It soon became clear to Drexler, however, that this type of
activity and organization did not serve much purpose. Drexler
proposed that the Society should establish a political party to
publicize the group's political views, and win new members for
its cause. Harrer then yielded to the wishes of the majority and
on January 5, 1919, the DAP was organized. The formation of the
DAP did not immediately establish the organizational structure
of what was to become the Nazi Party. For some time the DAP existed
largely on paper, while the "political working circle"
continued its regular meetings and thus remained the real focal
point of early Nazi activities. It was only during the spring
and summer of 1919 that the party gradually eclipsed its parent
organization.
The DAP still had not found the courage to schedule public rallies,
bot Drexler and his friends invited ever-increasing numbers of
potential sympathizers. By August the party was already moderately
well known among rightist groups in Munich.It was now able to
attract as speakers at its meetings such prominent men as Gottfried
Feder, the opponent of "interest slavery," and Dietrich
Eckart, at that time publisher of the violently anti-semitic journal
Auf gut Deutsch.
As the focal point of its political activities shifted increasingly
from semi-secret discussions to quasi-public rallies, the DAP
was also forced to expand the "political working circle's"
organizational structure. Between January and September 1919 the
DAP built an organizational framework and a membership base which
were to prove an adequate foundation for the party's later rise
under Hitler. Despite Hitler's later belittling comments, the
organizational history of the early DAP was by no means without
significance. In the first eight months of 1919 Drexler had transformed
the DAP from a neglected step-child of the ''Harrer Society''
into a political group that was "ready" for Hitler.
Drexler's DAP was almost as ambitious to expand the horizons of
its political activities as was Adolf Hitler.
Both the DAP's political views and the party's decision to convey
these views to a larger public were links in the chain of events
that led Hitler to join the new party. The DAP's larger rallies
attracted the attention of the Bavarian Reichswehr authorities,
and since Hitler worked for the Reichswehr as a political indoctrination
official, he was asked to report on the activities of the new
party. By his own account, Hitler was not impressed by the organizational
acumen of the group, but he did appreciate the "good will"
he found. He undoubtedly referred to the anti-semitism which permeated
the party's political message even then. In general, the DAP's
political program was neither a unique nor a well-worked-out series
of anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, and pro-nationalist sentiments.
However, while much in the party's program remained ill-defined
and unspecified, there was never any doubt about the party's anti-semitic
views. Drexler had made the DAP's anti-Jewish attitude public
almost as soon as the party was formally organized.
Hitler joined the DAP in September 1919. With his extra-ordinary
talents as a public speaker he rose quickly in the party's organizational
hierarchy, and by the end of the year he was both chief of propaganda
and a member of the executive committee. But Hitler was not content
with his rapid promotion. On the contrary, he continued to find
a great deal to criticize in the DAP. He was appalled at the inefficient
and unbureaucratic business procedures in the party and he severely
attacked the system of intra-party democracy that characterized
the internal administration of the DAP. Like most of the groups
on the far right, the party took an ambiguous stand on the question
of democracy and parliamentarism. While it vehemently opposed
the national parliamentary system of the Weimar Republic, the
DAP's internal decision-making processes were subject to very
elaborate democratic rules.
In December Hitler proposed a thorough reform of the party's organization.
At present, he claimed, the DAP resembled a ''club'' more than
a political party. As immediate measures to tighten the party's
organizational structure, Hitler demanded the dissolution of the
organizational bonds between the DAP and the "political working
circle" and an increase in the independent decision-making
authority of the executive committee.
The DAP's old-line leadership rejected Hitler's ideas at this
time, but the proposals indicated a considerable level of political
shrewdness on Hitler's part, even at this early date. Unlike his
more timid partners in the leadership corps of the party, Hitler
had recognized that the DAP as presently constituted had no real
political future. Like so many other groups, the DAP understood
the "evils" that had led to the collapse of the empire
and the establishment of the Republic. The party had even gone
one step further and decided to impart its newly acquired knowledge
to the public at large, but neither of these activities in any
way singled out the DAP from the dozens of extreme rightist groups.
The present leadership was content with the status of one among
many.
When Hitler joined the party, the DAP's leadership regarded propaganda
activities as ends in themselves. Only Hitler looked upon public
rallies as the means to achieve a far greater end: the overthrow
of the Republic and the seizure of power by the far right. The
differing concepts of the party's future were reflected in the
divergent organizational paths of Hitler and the old leadership.
