Far-right German politician (1884?1942)
Anton Drexler
(13 June 1884 ? 24 February 1942) was a German
far-right
political agitator for the
Volkisch movement
in the 1920s. He founded the
German Workers' Party
(DAP), the
pan-German
and
anti-Semitic
antecedent of the
Nazi Party
(NSDAP). Drexler mentored his successor in the NSDAP,
Adolf Hitler
, during his early years in politics.
Early life
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Born in
Munich
, Drexler was a machine-fitter before becoming a railway toolmaker and
locksmith
in Berlin.
He is believed to have been disappointed with his income, and to have played the
zither
in restaurants to supplement his earnings.
[3]
Drexler did not serve in the armed forces during
World War I
because he was deemed physically unfit for service.
Politics
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During World War I, Drexler joined the
German Fatherland Party
,
a short-lived
far-right
party active during the last phase of the war, which played a significant role in the emergence of the
stab-in-the-back myth
and the defamation of certain politicians as the "
November Criminals
".
In March 1918, Drexler founded a branch of the Free Workers' Committee for a Good Peace (
Der Freie Arbeiterausschuss fur einen guten Frieden
) league.
Karl Harrer
, a journalist and member of the
Thule Society
, convinced Drexler and several others to form the
Political Workers' Circle
(
Politischer Arbeiter-Zirkel
) in 1918.
The members met periodically for discussions about
nationalism
and
antisemitism
.
German Workers' Party
[
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]
Together with Harrer, Drexler founded the German Workers' Party (DAP) in Munich on 5 January 1919.
At a DAP meeting in Munich on 12 September 1919, the main speaker was
Gottfried Feder
, who held a lecture on the subject of 'the breaking of interest slavery'. When Feder's lecture concluded, Adolf Hitler – who attended the meeting as part of his assignment from the German Army to watch political agitators – got involved in a heated political argument with a visitor, Professor
Adalbert Baumann
, who questioned the soundness of Feder's arguments and in turn spoke in favour of
Bavarian separatism
.
In vehemently attacking the man's arguments, Hitler made an impression on the other party members with his
oratorical
abilities, and according to him, the professor left the hall defeated.
Drexler approached Hitler and gave him a copy of his pamphlet
My Political Awakening
.
Hitler later claimed the literature reflected the ideals he already held since his own "political awakening".
Impressed with Hitler, Drexler encouraged him to join the DAP. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party.
Once accepted, Hitler began to make the party more public by drawing people in with his speaking abilities, leading up to his organizing the party's biggest meeting yet, which attracted 2,000 people to the
Hofbrauhaus
in Munich on 24 February 1920. It was in this speech that Hitler, for the first time, enunciated the
twenty-five points of the German Worker's Party's manifesto
that he had authored with Drexler and Feder.
Through these points he gave the organisation a foreign policy, including the abrogation of the
Treaty of Versailles
, a
Greater Germany
, Eastern expansion, and exclusion of Jews from citizenship.
On the same day the party was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
, NSDAP).
Following an intraparty dispute, Hitler angrily tendered his resignation on 11 July 1921. Drexler and the members of the party's governing committee realised that the resignation of their leading public figure and speaker would mean the end of the party. So
Dietrich Eckart
was asked by the Party leadership to speak with Hitler and relay the conditions in which he would agree to return.
Hitler announced he would rejoin the party on the condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, with dictatorial powers and the title of "
Fuhrer
", and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich. The committee agreed and he rejoined the party as member 3,680.
Drexler was thereafter moved to the purely symbolic position of honorary president and left the party in 1923.
Drexler was also a member of a
volkisch
political club for affluent members of Munich society known as the
Thule Society
. His membership in the Nazi Party ended when it was temporarily outlawed in 1923 following the
Beer Hall Putsch
, although Drexler had not taken part in the coup attempt. In 1924, he was elected to the Bavarian state parliament for the
Volkisch-Social Bloc
party (VSB), in which he served as vice president until 1928. He played no role in the Nazi Party's re-founding in February 1925 and rejoined only after Hitler ascended to national power in 1933.
In May 1925, he founded a group with other VSB deputies, the
Nationalsozialer Volksbund
(National Social People's League), but it was dissolved in 1927?1928.
Drexler received the Nazi Party's
Blood Order
in 1934, and was still occasionally used as a
propaganda
tool until about 1937, but was never allowed any power within the party.
Death
[
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]
Drexler died in Munich in February 1942 after a lengthy illness due to alcoholism.
References
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]
Bibliography
[
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]
- Dimuro, Gina (20 February 2018).
"Why Anton Drexler Was More Responsible for the Nazi Party Than Adolf Hitler"
.
All That's Interesting
.
- Evans, Richard J.
(2003).
The Coming of the Third Reich
. New York: Penguin Group.
ISBN
978-0-14-303469-8
.
- Hamilton, Charles (1984).
Leaders & Personalities of the Third Reich
. Vol. I. R. James Bender Publishing.
ISBN
0-912138-27-0
.
- Hitler, Adolf
(1999) [1925].
Mein Kampf
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
ISBN
978-0-395-92503-4
.
- Kershaw, Ian
(2008).
Hitler: A Biography
. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
ISBN
978-0-393-06757-6
.
- Shirer, William L.
(1960).
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
. New York: Simon & Schuster.
ISBN
978-0-671-62420-0
.
- Wistrich, Robert S.
(2002).
Who's Who in Nazi Germany
. New York, NY: Routledge.
ISBN
978-0-4152-6038-1
– via
Google Books
.
- Zentner, Christian; Bedurftig, Friedemann (1991).
The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich
. New York: Macmillan.
ISBN
0-02-897500-6
.
Further reading
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]
External links
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