The SA- (Sturm-Arbteilung). Some were former members of the Freikorps. They were meant to protect Nazi public speakers, but in practice they often started fights by breaking up meetings of the Social Democrats, which ended in drunken brawls.

By 1922 Hitler was leader of the Nazi Party. His henchmen were:

• Josef Goebbels: editor of the Nazi newspaper

• Hermann Goering: in charge of the SA

• Rudolf Hess: private secretary and later responsible for party administration

• Heinrich Himmler: he was a regional party chief for various regions

• Ernst Rohm: Ran the SA for Hitler in 1921.

The Munich Putsch

• Nazi support was mainly in Bavaria. The putsch was thought to succeed because Hitler thought he would have the support of a) the army and b) the Bavarian state government.

• Hitler believed that after the cessation of passive resistance was the right time to act. Gustav Kahr, the leader of the Bavarian state government, was not so sure and doubted the support they would gain. Hitler decided to force him to act.

• On 8th November, Kahr and his 2 most senior officials were addressing a meeting of around 3000 businessmen at a beer hall in Munich. Hitler and Goering arrived with 600 Stormtroopers. Hitler stopped the meeting, and took Kahr and his ministers into a side room at gunpoint, where he persuaded them to support him in overthrowing the Bavarian government.

• Then Hitler made a mistake. He let Kahr and his colleagues go, while he and Ludendorff planned how their supporters would seize Munich the next day. It was soon clear that Kahr’s pledge of allegiance, given at gunpoint, was worthless. When news of the putsch met Berlin the government ordered the army in Bavaria to crush it. However, it was decided that the Nazis would march on Munich the next day as planned, challenging the army and the police not to fire on them but to support them. With Ludendorff as their leader, Hitler hoped that they would succeed.

• So on the 9th November, Hitler and 3000 Nazis marched into Munich. When they arrived in the city centre, they found the police waiting for them. Hitler was shot and his shoulder was dislocated. Ludendorff marched onto the next square, where he was arrested. Hitler was arrested 2 days later.

• However, at the trial for the Munich Putsch Hitler was able to gain a lot of publicity and he impressed Germany with his public speaking skills and nationalist sentiments. He influenced the judges and was treated leniently, sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment but serving under 9 months before being released. He was imprisoned in Landsberg Castle, where he had his own room, as many visitors as he wished and he wrote Mein Kampf. Ludendorff wasn’t sentenced.

Between 1924 and 1929, the Nazi Party changed by Hitler’s reorganisation of it (to gain electoral success rather than succeed in a coup). After Hitler was released, the ban on the party was lifted and it was re-launched at a rally (at the Munich beer hall) in February 1925.

In the late 1920s the Nazis focused on winning over the working classes, where their anti-Jewish message had the most appeal. They increased this propaganda.

The in 1928 the Nazis decided to change their policy to appeal to the middle classes, as supporting the working classes had gotten them nowhere. Their messages began to be designed to appeal to the farmers and the middle class.

They also organised many public meetings

The Depression- helped the Nazis by weakening the Weimar government. It had to introduce unpopular economic policies, President Von Hindenburg was only still in power due to Article 48, and the rise of extremism also allowed for the rise of the Nazis, however also increasing the membership of the left-wing party.

The rise of the Nazis due to the depression took three main routes:

• It allowed them to point out the weakness of the Weimar government and the necessity for a strong leader such as Hitler

• They also promised to get unemployment rates far lower- they wanted to get people back to work building roads and public buildings

• They also had the infrastructure (SA) to deal with a Communist uprising and therefore prospered from the Communist hysteria.

• They were well organised

• THey used lots of propaganda

• They were supported by the industrialists, who traditionally voted for the Conzervative Party but stopped this in 1930. In 1931 Hitler made a deal with the other main right-wing party, the Nationalists. Then the two parties agreed to cooperate.

• They also received financial backing from businesses.

• They used technology, as radio was used for the first time. In 1932 there was a presidential election, and while Hindenburg gave just one election speech, Goebbels chartered planes to fly Hitler all over Germany in order to speak to four or five massive rallies per day. Radio podcasts, millions of elections, rallies, parades and marches carried the Nazi message all over Germany.

• They knew which promises to make to which groups of society. Workers were promised jobs, employers were promised profits, farmers higher prices, shopkeepers protection against competition.

• They were also flexible. If they found an idea was losing support they would change it, for example the nationalisation of industry. If all else failed, they used vague promises, like ‘Make Germany Great Again’. This meant that many Germans were uncertain as to what the Nazis actually stood for.

• Hitler, however, remained constant. Posters and rallies built him into a ‘superman’. He was an excellent public speaker.

• Their opposition was also very weak, and they consistently underestimated the Nazis. The Social Democrats feared that they would attempt a putsch, but they thought that the Nazis’ electioneering was so absurd that ordinary Germans would see through it. Their own support was constant so they were not eager to change. They quarrelled among themselves rather than uniting to face the Nazis’ challenge.