Thus both men were not made of stuff which would have enabled them not only to bear in their hearts fanatical faith in the victory of a movement, but also with indomitable energy and will, and if necessary with brutal ruthlessness, to sweep aside any obstacles which might stand in the path of the rising new idea. For this only beings were fitted in whom spirit and body had acquired those military virtues which can perhaps best be described as follows: swift as greyhounds, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel.At that time I myself was still a soldier. My exterior and interior had been whetted and hardened for well­nigh six years, so that at first I must have seemed strange in this circle. I, too, had forgotten how to say: ‘that’s impossible,’ or ‘it won’t work’; ‘we can’t risk that,’ ‘that is too dangerous,’ etc.For of course the business was dangerous. Little attention as the Reds paid to one of your bourgeois gossip clubs whose inner innocence and hence harmlessness for themselves theyknew better than its own members, they were determined to use every means to get rid of a movement which did seem dangerous to them. Their most effective method in such cases has at all times been terror or violence.In the year 1920, in many regions of Germany, a national meeting that dared to address its appeal to the broad masses and publicly invite attendance was simply impossible. The participants in such a meeting were dispersed and driven away with bleeding heads. Such an accomplishment, to be sure, did not require much skill: for after all the biggest so­called bourgeois mass meeting would scatter at the sight of a dozen Communists like hares running from a hound.Most loathsome to the Marxist deceivers of the people was inevitably a movement whose explicit aim was the winning of those masses which had hitherto stood exclusively in the service of the international Marxist Jewish stock exchange parties. The very name of ‘ German Workers’ Party ‘ had the effect of goading them. Thus one could easily imagine that on the first suitable occasion the conflict would begin with the Marxist inciters who were then still drunk with victory.In the small circle that the movement then was a certain fear of such a fight prevailed. The members wanted to appear in public as little as possible, for fear of being beaten up. In their mind’s eye they already saw the first great meeting smashed and go the movement finished for good. I had a hard time putting forward my opinion that we must not dodge this struggle, but prepare for it, and for this reason acquire the armament which alone offers protection against violence. Terror is not broken by the mind, but by terror. The success of the first meeting strengthened my position in this respect. We gained courage for a second meeting on a somewhat larger scale.About October, 1919, the second, larger meeting took place in the Eberlbraukeller. Topic: Brestlitovsk and Versailles. Four gentlemen appeared as speakers. I myself spoke for almost an hour and the success was greater than at the first rally. The audience had risen to more than one hundred and thirty. An attempted disturbance was at once nipped in the bud by my comrades. The diturbers flew down the stairs with gashed heads.Two weeks later another meeting took place in the same hall. The attendance had risen to over one hundred and seventy and the room was well filled. I had spoken again, and again the success was greater than at the previous meeting.I pressed for a larger hall. At length we found one at the other end of town in the ‘Deutsches Reich’ on Dachauer Strasse. The first meeting in the new hall was not so well attended as the previous one: barely one hundred and forty persons. In the committee, hopes began to sink and the eternal doubters felt that the excessive repetition of our ‘demonstrations’ had to be considered the cause of the bad attendance. There were violent arguments in which I upheld the view that a city of seven hundred thousand inhabitants could stand not one meeting every two weeks, but ten every week, that we must not let ourselves be misled by failures, that the road we had taken was the right one, and that sooner or later, with steady perseverance, success was bound to come. All in all, this whole period of winter 1919­20 was a single struggle to strengthen confidence in the victorious might of the young movement and raise it to that fanaticism of faith which can move mountains.The next meeting in the same hall showed me to be right. The attendance had risen to over two hundred; the public as well as financial success was brilliant.I urged immediate preparations for another meeting. It took place barely two weeks later and the audience rose to over two hundred and seventy heads.Two weeks later, for the seventh time, we called together the supporters and friends of the new movement and the same hall could barely hold the people who had grown to over four hundred.It was at this time that the young movement received its inner form. In the small circle there were sometimes more or less violent disputes. Various quarters­then as today­carped at designating the young movement as a party. In such a conception I have always seen proof of the critics’ practical incompetence and intellectual smallness. They were and always are the men who cannot distinguish externals from essentials, and who try to estimate the value of a movement according to the most bombastic­sounding titles, most of which, sad to say, the vocabulary of our forefathers must provide.It was hard, at that time, to