Neural stem cells (NSCs) are self-renewing, multipotent cells that firstly generate the radial glial progenitor cells that generate the neurons and glia of the nervous system of all animals during embryonic development. Some neural progenitor stem cells persist in highly restricted regions in the adult vertebrate brain and continue to produce neurons
throughout life. Differences in the size of the central nervous system
are among the most important distinctions between the species and thus
mutations in the genes that regulate the size of the neural stem cell
compartment are among the most important drivers of vertebrate
evolution.
Stem cells are characterized by their capacity to differentiate into multiple cell types. They undergo symmetric or asymmetric cell division
into two daughter cells. In symmetric cell division, both daughter
cells are also stem cells. In asymmetric division, a stem cell produces
one stem cell and one specialized cell. NSCs primarily differentiate into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes.
Brain location
In
the adult mammalian brain, the subgranular zone in the hippocampal
dentate gyrus, the subventricular zone around the lateral ventricles,
and the hypothalamus (precisely in the dorsal α1, α2 region and the
hypothalamic proliferative region, located in the adjacent median
eminence) have been reported to contain neural stem cells.
Development
In vivo origin
Neural stem cells differentiating to astrocytes (green) and sites of growth hormone receptor shown in red
Neural stem cells are more specialized than ESCs because they only generate radial glial cells that give rise to the neurons and to glia of the central nervous system (CNS). During the embryonic development of vertebrates, NSCs transition into radial glial cells (RGCs) also known as radial glial progenitor cells, (RGPs) and reside in a transient zone called the ventricular zone (VZ). Neurons are generated in large numbers by (RGPs) during a specific period of embryonic development through the process of neurogenesis, and continue to be generated in adult life in restricted regions of the adult brain. Adult NSCs differentiate into new neurons within the adult subventricular zone (SVZ), a remnant of the embryonic germinal neuroepithelium, as well as the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus.
In vitro origin
Adult NSCs were first isolated from mouse striatum in the early 1990s. They are capable of forming multipotent neurospheres when cultured in vitro. Neurospheres
can produce self-renewing and proliferating specialized cells. These
neurospheres can differentiate to form the specified neurons, glial
cells, and oligodendrocytes. In previous studies, cultured neurospheres have been transplanted into the brains of immunodeficient neonatal mice and have shown engraftment, proliferation, and neural differentiation.
Communication and migration
NSCs
are stimulated to begin differentiation via exogenous cues from the
microenvironment, or stem cell niche. Some neural cells are migrated
from the SVZ along the rostral migratory stream which contains a marrow-like structure with ependymal cells and astrocytes when stimulated. The ependymal cells and astrocytes form glial tubes used by migrating neuroblasts.
The astrocytes in the tubes provide support for the migrating cells as
well as insulation from electrical and chemical signals released from
surrounding cells. The astrocytes are the primary precursors for rapid
cell amplification. The neuroblasts form tight chains and migrate
towards the specified site of cell damage to repair or replace neural
cells. One example is a neuroblast migrating towards the olfactory bulb to differentiate into periglomercular or granule neurons which have a radial migration pattern rather than a tangential one.
Aging
Neural stem cell proliferation declines as a consequence of aging. Various approaches have been taken to counteract this age-related decline. Because FOX proteins regulate neural stem cell homeostasis, FOX proteins have been used to protect neural stem cells by inhibiting Wnt signaling.
Function
Epidermal growth factor (EGF) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) are mitogens that promote neural progenitor and stem cell growth in vitro, though other factors synthesized by the neural progenitor and stem cell populations are also required for optimal growth.
It is hypothesized that neurogenesis in the adult brain originates from
NSCs. The origin and identity of NSCs in the adult brain remain to be
defined.
During differentiation
The most widely accepted model of an adult NSC is a radial, glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive
cell. Quiescent stem cells are Type B that are able to remain in the
quiescent state due to the renewable tissue provided by the specific
niches composed of blood vessels, astrocytes, microglia,
ependymal cells, and extracellular matrix present within the brain.
These niches provide nourishment, structural support, and protection for
the stem cells until they are activated by external stimuli. Once
activated, the Type B cells develop into Type C cells, active
proliferating intermediate cells, which then divide into neuroblasts
consisting of Type A cells. The undifferentiated neuroblasts form chains
that migrate and develop into mature neurons. In the olfactory bulb,
they mature into GABAergic granule neurons, while in the hippocampus
they mature into dentate granule cells.
