| The National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), better known as the NSDAP or the Nazi Party was led to power by Adolf Hitler in 1933. The term Nazi is a short form of the German Nationalsozialismus (National Socialism); the ideology of the NSDAP. The forerunner of the NSDAP, the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers' Party, abbreviated DAP), was founded in 1919 by Munich locksmith and poet Anton Drexler (together with Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart and Karl Harrer) as one of many völkisch movements that existed in Germany after World War I. In order to investigate this party, German army intelligence sent Hitler as a young corporal to monitor party activities. Impressed by what he saw, he joined as member 50. He in fact was the 7th member of the DAP's central committee. The DAP was shortly renamed the NSDAP. When the NSDAP was refounded after being banned following the abortive Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Hitler took Party membership number 1. After the failure of its coup attempt in Bavaria, the Nazis competed in elections for the remainder of the 1920s. In the election of 1930, the Nazis, propelled by Germany's economic problems in the incipient Great Depression increased their vote dramatically, becoming the second largest party in the Reichstag. It improved its position in the years thereafter, despite a brief ban in 1932 of the SA (the party's private security) and in the elections of 1932 the party reached a total of ... |