An organizational structure administered along democratic lines
would be able to plan impressive rallies but would be an ineffective
conspiratorial instrument.
For the moment, however, the gulf that separated the political
concepts of Hitler and the old guard was still bridged by their
agreement that the party's immediate task was the improvement
and expansion of its propaganda activities. Here Drexler and Hitler
formed a united front against Harrer, who quickly recognized the
futility of his opposition and resigned his party post in January.
This was undoubtedly a victory for Hitler, but he was still far
from controlling the DAP. Drexler became the new chairman, and
while he supported Hitler's views on propaganda, he was by no
means a puppet. At the time of Harrer's resignation the DAP also
obtained its first full-time staff official and a permanent central
office. The new official received the title of business manager,
and there can be little doubt that Hitler chose the first incumbent
of the office, Rudolf Schüssler. He had not only served in
the same regiment as Hitler, but the two had worked together in
the political affairs department of the Bavarian Reichswehr after
the war as well.
Although the DAP was evolving into a more efficient and bureaucratized
organization, the old leadership continued to reject Hitler's
more basic organizational reform proposals. By late spring Hitler
became convinced that the DAP would not become a centralized,
bureaucratized political party while the old leadership retained
its positions of power. If Hitler were to transform the party
into a power-centered instrument of political activity, he would
have to go outside the confines of the executive committee. Two
courses of action were open to him. He could attempt to win the
approval of the present membership for his ideas and thus force
the committee to adopt his scheme. This approach, however, held
little promise of success. The DAP's still relatively small membership
was socially and economically, a very homogeneous body. For the
most part the members came from the same social milieu as Drexler
and the old guard (indeed, many lived in Drexler's neighborhood),
so that they could be expected to share the leader's views on
party organization. It was unlikely that they would desert the
old leadership.
Hitler, however, had an alternative course of action. Since he
was the DAP's only really effective public speaker, he could use
his unrivaled talent at propaganda to dilute the present membership
with an influx of new members. The old membership would obviously
welcome the added stature that the increased membership would
bring to the DAP. At the same time it was clear to Hitler, if
not to Drexler and his friends, that a significant part of the
newly won members would join the party primarily because of Hitler's
association with it. Their first loyalty, in other words, would
be to Hitler personally, not to the DAP as an institution. Hitler
was building a following that could in time be used to overthrow
the old leadership, if Hitler chose. Beginning in early 1920,
then, Hitler began to exercise his duties as the party's propaganda
chief with new vigor.
Paradoxically, the old guard eagerly supported Hitler's efforts.
Drexler and Hitler had already laid a foundation for the new drive
by providing a more specific party program. In December he and
Hitler had drafted the later-famous twenty-five points, a politically
expedient mixture of extreme nationalism, violent anti-semitism,
vast promises to all social classes, and Feder's ideas on the
"breaking of interest slavery.'' Armed with this diet of
party goals, Hitler began late in the winter to introduce what
was really a new style of political propaganda. The DAP scheduled
its first real public rally on February 24, and other followed
quickly. From the beginning Hitler's appearances were deliberate,
unique variations on the standard themes of rightist diatribes.
Like all rightist speakers, Hitler deliberately exploited the
Bavarian fear of Bolshevik revolutions.
However, while other parties made blatant appeals for middle class
support, Hitler and the DAP emphasized their interest in the lower
and especially the urban-worker classes. The reason was not so
much a genuine interest in social questions as a far-sighted maneuver
to convince the Bavarian Reichswehr and the post-revolutionary
Bavarian government that the DAP's activities represented a significant
contribution toward the effort to build a bulwark against further
revolutionary attempts by the urban working classes. The men who
controlled the institutions of governmental power in Munich in
1919 and 1920 had no sympathy with the German Republic.
The commandant of the Reichswehr, Franz von Epp, his chief
of staff, Erst Röhm, and the Munich chief of police, Erst
Pöhner, were eager to overthrow the Republic and openly encouraged
and protected all effective ultra-nationalist movements in their
jurisdictional areas. Hitler's new style of propaganda soon attracted
their attention to the party, which sometime in 1920 began to
call itself the NSDAP, probably to give greater credibility to
the "socialist" content of its propaganda line. In December
of 1920, financial aid from the Reichswehr and Dietrich
Eckart enabled the party to purchase the Völkischer Beobachter,
until then an independent völkisch newspaper; and Erst Röhm,
an early member of the DAP, persuaded many of his fellow soldiers
to join the party. As for Pöhner, Hitler noted proudly that
"he never missed an opportunity to help and protect us."
