by universal manhood...
flag (invented by Otto von BismarckOtto von BismarckOtto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
, based on the Prussian colours black and white and the red used by northern German states). In 1871, with the foundation of the German Reich, the flag of the North German Confederation became the German Reichsflagge ("Reich's flag"). Black, white and red became the colours of the nationalists through the following history (for example World War IWorld War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and the Weimar RepublicWeimar RepublicThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
). - German EagleCoat of arms of GermanyThe coat of arms of Germany displays a black eagle on a yellow shield ....
: The Nazi party used the traditional German eagleCoat of arms of GermanyThe coat of arms of Germany displays a black eagle on a yellow shield ....
, standing atop of a swastikaSwastikaThe swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
inside a wreath of oak leaves. It is also known as the Iron Eagle. When the eagle is looking to its left shoulder, it symbolises the Nazi party, and was called the Parteiadler. In contrast, when the eagle is looking to its right shoulder, it symbolises the country (ReichReichReich is a German word cognate with the English rich, but also used to designate an empire, realm, or nation. The qualitative connotation from the German is " sovereign state." It is the word traditionally used for a variety of sovereign entities, including Germany in many periods of its history...
), and was therefore called the ReichsadlerReichsadlerThe Reichsadler was the heraldic eagle, derived from the Roman eagle standard, used by the Holy Roman Emperors and in modern coats of arms of Germany, including those of the German Empire, the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany...
. After the Nazi party came to power in Germany, they forced the replacement of the traditional version of the German eagle with their modified party symbol throughout the country and all its institutions.
Slogans and songs
- Nazi slogan: "Sieg Heil!"
- Nazi slogan: "Heil HitlerHitler saluteThe Nazi salute, or Hitler salute , was a gesture of greeting in Nazi Germany usually accompanied by saying, Heil Hitler! ["Hail Hitler!"], Heil, mein Führer ["Hail, my leader!"], or Sieg Heil! ["Hail victory!"]...
"
- Nazi anthem: Horst-Wessel-LiedHorst-Wessel-LiedThe Horst-Wessel-Lied , also known as Die Fahne hoch from its opening line, was the anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945...
See also
- NazismNazismNazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
- Adolf HitlerAdolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
- Glossary of Nazi Germany
- List of Nazi Party leaders and officials
- Ex-Nazi Party members
- AnschlussAnschlussThe Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
- National Socialist ProgramNational Socialist ProgramThe National Socialist Programme , was first, the political program of the German National Socialist Party in 1918, and later, in the 1920s, of the National Socialist German Workers' Party headed by Adolf...
- NSDAP/AONSDAP/AOThe NSDAP/AO was the Foreign Organization branch of the National Socialist German Workers Party . AO is the abbreviation of the German compound word Auslands-Organisation...
- SwastikaSwastikaThe swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
- List of Nazi organisations
- List of Gauleiters
- Mass suicides in 1945 Nazi GermanyMass suicides in 1945 Nazi GermanyGermany was stricken by a series of unprecedented waves of suicides during the final days of the Nazi regime. The reasons for these waves of suicides were numerous and include the effects of Nazi propaganda, the example of the suicide of Adolf Hitler, victims' attachment to the ideals of the Nazi...
- List of SS personnel {Also lists NSDAP Numbers, as well}
- Sino-German cooperation (1911–1941)
- Socialist Reich PartySocialist Reich PartyThe Socialist Reich Party of Germany was a West German far-right political party founded in the aftermath of the World War II in 1949 as an openly Nazi orientated split-off from the national conservative German Right Party...
- Neo-NazismNeo-NazismNeo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....
- VolkssturmVolkssturmThe Volkssturm was a German national militia of the last months of World War II. It was founded on Adolf Hitler's orders on October 18, 1944 and conscripted males between the ages of 16 to 60 years who were not already serving in some military unit as part of a German Home Guard.-Origins and...
- Nazi GermanyNazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
External links
- Text of Mein Kampf
- Program of the NSDAP, the Nazi "Manifesto" Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) 1920–1933 at Lebendiges Museum Online. Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) 1933–1945 at Lebendiges Museum Online.
- Organisationsbuch NSDAP An encyclopedic reference guide to the Nazi party, organisations, uniforms, flags etc. published by the party itself