Book One: The Rise of Adolf Hitler
- In the second chapter of TRFTR, Shirer picks up where the First World War leaves off.
- He begins by describing the disappointment and anger that Hitler felt in November 1918, when he and millions of others learned that Germany had lost the war.
- Hitler was appalled to hear that not only had Germany been defeated in a particularly humiliating fashion, but a democratic Republic had been proclaimed in Berlin.
- Democracy—horrors!
- Suddenly, the very face of his beloved Germany had changed, and Hitler—like many others—decided that the nation had been betrayed.
- Shirer explains that this sense of betrayal stemmed from an unsubstantiated belief that the government of the newborn Weimar Republic had forced the German Army to accept a truce rather than continue the war.
- Shirer demonstrates that the pressure to accept a truce came from the German Army itself, and not the republican government.
- The Weimar Republic was nothing more than a convenient scapegoat, he argues; but all the same, Hitler would use that scapegoat status to his own advantage in the years to come.
- As he draws this section to a close, Shirer describes Hitler's fateful decision—which he made while lying in a military hospital on the eve of the armistice—to go into politics.
- If Shmoop had a time machine, we'd go back to this moment and try our best to talk him out of it.
The Beginning of the Nazi Party
- Hitler was now thirty years old, and, as Shirer explains, he had no friends, no money, no job, and absolutely no political experience.
- He wasn't too fussed about it.
- After leaving the military hospital, Hitler decided to settle in Munich, the capital city of Bavaria.
- To give us a sense of the political climate that Hitler was heading into, Shirer explains that Bavaria had gone through a series of rapid political changes after WWI. It shifted rapidly from a monarchist state to a "People's State," then to a Communist Soviet Republic, and then to a moderate Social Democratic government that was more or less in line with the government of the Weimar Republic.
- But despite the nominal control of the Social Democrats, the real political power in Bavaria lay in the hands of the Right.
- The political right at the time consisted of the army, the monarchists, the anti-democratic conservative faction, and the demobilized soldiers who had nowhere to go and no prospects.
- Hitler himself was one of those demobilized soldiers, and the social unrest in Munich became the perfect breeding ground for his early political career.
- The would-be politician started out by using his Army connections to get a job with the Press and News Bureau of the Political Department of the German Army, and soon he was promoted to a new position as "educational officer."
- This position gave Hitler his first opportunity to develop his oratory skills, and he soon discovered that he was a very good public speaker.
- In September 1919, Hitler was sent to observe a small group that was calling itself the German Workers' Party. The existing party members persuaded Hitler to join the party and serve on its central committee.
- Shirer describes the important members of the party as a strange bunch of misfits.
- Under Hitler's new influence, Shirer explains, the German Workers' Party started to ramp up its propaganda and recruitment efforts. Slowly but surely, the would-be big-shot was building up an audience and increasing the party's public profile.
- In February 1920, the party hosted the biggest meeting it had ever held. It was organized by Hitler, natch, and it was the first time that the party had ever presented a formal program to the public.
- Less than two months later, the name of the party was officially changed to the National Socialist German Workers' Party—the "Nazi" Party for short—and its drafted party program became official too.
- Shirer explains how Hitler soon started to use of some of the political "lessons" he'd learned in Vienna.
- As Shirer argues, Hitler focused on two of those lessons in particular: he started to develop memorable iconography for the Nazi Party, and to experiment with acts of violence and aggression.
- It was during this time that the S.A.—the Nazi storm trooper (Sturmabteilung) force—was born.
- The storm troopers were originally used as bouncers, tossing out hecklers and protesters at Nazi Party meetings.
- Later, Hitler used them to attack and break up the meetings of other political parties throughout Bavaria who disagreed with them. It was during one of those attacks that Hitler himself was arrested and sentenced to three months in prison.
- Hitler served only one month of his sentence, and when he got out, he was more popular than ever.
- Shirer draws this section to a close by explaining how Hitler came up with the infamous symbol that would soon be synonymous with Nazism everywhere: the black swastika set in a white circle, glaring out from a background of scarlet red.
Advent of the "Fuehrer"
- In July 1921, Hitler took over the leadership of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
- He demanded ultimate dictatorship over the party, and some other members weren't too happy about it.
- While Hitler was out of town at a meeting they circulated a paper condemning his tyrannical move.
- It got nowhere.
- With Hitler in absolute control, that moment marked the first entrance of the "Fuehrer" into the German political scene, and Hitler's new leadership role soon brought about big changes to the Nazi Party.
- Under Hitler's direction, the Nazi Party expanded quickly. It started to rake in sponsorship and funding, and it ramped up its propaganda efforts even more. Soon, Hitler had even established a daily newspaper to preach the party line.
- Some of the other men who would soon become key party players had joined the fold by this point too: Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, and Hermann Goering.
- He then gives us the lowdown on Hitler's income during the early years of the Nazi party, 'cause who doesn't love getting the dirt on politicians' bank accounts?
- As he draws the chapter to a close, Shirer reminds us once more that the fledgling Nazi Party was taking shape during extremely tumultuous times.
- In April 1921, just a few months before Hitler took over the party, the Allies had presented Germany with a huge war reparations bill.
- The final tally boggled the minds of the German public, and it was clear to everyone that paying the bill would put a huge strain on Germany's already struggling economy.
- As you might imagine, this gave the nation another reason to feel betrayed by the Weimar Republic. The country was ripe for revolution.
- Hitler was now one of the new young leaders of the far right, and he was determined to guide the Nazi Party straight into the thick of things.