Although in a short year Hitler had succeeded in lifting the NSDAP
above the obscure level in which he had found it in September
1919, his accomplishments must not be exaggerated. At the beginning
of 1921 neither the NSDAP nor Hitler was well known outside the
confines of Munich, and Hitler had not yet challenged the organizational
control of the old guard. Yet, slowly, imperceptibly, Hitler's
activities undermined the position of the old guard. There was
no smooth and steady loss of power on the part of the old leadership,
but in retrospect it is nevertheless clear that Hitler increasingly
gained control of the real power positions in the movement.
Thus the purchase of what became the official party newspaper,
the Völkischer Beobachter, was a very important milestone
in the organizational history of the NSDAP. Since, within the
party organizational structure, control of the paper's editorial
content obviously fell to the propaganda chief, Hitler had gained
a significant addition to his power potential at the end of 1920.
The VB became an indispensable ideological and organizational
link between the party's central leadership and its local and,
later, provincial membership. The initial circulation of the paper
at the beginning of 1921 was 11,000, and while the monthly circulation
figures varied during the year, they never dropped to less than
7,500 and even reached 17,500 in early 1922.
Hitler's increasingly prominent role in the NSDAP led to yet another
unobtrusive but significant development. Largely as a result of
Hitler's propaganda activities, a new group of unofficial leaders,
a sort of shadow leadership corps, collected around him. Dietrich
Eckart became an intimate friend and admirer of Hitler. Eckart
in turn brought Alfred Rosenberg into the party. Hermann Essler,
a man of rather shadowy and unsavory origins and habits, became
a member of the new group. Emil Gansser acted as liaison between
Hitler and wealthy potential supporters. None of these men shared
either the values or the lower-middle-class origins of the old
guard in the NSDAP. They were either upper-middle-class individuals,
like Gansser, or, more frequently, asocial demi-monde figures.
Finally there is the most obvious and yet also most significant
effect of Hitler's propaganda activities in 1920. By the end of
the year the efforts of the Hitler group had vastly increased
the party's membership, both in Munich and in the provincial areas,
and thus substantially diluted the old-line membership. The party
also expanded its network of locals in the Bavarian countryside.
The first local outside Munich was organized in Rosenheim in April
1920, and by the beginning of 1921 the party was organized in
at least ten local cities outside the Bavarian capital. Somewhat
later in the year, the party even established a local outside
Bavaria, in Mannheim.
The creation of new locals outside of Munich weakened the old
guard and strengthened Hitler. The party that assembled in Munich
for its first national congress on January 22, 1921, was a far
different organization from the backroom discussion group Hitler
had joined a little over a year before. It now had some 3,000
members; it was a respected and influential part of the extreme
right in Bavaria. The most significant factor in the membership
and organizational growth of the NSDAP was the relentless work
and magnetic personality of Adolf Hitler. The old membership had
been nearly eclipsed by the influx of Hitler's followers, and
it might have seemed logical that Hitler would use the national
congress to wrest control from the old leadership. By this time
there was certainly no lack of friction between Hitler and the
old guard. The old-line leaders and members were particularly
critical of Hitler's personal living habits, but there were also
fears that Hitler planned to become party dictator. In July 1921
the smoldering fires finally erupted into open flames.
The issue of inter-party cooperation triggered the outbreak of
open warfare between Hitler and the old guard. The NSDAP local
in Augsburg, with the full knowledge and approval of the executive
committee, negotiated an agreement of mutual cooperation with
the German Socialist Party organization in the city. From the
outset, both parties attached far more than local significance
to the agreement. On the surface, a union of the two parties seemed
logical and natural. They had largely identical programs. Nevertheless,
the old leadership of the NSDAP was not primarily interested in
creating a new and potentially stronger party. Its more immediate
and overriding aim was to deprive Hitler of much of his political
influence in the party. Hitler neither accepted the decision of
the executive committee to conclude the treaty with the DBP nor
did he attempt to convince the party leadership that its path
of action was wrong. Instead he simply resigned from the party.