make it clear to people that every movement, as long as it has not achieved the victory of its ideas, hence its goal, is a party even if it assumes a thousand different names.If any man wants to put into practical effect a bold idea whose realization seems useful in the interests of his fellow men, he will first of all have to seek supporters who are ready to fight for his intentions. And if this intention consists only in destroying the existing parties, of ending the fragmentation, the exponents of this view and propagators of this determination are themselves a party, as long as this goal has not been achieved. It is hairsplitting and shadow­boxing when some antiquated folkish theoretician, whose practical successes stand in inverse proportion to his wisdom, imagines that he can change the party character which every young movement possesses by changing this term.On the contrary.If anything is unfolkish, it is this tossing around of old Germanic expressions which neither fit into the present period nor represent anything definite, but can easily lead to seeing the significance of a movement in its outward vocabulary.This is a real menace which today can be observed on countless occasions.Altogether then, and also in the period that followed, I had to warn again and again against those deutschvolkisch wandering scholars whose positive accomplishment is always practically nil, but whose conceit can scarcely be excelled. The young movement had and still has to guard itself against an influx of people whose sole recommendation for the most part lies in their declaration that they have fought for thirty and even forty years for the same idea. Anyone who fights for forty years for a socalled idea without being able to bring about even the slightest success, in fact, without having prevented the victory of the opposite, has, with forty years of activity, provided proof of his own incapacity. The danger above all lies in the fact that such natures do not want to fit into the movement as links, but keep shooting off their mouths about leading circles in which alone, on the strength of their age­old activity, they can see a suitable place for further activity. But woe betide if a young movement is surrended to the mercies of such people. No more than a business man who in forty years of activity has steadily run a big business into the ground is fitted to be the founder of a new one, is a folkish Methuselah, who in exactly the same time has gummed up and petrified a great idea, fit for the leadership of a new, young movement!Besides, only a fragment of all these people come into the new movement to serve it, but in most cases, under its protection or through the possibilities it offers, to warm over their old cabbage They do not want to benefit the idea of the new doctrine, they only expect it to give them a chance to make humanity miserable with their own ideas. For what kind of ideas they often are, it is hard to tell.The characteristic thing about these people is that they rave about old Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes spear and shield, but in reality are the greatest cowards that can be imagined. For the same people who brandish scholarly imitations of old German tin swords, and wear a dressed bearskin with bull’s horns over their bearded heads, preach for the present nothing but struggle with spiritual weapons, and run away as fast as they can from every Communist blackjack. Posterity will have little occasion to glorify their own heroic existence in a new epic.I came to know these people too well not to feel the profoundest disgust at their miserable play­acting. But they make a ridiculous impression on the broad masses, and the Jew has every reason to spare these folkish comedians, even to prefer them to the true fighters for a coming German state. With all this, these people are boundlessly conceited; despite all the proofs of their complete incompetence, they daim to know everything better and become a real plague for all straightforward and honest fighters to whom heroism seems worth honoring, not only in the past, but who also endeavor to give posterity a similar picture by their own actions.And often it can be distinguished only with difficulty which of these people act out of inner stupidity or incompetence and which only pretend to for certain reasons. Especially with the socalled religious reformers on an old Germanic basis, I always have the feeling that they were sent by those powers which do not want the resurrection of our people. For their whole activity leads the people away from the common struggle against the common enemy, the Jew, and instead lets them waste their strength on inner religious squabbles as senseless as they are disastrous. For these very reasons the establishment of a strong central power implying the unconditional authority of a Kadership is necessary in the movement. By it alone can such ruinous elements be squelched. And for this reason the greatest enemies of a uniform, strictly led and conducted movement are to be found in the circles of these folkish wandering Jews. In the movement they hate the power that checks their mischief.Not for nothing did the young movement establish a definite program in which it did not use the word ‘folkish.’ The concept folkish, in view of its conceptual boundlessness, is no possible basis for a movement and offers no standard for membership in one. The more indefinable this concept is in practice, the more and broader interpretations it permits, the greater becomes the possibility of invoking its authority. The insertion of such an indefinable and variously interpretable concept into the political struggle leads to the destruction of any strict fighting solidarity, since the latter does not permit leaving to the individual the definition of his faith and will.And it is disgraceful to see all the people who run around today with the word ‘folkish’ on their caps and how many have their own interpretation of this concept. A Bavarian professor by the name of Bayer,l a famous fighter with spiritual weapons, rich in equally spiritual marches on Berlin, thinks that the concept folkish consists only in a monarchistic attitude. This learned mind, however, has thus far forgotten to give a closer explanation of the identity of our German monarchs of the past with the folkish opinion of today. And I fear that in this the gentleman would not easily succeed. For anything less folkish than most of the Germanic monarchic state formations can hardly be imagined. If this were not so, they would never have disappeared, or their disappearance would offer proof of the unsoundness of the folkish outlook.And so everyone shoots off his mouth about this concept as he happens to understand it. As a basis for a movement of political struggle, such a multiplicity of opinions is out of the question.I shall not even speak of the unworldliness of these folkish Saint Johns of the twentieth century or their ignorance of the popular soul. It is sufliciently illustrated by the ridicule with which they are treated by the Left, which lets them talk and iaughs at them.Anyone in this world who does not succeed in being hated by his adversaries does not seem to me to be worth much as a friend. And thus the friendship of these people for our young movement was not only worthless, but solely and always harmful, and it was also the main reason why, first of all, we chose the name of ‘party’­we had grounds for hoping that by this alone a whole swarm of these folkish sleepwalkers would be frightened away from us­and why in the second place we termed ourselves National Socialist German Workers’ Party.The first expression kept away the antiquity enthusiasts, the bigmouths and superficial proverb­makers of the so­called folkish idea,’ and the second freed us from the entire host of knights of the ‘spiritual sword,’ all the poor wretches who wield the ‘spiritual weapon’ as a protecting shield to hide their actual cowardice.It goes without saying that in the following period we were attacked hardest especially by these last, not actively, of course, but only with the pen, just as you would expect from such folkish goose­quills. For them our principle, ‘Against those who attack us with force we will defend ourselves with force,’ had something terrifying about it. They persistently reproached us, not only with brutal worship of the blackjack, but with lack of spirit as such. The fact that in a public meeting a Demosthenes can be brought to silence if only fifty idiots, supported by their voices and their fists, refuse to let him speak, makes no impression whatever on such a quack. His inborn cowardice never lets him get into such danger. For he does not work’noisily’ and ‘obtrusively,’ but in ‘silence.’Even today r cannot warn our young movement enough against falling into the net of these so­called ‘silent workers.’ They are not only cowards, but they are also always incompetents and donothings. A man who knows a thing, who is aware of a given danger, and sees the possibility of a remedy with his own eyes, has the duty and obligation, by God, not to work ‘silently,’ but to stand up before the whole public against the evil and for its cure. If he does not do so, he is a disloyal, miserable weakling who fails either from cowardice or from laziness and inability. To be sure, this does not apply at all to most of these people, for they know absolutely nothing, but behave as though they knew God knows what; they can do nothing but try to swindle the whole world with their tricks; they are lazy, but with the ‘silent’ work they claim to do, they arouse the impression of an enormous and conscientious activity; in short, they are swindlers, political crooks who hate the honest work of others. As soon as one of these folkish moths praises the darkness 1 of silence, we can bet a thousand to one that by it he produces nothing, but steals, steals from the fruits of other people’s work.To top all this, there is the arrogance and conceited effrontery with which this lazy, light­shunning rabble fall upon the work of others, trying to criticize it from above, thus in reality aiding the mortal enemies of our nationality.Every last agitator who possesses the courage to stand on a tavern table among his adversaries, to defend his opinions with manly forthrightness, does more than a thousand of these lying, treacherous sneaks. He will surely­ be able to convert one man or another and win him for the movement. It will be possible to examine his achievement and establish the effect of his activity by its results. Only the cowardly swindlers who praise their ‘silent’ work and thus wrap themselves in the protective cloak of a despicable anonymity, are good for nothing and may in the truest sense of the word be considered drones in the resurrection of ourpeople.