NSCs
have an important role during development producing the enormous
diversity of neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes in the developing
CNS. They also have important role in adult animals, for instance in
learning and hippocampal plasticity in the adult mice in addition to
supplying neurons to the olfactory bulb in mice.
Notably the role of NSCs during diseases is now being elucidated
by several research groups around the world. The responses during stroke, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson's disease
in animal models and humans is part of the current investigation. The
results of this ongoing investigation may have future applications to
treat human neurological diseases.
Neural stem cells have been shown to engage in migration and replacement of dying neurons in classical experiments performed by Sanjay Magavi and Jeffrey Macklis. Using a laser-induced damage of cortical layers, Magavi showed that SVZ neural progenitors expressing Doublecortin,
a critical molecule for migration of neuroblasts, migrated long
distances to the area of damage and differentiated into mature neurons
expressing NeuN
marker. In addition, Masato Nakafuku's group from Japan showed for the
first time the role of hippocampal stem cells during stroke in mice. These results demonstrated that NSCs can engage in the adult brain as a result of injury. Furthermore, in 2004 Evan Y. Snyder's group showed that NSCs migrate to brain tumors in a directed fashion. Jaime Imitola,
M.D and colleagues from Harvard demonstrated for the first time, a
molecular mechanism for the responses of NSCs to injury. They showed
that chemokines released during injury such as SDF-1a were responsible for the directed migration of human and mouse NSCs to areas of injury in mice.
Since then other molecules have been found to participate in the
responses of NSCs to injury. All these results have been widely
reproduced and expanded by other investigators joining the classical
work of Richard L. Sidman in autoradiography to visualize neurogenesis during development, and neurogenesis in the adult by Joseph Altman in the 1960s, as evidence of the responses of adult NSCs activities and neurogenesis during homeostasis and injury.
The search for additional mechanisms that operate in the injury
environment and how they influence the responses of NSCs during acute
and chronic disease is matter of intense research.
Research
Regenerative therapy of the CNS
Cell
death is a characteristic of acute CNS disorders as well as
neurodegenerative disease. The loss of cells is amplified by the lack of
regenerative abilities for cell replacement and repair in the CNS. One
way to circumvent this is to use cell replacement therapy via
regenerative NSCs. NSCs can be cultured in vitro as neurospheres.
These neurospheres are composed of neural stem cells and progenitors
(NSPCs) with growth factors such as EGF and FGF. The withdrawal of these
growth factors activate differentiation into neurons, astrocytes, or
oligodendrocytes which can be transplanted within the brain at the site
of injury. The benefits of this therapeutic approach have been examined
in Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and multiple sclerosis. NSPCs induce neural repair via intrinsic properties of neuroprotection and immunomodulation. Some possible routes of transplantation include intracerebral transplantation and xenotransplantation.
For neurodegenerative diseases, another transplantation therapy
arising in research is the directional induction of neural stem cells.
The direct transplantation of NCSs is limited and faces challenges due
to low survival rate and irrational differentiation. To overcome the
limitations, the direct induction of NCSs aims to manipulate the
differentiation of NCS prior to transplantation. Currently NSCs are
obtained from primary CNS tissues, the differentiation of pluripotent
stem cells (PSC) and transdifferentiation from somatic cells. Induced
NCSs can be reprogrammed from somatic cells. Hence, directional
induction takes NSCs from different sources and forces them to
differentiate into the desired neural lineage cells. An example of the
therapeutic usage of this technique is the targeted differentiation of
ventral midbrain dopaminergic (DAergenic) neurons into different models
of PD.
Current therapies for the neurodegenerative disease Parkinson’s Disease
(PD) include dopamine replacement therapy (DRT). This works to
alleviate PD symptoms, but as the disease progresses, the alleviating
mechanisms are affected in a nonlinear manner.
An alternative therapeutic approach to the transplantation of
NSPCs is the pharmacological activation of endogenous NSPCs (eNSPCs).
Activated eNSPCs produce neurotrophic factors, several treatments that
activate a pathway that involves the phosphorylation of STAT3 on the
serine residue and subsequent elevation of Hes3 expression (STAT3-Ser/Hes3 Signaling Axis) oppose neuronal death and disease progression in models of neurological disorder.
