The Seeds of Evil: Germany 1919 - 1933.

Mein Kampf

In 1923 Hitler and his party found Bavaria, where they were based, in a state of chaos. Along with other right wing groups the Nazi's sensed the opportunity to take control and begin the National Socialist Revolution. This led to the Munich Putsch, which though a failure, propelled Hitler into the National arena as his trial was widely publicised and the relatively lenient sentence he received had a consequence of breaking a coalition government (Socialists withdrew from the coalition led by Stresemann, resulting in a new coalition being formed).

Hitler used his imprisonment to rethink the strategy of the NSDAP. Whilst serving his sentence he wrote the first edition of Mein Kampf, "My Struggle". This book outlined the history of Hitler's political development and in the section section of the book goes on to discuss political ideology and the way forward. The full text of Mein Kampf is available online at http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/index.html.

Whilst imprisoned HItler made several decisions that would radically alter the way forward for the Nazi Party. He realised that a revolution of the kind attempted in Munich was unlikely to succeed. Therefore his revolution would have to be a legal one, via the democratic process. This decision changes the manner in which the Nazi Party must organise itself, and the way in which it sells its ideas. From this point onwards, there is a clear attempt at a broader sectoral appeal, with the Nazi propaganda machine becoming increasingly significant. Hitler knew that he had to convince the masses that National Socialism was right for them - and his time in prison allowed him the time to plan for this.

The Treaty of Versailles

Germany 1919 - 1923

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