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Sunday 21 August 2016

Nazi Party

 HISTORY

The German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP), which would become the Nazi Party, was founded on January 5, 1919.

Hitler's membership card in the DAP

When in 1919 Adolf Hitler  joined the the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) the predecessor of the Nazi Party, he was member number 555. However, he was only the fifty-fifth member of the party as they started counting membership at 500 to give the impression they were a much larger party.

The term National Socialist—or Nazi, for short—was added to the name of the German Workers' Party on February 24, 1920 the year after it was founded. On the day it was renamed, swiftly-rising new member Adolf Hitler outlined the party's official platform before 2,000 people, its largest audience yet.

During the Great Depression, millions of jobless voters joined the Nazi party, and in 1932 it became the largest bloc in the Reichstag.

Hitler with Nazi Party members in 1930

In the election of March 5, 1933: the Nazis received 43.9% of the popular vote and 288 seats in the Reichstag out of a total of 647 seats. It was their best ever result.

All German political parties — except the Nazi Party — were outlawed on July 14, 1933.

Hitler believed that Christianity was a religion fit only for the lowest of the low and detested its ethics. Those Protestants who were critical of the anti-Jewish totalitarian Nazi German Government were oppressed. In 1935, 700 church pastors were arrested.

There were several Nazi summer camps established across the US by the German American Bund. These camps aimed to indoctrinate young German-Americans with Nazi ideology while seemingly offering a fun summer experience with activities like swimming and crafts.

In 1939, 20,000 people attended a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Nazi Germany labor force was 25% slaves. Among the slave laborers in the occupied territories, hundreds of thousands were used by leading German corporations including Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben, Bosch, Blaupunkt, Daimler-Benz, Demag, Henschel, Junkers, Messerschmitt, Siemens, and Volkswagen.

The defeat of Germany in World War II marked the end of the Nazi Germany era. The party was formally abolished on October 10, 1945 by the Allied Control Council.

24 Nazi leaders went on trial before an international war crimes tribunal at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg on November 20, 1945. Not included were Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels, all of whom had committed suicide in the spring of 1945.

Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg trials.

George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, was shot and killed in Arlington, Virginia on August 25, 1967. Hearing of his son's death, Rockwell's father said: "I am not surprised at all. I've expected it for quite some time."

FUN FACTS

When the Nazis designated the Beer Hall Putsch site as "sacred" and made it compulsory for citizens to do the Nazi salute when passing-by, as a form of passive resistance, people would take a detour alley that is nicknamed "Shirker's Lane", bypassing the beer hall completely.

High-ranking Nazi's tried for war crimes were given IQ tests. Top score was 143.

The Nazi SS uniform was designed by Hugo Boss (1885-1948). The German fashion designer was a Nazi party member from 1931.

Victor Klemperer, Professor of Literature at the Dresden University of Technology, wrote a book that analyzed how Nazis introduced a nearly Orwellian kind of German language. Examples are: "crisis" for defeat, "connection" (Anschluss) for annexation, and "enhanced interrogation" for torture.

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