Generation of 3D in vitro models of the human CNS
Human midbrain-derived
neural progenitor cells (hmNPCs) have the ability to differentiate down
multiple neural cell lineages that lead to neurospheres as well as
multiple neural phenotypes. The hmNPC can be used to develop a 3D in vitro
model of the human CNS. There are two ways to culture the hmNPCs, the
adherent monolayer and the neurosphere culture systems. The neurosphere
culture system has previously been used to isolate and expand CNS stem
cells by its ability to aggregate and proliferate hmNPCs under
serum-free media conditions as well as with the presence of epidermal
growth factor (EGF) and fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2). Initially,
the hmNPCs were isolated and expanded before performing a 2D
differentiation which was used to produce a single-cell suspension.
This single-cell suspension helped achieve a homogenous 3D structure of
uniform aggregate size. The 3D aggregation formed neurospheres which
was used to form an in vitro 3D CNS model.
Bioactive scaffolds as traumatic brain injury treatment
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can deform the brain tissue, leading to necrosis primary damage which can then cascade and activate secondary damage such as excitotoxicity, inflammation, ischemia, and the breakdown of the blood-brain-barrier. Damage can escalate and eventually lead to apoptosis
or cell death. Current treatments focus on preventing further damage by
stabilizing bleeding, decreasing intracranial pressure and
inflammation, and inhibiting pro-apoptotic cascades. In order to repair
TBI damage, an upcoming therapeutic option involves the use of NSCs
derived from the embryonic peri-ventricular region. Stem cells can be cultured in a favorable 3-dimensional, low cytotoxic environment, a hydrogel,
that will increase NSC survival when injected into TBI patients. The
intracerebrally injected, primed NSCs were seen to migrate to damaged
tissue and differentiate into oligodendrocytes or neuronal cells that
secreted neuroprotective factors.
Galectin-1 in neural stem cells
Galectin-1
is expressed in adult NSCs and has been shown to have a physiological
role in the treatment of neurological disorders in animal models. There
are two approaches to using NSCs as a therapeutic treatment: (1)
stimulate intrinsic NSCs to promote proliferation in order to replace
injured tissue, and (2) transplant NSCs into the damaged brain area in
order to allow the NSCs to restore the tissue. Lentivirus
vectors were used to infect human NSCs (hNSCs) with Galectin-1 which
were later transplanted into the damaged tissue. The hGal-1-hNSCs
induced better and faster brain recovery of the injured tissue as well
as a reduction in motor and sensory deficits as compared to only hNSC
transplantation.
Assays
Neural stem cells are routinely studied in vitro using a method referred to as the Neurosphere Assay (or Neurosphere culture system), first developed by Reynolds and Weiss.
Neurospheres are intrinsically heterogeneous cellular entities almost
entirely formed by a small fraction (1 to 5%) of slowly dividing neural
stem cells and by their progeny, a population of fast-dividing nestin-positive progenitor cells.
The total number of these progenitors determines the size of a
neurosphere and, as a result, disparities in sphere size within
different neurosphere populations may reflect alterations in the
proliferation, survival and/or differentiation status of their neural
progenitors. Indeed, it has been reported that loss of β1-integrin
in a neurosphere culture does not significantly affect the capacity of
β1-integrin deficient stem cells to form new neurospheres, but it
influences the size of the neurosphere: β1-integrin deficient
neurospheres were overall smaller due to increased cell death and
reduced proliferation.
While the Neurosphere Assay has been the method of choice for
isolation, expansion and even the enumeration of neural stem and
progenitor cells, several recent publications have highlighted some of
the limitations of the neurosphere culture system as a method for
determining neural stem cell frequencies. In collaboration with Reynolds, STEMCELL Technologies has developed a collagen-based
assay, called the Neural Colony-Forming Cell (NCFC) Assay, for the
quantification of neural stem cells. Importantly, this assay allows
discrimination between neural stem and progenitor cells.
History
The
first evidence that neurogenesis occurs in certain regions of the adult
mammalian brain came from [3H]-thymidine labeling studies conducted by
Altman and Das in 1965 which showed postnatal hippocampal neurogenesis
in young rats. In 1989, Sally Temple described multipotent, self-renewing progenitor and stem cells in the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the mouse brain. In 1992, Brent A. Reynolds and Samuel Weiss were the first to isolate neural progenitor and stem cells from the adult striatal tissue, including the SVZ — one of the neurogenic areas — of adult mice brain tissue. In the same year the team of Constance Cepko and Evan Y. Snyder were the first to isolate multipotent cells from the mouse cerebellum and stably transfected them with the oncogenev-myc.