On July 12, he was again an unaffiliated politician.
The executive committee's hasty, not to say panicky, response
to Hitler's resignation was unnecessary. It soon became clear
that Hitler had no intention of attempting to split the party.
Two days after he resigned, he wrote another letter setting down
his conditions for rejoining the NSDAP. He demanded that in the
future the party's organizational structure "must be unlike
those of other nationalist movements. The party must be instructed
and led in a manner that will enable it to become the sharpest
weapon in the battle against the Jewish international rulers of
our people." As for his own role in the party, Hitler demanded
his election as first chairman with "dictatorial powers."
He had not forgotten the earlier organizational proposals. A three-man
action committee, named by himself, would replace the executive
committee as the party's basic policy-making body. Members who
refused to accept his terms would be expelled from the party.
Finally, Hitler insisted that the old leadership call a special
party congress on July 20 to effect his election as chairman.
One day later the executive committee capitulated. It agreed to
accept all of Hitler's substantive demands, suggesting only a
postponement of the special congress. The total and unexpected
collapse of the anti-Hitler front was due not to Hitler's convincing
arguments, but to a split in the ranks of he old party leadership.
Drexler, to judge from the respect which Hitler accorded him after
the crisis, had personally decided to put the future of the NSDAP
into Hitler's hands. Drexler had always supported a vigorous program
of mass appeals, and rather than risk losing the party's greatest
propaganda asset, he urged the board to submit to Hitler's demands.
Hitler moved swiftly to consolidate his formal organizational
changes with a series of charismatic projections designed to transform
the NSDAP's members into disciplined Hitler loyalists. At the
July congress he had been elected chairman almost unanimously,
but this represented a vote of confidence by only five hundred
members. Apparently, Hitler and his men were effective persuaders.
For by the end of August, Munich was secure; the membership was
willing to accept Hitler as party dictator. With the Munich membership
as a solid block of support behind him, Hitler could turn his
attention to the relations between central party headquarters
and the locals outside the Bavarian capital.
Hitler selected the 1922 national party congress to confront the
provincial leaders with the living presence of his charisma. The
congress began on January 29 with a Festabend, a device the NSDAP
had frequently used to combine propaganda with entertainment.
This put the local leaders in the proper frame of mind for the
far more important session of the following day. On the afternoon
of January 30 Hitler addressed the assembled leadership corps
of the locals from outside Munich at party headquarters. In a
speech lasting two and a half hours he stressed the need for a
"tightly organized party leadership." In practice, Hitler
specified, this would mean that, while the local could remain
financially autonomous, politically they would become subordinate
to Munich. At the conclusion of the speech, the local leaders
expressed their complete confidence in Hitler and the party's
new leadership. By the end of the evening Hitler was able to institutionalize
his charismatic triumph. The congress formally amended the party's
bylaws to enable the first chairman to expel entire locals at
will.
The NSDAP of 1922 and 1923 was not a fully developed microcosm
of the stratified organizational giant of later years. Many of
Hitler's centralizing measures met with determined opposition
from the membership of the party, and many directives issued in
Munich had little immediate effect upon the day-to-day life of
the party. Nevertheless, at least in retrospect, it is clear that
the NSDAP was rapidly losing its character as a political party
led by Hitler, and was developing instead into a group of disciplined
followers willing to submit to Hitler's personal wishes and dictates.
The new atmosphere in the party was particularly apparent during
the 1923 national congress. It was in large measure a personal
victory for Hitler, and the entire atmosphere of the congress
provided an eerie (if somewhat amateurish) foretaste of the later
mammoth annual Nazi congresses. As he would so often in later
years, Hitler reviewed a parade of the SA, dedicated new flags,
and outlined the party's future path to the assembled local leaders.
There were no discussions at this congress. Hitler spoke and the
membership cheered. The party chairman had become "the honored
leader."
The 1923 congress was a mile-stone in the organizational history
of the NSDAP because it marked the beginning of Hitler's complete,
personalized control of the party's functionary corps and organizational
structure. Ever since the July crisis, Hitler had progressively
cast the members and subleaders' submission to the spell of his
personality into forms of institutionalized organizational hierarchy,
centralization, and subordination. Hitler persuaded the membership
to give up voluntarily the rights it had enjoyed under the democratic
rules of the NSDAP and to accept instead a framework of discipline
and obedience to himself. In turn he promised that his personalized
control of the NSDAP would enable the party to play a more effective
part in felling the Weimar Republic and replacing it with a Nazi-völkisch
dictatorship.