# # At the beginning of 1920, I urged the holding of the first great mass meeting. Differences of opinion arose. A few leading party members regarded the affair as premature and hence disastrous in effect. The Red press had begun to concern itself with us and we were fortunate enough gradually to achieve its hatred. We had begun to speak in the discussions at other meetings. Of course, each of us was at once shouted down. There was, however, some success. People got to know us and proportionately as their knowledge of us deepened, the aversion and rage against us grew. And thus we were entitled to hope that in our first great mass meeting we would be visited by a good many of our friends from the Red camp.I, too, realized that there was great probability of the meeting being broken up. But the struggle had to be carried through, if not now, a few months later. It was entirely in our power to make the movement eternal on the very first day by blindly and ruthlessly fighting for it. I knew above all the mentality of the adherents of the Red side far too well, not to know that resistance to the utmost not only makes the biggest impression, but also wins supporters. And so we just had to be resolved to put up this resistance.Herr Harrer,l then first chairman of the party, felt he could not support my views with regard to the time chosen and consequently, being an honest, upright man, he withdrew from the leadership of the party. His place was taken by Herr Anton Drexler. I had reserved for myself the organization of propaganda and began ruthlessly to carry it out.And so, the date of February 4, 19202 was set for the holding of this first great mass meeting of the still unknown movement.I personally conducted the preparations. They were very brief. Altogether the whole apparatus was adjusted to make lightning decisions. Its aim was to enable us to take a position on current questions in the form of mass meetings within twenty­four hours. They were to be announced by posters and leaflets whose content was determined according to those guiding principles which in rough outlines I have set down in my treatise on propaganda. Effect on the broad masses, concentration on a few points, constant repetition of the same, self­assured and self­reliant framing of the text in the forms of an apodictic statement, greatest perseverance in distribution and patience in awaiting the effect.On principle, the color red was chosen; it is the most exciting; we knew it would infuriate and provoke our adversaries the most and thus bring us to their attention and memory whether they liked it or not.In the following period the inner fraternization in Bavaria between the Marxists and the Center as a political party was most clearly shown in the concern with which the ruling Bavarian People’s Party tried to weaken the effect of our posters on the Red working masses and later to prohibit them. If the police found no other way to proceed against them, ‘considerations of traffic’ had to do the trick, till finally, to please the inner, silent Red ally, these posters, which had given back hundreds of thousands of workers, incited and seduced by internationalism, to their German nationality, were forbidden entirely with the helping hand of a so­called German National People’s Party. As an appendix and example to our young movement, I am adding a number of these proclamations. They come from a period embracing nearly three years; they can best illustrate the mighty struggle which the young movement fought at this time. They will also bear witness to posterity of the will and honesty of our convictions and the despotism of the so­called national authorities in prohibiting, just because they personally found it uncomfortable, a nationalization which would have won back broad masses of our nationality.They will also help to destroy the opinion that there had been a national government as such in Bavaria and also document for posterity the fact that the national Bavaria of 1919, 1920, 1921 1922, 1923 was not forsooth the result of a national government, but that the government was merely forced to take consideration of a people that was gradually feeling national The governments themselves did everything to eliminate this process of recovery and to make it impossible.Here only two men must be excluded:Ernst Pohner, the police president at that tirne, and Chief Deputy frick his faithful advisor, were the only higher state officials who even then had the courage to be first Germans and then officials. Ernst Pohner was the only man in a responsible post who did not curry favor with the masses, but felt responsible to his nationality and was ready to risk and sacrifice everything, even if necessary his personal existence, for the resurrection of the German people whom he loved above all things. And for this reason he was always a troublesome thorn in the eyes of those venal officials the law of whose actions was prescribed, not by the interest of their people and the necessary uprising for its freedom, but by the boss’s orders, without regard for the welfare of the national trust confided in them.And above all he was one of those natures who, contrasting with most of the guardians of our so­called state authority, do not fear the enmity of traitors to the people and the nation, but long for it as for a treasure which a decent man must take for granted. The hatred of Jews and Marxists, their whole campaign of lies and slander, were for him the sole happiness amid the misery of our people.A man of granite honesty, of antique simplicity and German straightforwardness, for whom the words ‘Sooner dead than a slave ‘ were no phrase but the essence of his whole being. He and his collaborator, Dr. Frick, are in my eyes the only men in a state position who possess the right to be called cocreators of a national Bavaria.