This molecule is one of the genes widely used now to reprogram adult
non-stem cells into pluripotent stem cells. Since then, neural
progenitor and stem cells have been isolated from various areas of the
adult central nervous system, including non-neurogenic areas, such as
the spinal cord, and from various species including humans.
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremistGerman nationalist ("Völkisch nationalist"), racist, and populistFreikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against communist uprisings in post–World War I Germany. The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeoisie, and anti-capitalism, disingenuously using socialist rhetoric to gain the support of the lower middle class; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes. The party had little popular support until the Great Depression, when worsening living standards and widespread unemployment drove Germans into political extremism.
Central to Nazism were themes of racial segregation expressed in the idea of a "people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft).
The party aimed to unite "racially desirable" Germans as national
comrades while excluding those deemed to be either political dissidents,
physically or intellectually inferior, or of a foreign race (Fremdvölkische). The Nazis sought to strengthen the Germanic people, the "Aryanmaster race", through racial purity and eugenics,
broad social welfare programs, and a collective subordination of
individual rights, which could be sacrificed for the good of the state
on behalf of the people. To protect the supposed purity and strength of
the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to disenfranchise, segregate, and
eventually exterminateJews, Romani, Slavs, the physically and mentally disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and political opponents. The persecution reached its climax when the party-controlled German state set in motion the Final Solution – an industrial system of genocide that carried out mass murders of around 6 million Jews and millions of other targeted victims in what has become known as the Holocaust.
Following the military defeat of Germany in World War II, the party was declared illegal. The Allies attempted to purge German society of Nazi elements in a process known as denazification. Several top leaders were tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trials,
and executed. The use of symbols associated with the party is still
outlawed in many European countries, including Germany and Austria.
Name
The renaming of the German Worker's Party
(DAP) to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) was
partially driven by a desire to draw upon both left-wing and right-wing
ideals, with "Socialist" and "Workers'" appealing to the left, and
"National" and "German" appealing to the right. Nazi, the informal and originally derogatory term for a party member, abbreviates the party's name (Nationalsozialist[natsi̯oˈnaːlzotsi̯aˌlɪst]), and was coined in analogy with Sozi (pronounced [ˈzoːtsiː]), an abbreviation of Sozialdemokrat (member of the rival Social Democratic Party of Germany).Members of the party referred to themselves as Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists), but some did occasionally embrace the colloquial Nazi (so Leopold von Mildenstein in his article series Ein Nazi fährt nach Palästina published in Der Angriff in 1934). The term Parteigenosse (party member) was commonly used among Nazis, with its corresponding feminine form Parteigenossin.
Before the rise of the party, these terms had been used as colloquial and derogatory words for a backward peasant, or an awkward and clumsy person. It derived from Ignaz, a shortened version of Ignatius, which was a common name in the Nazis' home region of Bavaria. Opponents seized on this, and the long-existing Sozi, to attach a dismissive nickname to the National Socialists.
In 1933, when Adolf Hitler
assumed power in the German government, the usage of "Nazi" diminished
in Germany, although Austrian anti-Nazis continued to use the term. The use of "Nazi Germany"
and "Nazi regime" was popularised by anti-Nazis and German exiles
abroad. Thereafter, the term spread into other languages and eventually
was brought back to Germany after World War II. In English, the term is not considered slang and has such derivatives as Nazism and denazification.
History
Origins and early years: 1918–1923
The Nazi Party grew out of smaller political groups with a nationalist orientation that formed in the last years of World War I. In 1918, a league called the Freier Arbeiterausschuss für einen guten Frieden (Free Workers' Committee for a good Peace) was created in Bremen, Germany. On 7 March 1918, Anton Drexler, an avid German nationalist, formed a branch of this league in Munich. Drexler was a local locksmith who had been a member of the militarist Fatherland Party during World War I and was bitterly opposed to the armistice
of November 1918 and the revolutionary upheavals that followed. Drexler
followed the views of militant nationalists of the day, such as
opposing the Treaty of Versailles, having antisemitic,
anti-monarchist and anti-Marxist views, as well as believing in the
superiority of Germans whom they claimed to be part of the Aryan "master race" (Herrenvolk).
However, he also accused international capitalism of being a
Jewish-dominated movement and denounced capitalists for war profiteering
in World War I. Drexler saw the political violence and instability in Germany as the result of the Weimar Republic being out-of-touch with the masses, especially the lower classes. Drexler emphasised the need for a synthesis of völkisch nationalism with a form of economic socialism, in order to create a popular nationalist-oriented workers' movement that could challenge the rise of communism and internationalist politics. These were all well-known themes popular with various Weimar paramilitary groups such as the Freikorps.