The survival of the Republic appeared very doubtful in September
1923 when Stresemann was bitterly criticized for calling off passive
resistance in the Ruhr and inflation had reached its last and
giddiest stage. The Communists were preparing to seize power,
and in the Palatinate the French-backed separatist movement was
gaining ground. Even the imperturbable Seeckt was thinking in
terms of a right-wing dictatorship.
A big anti-republican rally was held at Nuremberg on the anniversary
of the battle of Sedan (2 September) in which the 'patriotic associations'
including the S.A. took part. Among the invited guests were generals,
admirals and members of former royal houses. Some senior government
officials were also present. Altogether about 100,000 people heard
Hitler speak. On the day that Stresemann called off the passive
resistance in the Ruhr, Kahr, the former Bavarian Prime Minister
and a recognized strong man, was brought back as State Commissioner
with dictatorial powers. T
he Berlin government replied by declaring a state of emergency
throughout the Reich and conferring special powers on Lossow to
deal with the crisis in Bavaria. Lossow's military superior, Seeckt,
was the subject of a vitriolic attack in Hitler's Völkischer
Beobachter, which suggested that he was planning to make himself
a dictator. Gessler, the Reichswehr minister in Berlin, ordered
the paper to be banned. Kahr refused. Gessler then demanded Lossow's
resignation. Kahr rejected this, claiming that Lossow was his
subordinate. There was now an open breach between the two governments.
With many other problems on its hands, the Reich cabinet was unwilling,
and perhaps unable, to take a firm line with the rebellious Bavarians.
In Munich the 'patriotic associations' impatient for action, were
talking of a seizure of power in Bavaria that would be the prelude
to a similar move in Berlin, where they would instal their own
kind of regime, much more extreme than anything envisaged by Seeckt
or even by Kahr. On 24 October Lossow told the patriotic associations
that they could expect to march on Berlin in three weeks.
But Kahr was urged by Seeckt to show restraint and not to intervene
in Saxony and Thuringia, where a Socialist-Communist coalition
had come to power. The fear in Berlin was that the Bavarian Reichswehr
and 'patriots' would occupy Saxony and Thuringia on their way
north to Prussia. The central government's intervention in the
two 'red' provinces forestalled such a step. While Kahr and Lossow
waited for Berlin's next move against Bavaria, Hitler, encouraged
by Ludendorff, decided to strike. The date chosen was 9 November,
fifth anniversary of the detested revolution of 1918 and the day
after an important patriotic gathering which Kahr was to address.
The story of the abortive Munich Putsch, which first brought Hitler
into the headlines of the world's press, is well-known and can
be briefly summarized. A large patriotic gathering met in the
Bürgerbräukeller on the evening of 8 November to hear
Kahr speak. The Bavarian Prime Minister, the police chief (Colonel
von Seisser) and other members of the government and officials
were present. In the middle of the proceedings Hitler, whose storm-troops
had surrounded the hall, burst in, brandishing a revolver. Mounting
the rostrum, he fired shots at the ceiling and announced that
the governments in Munich and Berlin had been overthrown and that
a new 'National Republic' was being formed. In Bavaria he himself
would lead the new regime, with Kahr as Regent and Pöhner
as Prime Minister.
At Reich level Ludendorff was to be given command of the army
with Lossow as Minister of Defence and Seisser as Minister of
Police. Temporarily stunned by this irruption, Kahr, Lossow and
Seisser (the 'triumvirate') retired to a backroom where they agreed,
at pistol point, to Hitler's plans. In the meantime Ludendorff,
still a legendary figure, arrived on the scene and, overcoming
his surprise, gave Hitler his backing. News of the Putsch was
flashed to all wireless stations and appeared in the early morning
edition of the Munich newspapers.
But in the course of the night the 'triumvirate', having returned
to their offices and learnt that their colleagues were opposed
to the whole enterprise, decided not to take any further part
in it. News that Seeckt had been given plenary powers by the Reich
government influenced their decision. Though Röhm occupied
Army Headquarters in Munich, most public buildings remained in
the hands of the government. By midday the press carried the news
that the Putsch had failed. Ludendorff, apparently unaware of
this, and convinced that the army would not oppose a march on
Berlin, persuaded Hitler to hold a demonstration in Munich to
rally support.
