The Nazis' rise to power: The Beer Hall Putsch

Germany has lost The Great War. Millions of Germans have died in the war, and Germany is a country in economic and political crisis. Inflation is high, and people's money in the bank has lost its value. Half the population have no work and thousands of people are starving. Communists, socialists, and right-wing extremists are fighting in the streets, trying to seize power.

Many Germans are bitter, and believe their politicians have failed them. Outside Berlin, a wounded corporal by the name of Adolf Hitler is being discharged from a military hospital. Hitler is Austrian-born, but has been fighting for Germany in the war. Now he moves to Munich in the state of Bavaria. Hitler is thirty years old, with no work, no home, no friends.

He is disappointed about how the war ended. In 1919, Adolf Hitler joins a political group called the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - the German Labor Party. Hitler is good at talking to people and soon gets an important position in the party. On February the 24th, 1920, the party changes its name to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP). The party is called the Nazi Party.

Hitler writes a political program - a manifesto containing 25 points. He demands, among other things: That the peace agreement - The Versailles Treaty, should be scrapped, That Germany should not pay any ‘war debt’ to other countries, And that all the areas in Europe where ethnic Germans live should be united as one single country. Hitler is convinced that the Jews and Communists are to blame for Germany losing the war. He is not alone; many Germans think that too. Hitler wants to seize everything owned by Jews in Germany: their money, their businesses, and their homes.

Soon, Hitler has made himself leader of the Nazi Party. Now, he can spread his political ideas. He praises Germany, and encourages everyone to love their country. He is a nationalist. But not only that.

Hitler and the Nazis think that Germans are superior to all other folk. They are racists. He starts using an ancient symbol - the swastika - as a symbol for the party. Hitler also forms a small group, called the stormtroopers - the SA. Their job is to frighten and sabotage political opponents, as well as to protect their own politicians.

In November 1923, Hitler tries to seize power - using violence. On this evening, there’s a meeting with many politicians in a restaurant - a beer hall in Munich. Hitler and his SA-troops rush in to the restaurant. Hitler fires into the air… ...and screams: “The national revolution has begun.” But his attempt at a coup d’etat - the so called “Beer Hall Putsch” fails, and Hitler is arrested. Hitler is sentenced to five years in prison, but only serves nine months.

In the prison, he starts writing a book: Mein Kampf. Hitler dictates, and his friend and collaborator Rudolf Hess writes it down. The book is about Hitler’s childhood and upbringing, his ideas about nationalism, and how he divides humans into different ‘races’. He believes that Germans belong to a superior group of humans - the ‘Germanic race’. He believes they are part of the ‘Aryan Race’.

The Aryans are at the top on Hitler’s scale. At the bottom of the scale, Hitler puts.. the Jews. If the people in Germany haven’t yet realised how big Hitler’s Jew-hatred is, now it should be very clear. Hitler hates Jews.