Nazi Party badge emblem
Drexler's movement received attention and support from some influential figures. Supporter Dietrich Eckart, a well-to-do journalist, brought military figure Felix Graf von Bothmer, a prominent supporter of the concept of "national socialism", to address the movement. Later in 1918, Karl Harrer (a journalist and member of the Thule Society) convinced Drexler and several others to form the Politischer Arbeiter-Zirkel (Political Workers' Circle). The members met periodically for discussions with themes of nationalism and racism directed against Jewish people.
In December 1918, Drexler decided that a new political party should be
formed, based on the political principles that he endorsed, by combining
his branch of the Workers' Committee for a good Peace with the
Political Workers' Circle.
On 5 January 1919, Drexler created a new political party and
proposed it should be named the "German Socialist Workers' Party", but
Harrer objected to the term "socialist"; so the term was removed and the
party was named the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP).
To ease concerns among potential middle-class supporters, Drexler made
clear that unlike Marxists the party supported the middle-class and that
its socialist policy was meant to give social welfare to German citizens deemed part of the Aryan race. They became one of many völkisch movements that existed in Germany. Like other völkisch groups, the DAP advocated the belief that through profit-sharing instead of socialisation Germany should become a unified "people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft) rather than a society divided along class and party lines. This ideology was explicitly antisemitic. As early as 1920, the party was raising money by selling a tobacco called Anti-Semit.
From the outset, the DAP was opposed to non-nationalist political movements, especially on the left, including the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Members of the DAP saw themselves as fighting against "Bolshevism" and anyone considered a part of or aiding so-called "international Jewry". The DAP was also deeply opposed to the Treaty of Versailles.
The DAP did not attempt to make itself public and meetings were kept in
relative secrecy, with public speakers discussing what they thought of
Germany's present state of affairs, or writing to like-minded societies in Northern Germany.
NSDAP membership book
The DAP was a comparatively small group with fewer than 60 members.
Nevertheless, it attracted the attention of the German authorities, who
were suspicious of any organisation that appeared to have subversive
tendencies. In July 1919, while stationed in Munich, army GefreiterAdolf Hitler was appointed a Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance unit) of the Reichswehr (army) by Captain Mayr, the head of the Education and Propaganda Department (Dept Ib/P) in Bavaria. Hitler was assigned to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the DAP. While Hitler was initially unimpressed by the meetings and found them disorganised, he enjoyed the discussion that took place. While attending a party meeting on 12 September 1919 at Munich's Sterneckerbräu, Hitler became involved in a heated argument with a visitor, Professor Baumann, who questioned the soundness of Gottfried Feder's arguments against capitalism; Baumann proposed that Bavaria should break away from Prussia and found a new South German nation with Austria.
In vehemently attacking the man's arguments, Hitler made an impression
on the other party members with his oratorical skills; according to
Hitler, the "professor" left the hall acknowledging unequivocal defeat. Drexler encouraged him to join the DAP. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party
and within a week was accepted as party member 555 (the party began
counting membership at 500 to give the impression they were a much
larger party). Among the party's earlier members were Ernst Röhm of the Army's District Command VII; Dietrich Eckart, who has been called the spiritual father of National Socialism; then-University of Munich student Rudolf Hess; Freikorps soldier Hans Frank; and Alfred Rosenberg, often credited as the philosopher of the movement. All were later prominent in the Nazi regime.
Hitler later claimed to be the seventh party member. He was, in
fact, the seventh executive member of the party's central committee and he would later wear the Golden Party Badge number one. Anton Drexler drafted a letter to Hitler in 1940—which was never sent—that contradicts Hitler's later claim:
No one knows better than you
yourself, my Führer, that you were never the seventh member of the
party, but at best the seventh member of the committee... And a few
years ago I had to complain to a party office that your first proper
membership card of the DAP, bearing the signatures of Schüssler and
myself, was falsified, with the number 555 being erased and number 7
entered.
Although Hitler initially wanted to form his own party, he claimed to
have been convinced to join the DAP because it was small and he could
eventually become its leader.
He consequently encouraged the organisation to become less of a
debating society, which it had been previously, and more of an active
political party. Normally, enlisted army personnel were not allowed to join political parties. In this case, Hitler had Captain Karl Mayr's
permission to join the DAP. Further, Hitler was allowed to stay in the
army and receive his weekly pay of 20 gold marks a week.