On its way to the Ministry of War in the center of Munich the
procession of 2,000-3,000 Nazis found the way blocked by police.
A shot was fired, followed by a hail of bullets, and altogether
19 people (15 Nazis and 3 policemen) lost their lives. Ludendorff,
marching at the head of the column, was not fired on, but was
taken prisoner. Hitler, dragged to the ground when the man next
to him was killed, fell and broke a bone in his shoulder. He fled
and was captured two days later. Among the other wounded was Göring,
the former air ace who had commanded the S.A. since March 1923.
He escaped to Austria. Röhm at Army H.Q. capitulated.
In a situation full of ambiguities the most intriguing question
was the extent to which Kahr and Lossow were accomplices with
Hitler up to their last minute withdrawal. They had acted unconstitutionally
towards the Reich government, and their hesitations about a march
on Berlin were purely tactical, though the kind of dictatorship
they wanted would not have satisfied Hitler. Lossow declared that
he would march if he had a 51 per cent chance of success, and
Kahr's attitude, though more cautious, was basically similar.
Although the two men were not involved in the charge of high treason
that faced Hitler, they were both discredited. They had failed
to stop Hitler's obvious preparations for the Putsch, and the
assertion that their temporary assent to Hitler's plans was only
the result of duress was widely disbelieved. Kahr resigned, and
Lossow, who had disobeyed his military superiors before the Putsch,
was dismissed. Kahr's belief that he could make use of Hitler
without destroying his own position was typical of the approach
of many conservatives. Nine years later Papen was to make a similar
mistake, with more serious consequences. Kahr was to pay for his
'treachery' with his life in the blood purge of June 1934.
The trial of the accused Nazis took place in February and March
1924. Hitler accepted responsibility for what had happened, thus
attracting the limelight to himself, but he also drew attention
to the share of Kahr, Lossow and Seisser, thus embarrassing the
judges and influencing them in favour of leniency. In defending
himself he seized the opportunity to make political speeches which
were listened to respectfully by a court whose members were openly
biased in his favour. His rousing oratory, defiant, not apologetic,
was addressed to a wider audience:
The army we have formed is growing from day to day . . .
I nurse the proud hope that one day the hour will come when these
rough companies will grow to battalions, the battalions to regiments'
the regiments to divisions, when the old cockade will be taken
from the mud, when the old flags will wave again, when there will
be a reconciliation at that last great divine judgement which
we are prepared to face . . . For it is not you, gentlemen, who
will pass judgement on us. That judgement is spoken by the eternal
court of history . . . You may pronounce us guilty a thousand
times over, but the goddess of the eternal court of history will
smile and tear to shreds the brief of the State Prosecutor and
the sentence of this court. For she acquits us.
Though Hitler was not acquitted by the court which gave him such
a sympathetic hearing, its sentence of five years, detention was
in the circumstances mild enough; and in the event he served only
nine months of it. Even the Bayerischer Kurier complained of the
one-sidedness of the trial and described the day on which sentence
was passed as a black day for Bavarian justice. In prison Hitler
was treated almost as an honored guest, and given every facility
for writing his memoirs. Without the nine months in Landsberg
fortress, the world might never have had Mein Kampf. Thus Hitler
used the failure of his Putsch to lay the foundations of later
success.
A new phase began with Hitler's release from goal in December
1924. One of his first acts was to assure the Bavarian Prime Minister,
Held, of his peaceful intentions, a gesture signifying the abandonment
of violent tactics. The reward was not long in coming: in February
1926 the ban on the N.S.D.A.P., imposed after the events of November
1923, was lifted. The party was to operate within the framework
of the constitution. This had two main implications. The first
was that the S.A., hitherto a dependency of the Reichswehr, now
became an integral part of the party. Röhm, who disagreed
with the new policy, resigned and departed for South America.
The S.A. was reorganized under a new commander, a former Freikorps
man named Pfeffer von Salomon.
The other change was the decision to stand for parliament, which
was taken by Hitler with considerable reluctance and against the
wishes of many of his followers. The years 1925-6 were marked
by a general debate inside and on the fringes of the party on
aims and methods.
Source: Harold J. Gordon, Jr., Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch
(Princeton, 1972).