Before we proceeded to hold our first mass meeting, not only did the necessary propaganda material have to be made ready, but the main points of the program also had to be put into print.

In the second volume I shall thoroughly develop the guiding principles which we had in mind, particularly in framing the program. Here I shall only state that it was done, not only to give the young movement form and content, but to make its aims understandable to the broad masses.

Circles of the so­called intelligentsia have mocked and ridiculed this and attempted to criticize it. But the soundness of our point of view at that time has been shown by the effectiveness of this program.

In these years I have seen dozens of new movements arise and thev have all vanished and evaporated without trace. A single one remains: The National Socialist German Workers’ Party. And today more than ever I harbor the conviction that people can combat it, that they can attempt to paralyze it, that petty party ministers can forbid us to speak and write, but that they will never prevent the victory of our ideas.

When not even memory will reveal the names of the entire present­day state conception and its advocates, the fundamentals of the National Socialist program will be the foundations of a coming state.

Our four months’ activities at meetings up to January, 1920, had slowly enabled us to save up the small means that we needed for printing our first leaflet, our first poster, and our program.

If I take the movement’s first large mass meeting as the conclusion of this volume, it is because by it the party burst the narrow bonds of a small club and for the first time exerted a determining infiuence on the mightiest factor of our tirne, public opinion.

I myself at that time had but one concern: Will the hall be filled, or will we speak to a yawning hall? 1 I had the unshakable l inner conviction that if the people came, the day was sure to be a great success for the young movement. And so I anxiously looked forward to that evening.

The meeting was to be opened at 7:30. At 7:15 I entered the Festsaal of the Hofbrauhaus on the Platzl in Munich, and my heart nearly burst for joy. The gigantic hall­for at that time it still seemed to me gigantic­was overcrowded with people, shoulder to shoulder, a mass numbering almost two thousand people. And above all­those people to whom we wanted to appeal had come. Far more than half the hall seemed to be occupied by Communists and Independents. They had resolved that our first demonstration would come to a speedy end.

But it turned out differently. After the first speaker had finished, I took the floor. A few minutes later there was a hail of shouts, there were violent dashes in the hall, a handful of the most faithful war comrades and other supporters battled with the disturbers, and only little by little were able to restore order.

I was able to go on speaking. After half an hour the applause slowly began to drown out the screaming and shouting. I now took up the program and began to explain it for the first time.

From minute to minute the interruptions were increasingly drowned out by shouts of applause. And when I finally submitted the twenty­five theses, point for point, to the masses and asked them personally to pronounce judgment on them, one after another was accepted with steadily mounting joy, unanimously and again unanimously, and when the last thesis had found its way to the heart of the masses, there stood before me a hall full of people united by a new conviction, a new faith, a new will.

When after nearly four hours the hall began to empty and the crowd, shoulder to shoulder, began to move, shove, press toward the exit like a slow stream, I knew that now the principles of a movement which could no longer be forgotten were moving out among the German people.

A fire was kindled from whose flame one day the sword must come which would regain freedom for the Germanic Siegfried and life for the German nation.

And side by side with the coming resurrection, I sensed that the goddess of inexorable vengeance for the perjured deed of November 9, 1919, was striding forth.

Thus slowly the hall emptied.

The movement took its course.