Unlike many other members of the organisation, this continued
employment provided him with enough money to dedicate himself more fully
to the DAP.
Hitler's first DAP speech was held in the Hofbräukeller on 16 October 1919. He was the second speaker of the evening, and spoke to 111 people. Hitler later declared that this was when he realised he could really "make a good speech".
At first, Hitler spoke only to relatively small groups, but his
considerable oratory and propaganda skills were appreciated by the party
leadership. With the support of Anton Drexler, Hitler became chief of
propaganda for the party in early 1920. Hitler began to make the party more public, and organised its biggest meeting yet of 2,000 people on 24 February 1920 in the Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München. Such was the significance of this particular move in publicity that Karl Harrer resigned from the party in disagreement. It was in this speech that Hitler enunciated the twenty-five points of the German Workers' Party manifesto that had been drawn up by Drexler, Feder and himself. Through these points he gave the organisation a much bolder stratagem with a clear foreign policy (abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles, a Greater Germany, Eastern expansion and exclusion of Jews from citizenship) and among his specific points were: confiscation of war profits,
abolition of unearned incomes, the State to share profits of land and
land for national needs to be taken away without compensation. In general, the manifesto was antisemitic, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, anti-Marxist and anti-liberal. To increase its appeal to larger segments of the population, on the same day as Hitler's Hofbräuhaus speech on 24 February 1920, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ("National Socialist German Workers' Party", or Nazi Party).
The name was intended to draw upon both left-wing and right-wing
ideals, with "Socialist" and "Workers'" appealing to the left, and
"National" and "German" appealing to the right. The word "Socialist" was added by the party's executive committee (at the suggestion of Rudolf Jung), over Hitler's initial objections, in order to help appeal to left-wing workers.
In 1920, the Nazi Party officially announced that only persons of "pure Aryan descent [rein arischer Abkunft]"
could become party members and if the person had a spouse, the spouse
also had to be a "racially pure" Aryan. Party members could not be
related either directly or indirectly to a so-called "non-Aryan". Even before it had become legally forbidden by the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, the Nazis banned sexual relations and marriages between party members and Jews. Party members found guilty of Rassenschande ("racial defilement") were persecuted heavily. Some members were even sentenced to death.
Hitler quickly became the party's most active orator, appearing
in public as a speaker 31 times within the first year after his
self-discovery. Crowds began to flock to hear his speeches. Hitler always spoke about the same subjects: the Treaty of Versailles and the Jewish question. This deliberate technique and effective publicising of the party contributed significantly to his early success,
about which a contemporary poster wrote: "Since Herr Hitler is a
brilliant speaker, we can hold out the prospect of an extremely exciting
evening". Over the following months, the party continued to attract new members, while remaining too small to have any real significance in German politics. By the end of the year, party membership was recorded at 2,000,
many of whom Hitler and Röhm had brought into the party personally, or
for whom Hitler's oratory had been their reason for joining.
Hitler's membership card in the DAP (later NSDAP). The membership number (7) was altered from the original.
Hitler's talent as an orator and his ability to draw new members,
combined with his characteristic ruthlessness, soon made him the
dominant figure. However, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising
trip to Berlin in June 1921, a mutiny broke out within the party in
Munich. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the
rival German Socialist Party (DSP).
Upon returning to Munich on 11 July, Hitler angrily tendered his
resignation. The committee members realised that his resignation would
mean the end of the party.
Hitler announced he would rejoin on condition that he would replace
Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain
in Munich.
The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26 July as member
3,680. Hitler continued to face some opposition within the NSDAP, as his
opponents had Hermann Esser expelled from the party and they printed 3,000 copies of a pamphlet attacking Hitler as a traitor to the party. In the following days, Hitler spoke to several packed houses and defended himself and Esser to thunderous applause.
Hitler's strategy proved successful; at a special party congress
on 29 July 1921, he replaced Drexler as party chairman by a vote of 533to1. The committee was dissolved, and Hitler was granted nearly absolute powers in the party as its sole leader. He would hold the post for the remainder of his life. Hitler soon acquired the title Führer ("leader") and after a series of sharp internal conflicts it was accepted that the party would be governed by the Führerprinzip
("leader principle"). Under this principle, the party was a highly
centralised entity that functioned strictly from the top down, with
Hitler at the apex. Hitler saw the party as a revolutionary
organisation, whose aim was the overthrow of the Weimar Republic, which he saw as controlled by the socialists, Jews and the "November criminals", a term invented to describe alleged elements of society who had 'betrayed the German soldiers' in 1918. The SA
("storm troopers", also known as "Brownshirts") were founded as a party
militia in 1921 and began violent attacks on other parties.
For Hitler, the twin goals of the party were always German nationalist expansionism and antisemitism.
These two goals were fused in his mind by his belief that Germany's
external enemies—Britain, France and the Soviet Union—were controlled by
the Jews and that Germany's future wars of national expansion would
necessarily entail a war of annihilation against them. For Hitler and his principal lieutenants, national and racial issues
were always dominant. This was symbolised by the adoption as the party
emblem of the swastika. In German nationalist circles, the swastika was considered a symbol of an "Aryan race" and it symbolised the replacement of the Christian Cross with allegiance to a National Socialist State.
The Nazi Party grew significantly during 1921 and 1922, partly
through Hitler's oratorical skills, partly through the SA's appeal to
unemployed young men, and partly because there was a backlash against
socialist and liberal politics in Bavaria as Germany's economic problems
deepened and the weakness of the Weimar regime became apparent. The
party recruited former World War I soldiers, to whom Hitler as a
decorated frontline veteran could particularly appeal, as well as small
businessmen and disaffected former members of rival parties. Nazi
rallies were often held in beer halls, where downtrodden men could get
free beer. The Hitler Youth was formed for the children of party members. The party also formed groups in other parts of Germany. Julius Streicher in Nuremberg was an early recruit and became editor of the racist magazine Der Stürmer. In December 1920, the Nazi Party had acquired a newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, of which its leading ideologist Alfred Rosenberg became editor. Others to join the party around this time were Heinrich Himmler and World War I flying ace Hermann Göring.
Adoption of Italian fascism: The Beer Hall Putsch
On 31 October 1922, a fascist party with similar policies and objectives came into power in Italy, the National Fascist Party, under the leadership of the charismatic Benito Mussolini.
The Fascists, like the Nazis, promoted a national rebirth of their
country, as they opposed communism and liberalism; appealed to the
working-class; opposed the Treaty of Versailles;
and advocated the territorial expansion of their country. Hitler was
inspired by Mussolini and the Fascists, beginning to adopt elements of
their program for the Nazi Party and himself. The Italian Fascists also used a straight-armed Roman salute and wore black-shirted uniforms; Hitler would later borrow their use of the straight-armed salute as a Nazi salute.
When the Fascists took control of Italy through their coup d'état called the "March on Rome", Hitler began planning his own coup less than a month later. In January 1923, France occupied the Ruhr industrial region as a result of Germany's failure to meet its reparations payments. This led to economic chaos, the resignation of Wilhelm Cuno's
government and an attempt by the German Communist Party (KPD) to stage a
revolution. The reaction to these events was an upsurge of nationalist
sentiment. Nazi Party membership grew sharply to about 20,000, compared to the approximate 6,000 at the beginning of 1923. By November 1923, Hitler had decided that the time was right for an attempt to seize power in Munich, in the hope that the Reichswehr
(the post-war German military) would mutiny against the Berlin
government and join his revolt. In this, he was influenced by former
General Erich Ludendorff, who had become a supporter—though not a member—of the Nazis.
On the night of 8 November, the Nazis used a patriotic rally in a Munich beer hall to launch an attempted putsch ("coup d'état"). This so-called Beer Hall Putsch attempt failed almost at once when the local Reichswehr
commanders refused to support it. On the morning of 9 November, the
Nazis staged a march of about 2,000 supporters through Munich in an
attempt to rally support. The two groups exchanged fire, after which 15
putschists, four police officers, and a bystander lay dead.Hitler, Ludendorff and a number of others were arrested and were tried
for treason in March 1924. Hitler and his associates were given very
lenient prison sentences. While Hitler was in prison, he wrote his
semi-autobiographical political manifesto Mein Kampf ("My Struggle").
The Nazi Party was banned on 9 November 1923; however, with the support of the nationalist Völkisch-Social Bloc (Völkisch-Sozialer Block), it continued to operate under the name "German Party" (Deutsche Partei or DP) from 1924 to 1925. The Nazis failed to remain unified in the DP, as in the north, the right-wing Volkish nationalist supporters of the Nazis moved to the new German Völkisch Freedom Party, leaving the north's left-wing Nazi members, such as Joseph Goebbels retaining support for the party.
"Rise of Nazism" redirects here. For the culmination of the rise, see Nazi seizure of power.
Hitler with Nazi Party members in 1930
Pardoned by the Bavarian Supreme Court, Hitler was released from
prison on 20 December 1924, against the state prosecutor's objections.
On 16 February 1925, Hitler convinced the Bavarian authorities to lift
the ban on the NSDAP and the party was formally refounded on 26 February
1925, with Hitler as its undisputed leader. It was at this time Hitler
began referring to himself as "der Führer".
The new Nazi Party was no longer a paramilitary organisation and
disavowed any intention of taking power by force. In any case, the
economic and political situation had stabilised and the extremist
upsurge of 1923 had faded, so there was no prospect of further
revolutionary adventures. Instead, Hitler intended to alter the party's
strategy to achieving power through what he called the "path of
legality".[92] The Nazi Party of 1925 was divided into the "Leadership Corps" (Korps der politischen Leiter) appointed by Hitler and the general membership (Parteimitglieder).
The party and the SA were kept separate and the legal aspect of the
party's work was emphasised. In a sign of this, the party began to admit
women. The SA and the SS members (the latter founded in 1925 as Hitler's bodyguard, and known originally as the Schutzkommando) had to all be regular party members.
In the 1920s the Nazi Party expanded beyond its Bavarian base. At
this time, it began surveying voters in order to determine what they
were dissatisfied with in Germany, allowing Nazi propaganda to be
altered accordingly. Catholic Bavaria maintained its right-wing nostalgia for a Catholic monarch; and Westphalia,
along with working-class "Red Berlin", were always the Nazis' weakest
areas electorally, even during the Third Reich itself. The areas of
strongest Nazi support were in rural Protestant areas such as Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pomerania and East Prussia. Depressed working-class areas such as Thuringia also produced a strong Nazi vote, while the workers of the Ruhr and Hamburg largely remained loyal to the Social Democrats, the Communist Party of Germany or the Catholic Centre Party. Nuremberg remained a Nazi Party stronghold, and the first Nuremberg Rally
was held there in 1927. These rallies soon became massive displays of
Nazi paramilitary power and attracted many recruits. The Nazis'
strongest appeal was to the lower middle-classes—farmers, public
servants, teachers and small businessmen—who had suffered most from the
inflation of the 1920s, so who feared Bolshevism more than anything
else. The small business class was receptive to Hitler's antisemitism,
since it blamed Jewish big business for its economic problems.
University students, disappointed at being too young to have served in
the War of 1914–1918 and attracted by the Nazis' radical rhetoric, also
became a strong Nazi constituency. By 1929, the party had 130,000
members.
The party's nominal Deputy Leader was Rudolf Hess, but he had no real power in the party. By the early 1930s, the senior leaders of the party after Hitler were Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring. Beneath the Leadership Corps were the party's regional leaders, the Gauleiters, each of whom commanded the party in his Gau ("region"). Goebbels began his ascent through the party hierarchy as Gauleiter of Berlin-Brandenburg in 1926. Streicher was Gauleiter of Franconia, where he published his antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer. Beneath the Gauleiter were lower-level officials, the Kreisleiter ("county leaders"), Zellenleiter ("cell leaders") and Blockleiter
("block leaders"). This was a strictly hierarchical structure in which
orders flowed from the top and unquestioning loyalty was given to
superiors. Only the SA retained some autonomy. Being composed largely of
unemployed workers, many SA men took the Nazis' socialist rhetoric
seriously. At this time, the Hitler salute (borrowed from the Italian fascists) and the greeting "Heil Hitler!" were adopted throughout the party.
Nazi Party election poster used in Vienna in 1930 (translation: "We demand freedom and bread")
The Nazis contested elections to the national parliament (the Reichstag) and to the state legislature (the Landtage) from 1924, although at first with little success. The "National Socialist Freedom Movement" polled 3% of the vote in the December 1924 Reichstag elections and this fell to 2.6% in 1928.
State elections produced similar results. Despite these poor results
and despite Germany's relative political stability and prosperity during
the later 1920s, the Nazi Party continued to grow. This was partly
because Hitler, who had no administrative ability, left the party
organisation to the head of the secretariat, Philipp Bouhler, the party treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz and business manager Max Amann. The party had a capable propaganda head in Gregor Strasser,
who was promoted to national organizational leader in January 1928.
These men gave the party efficient recruitment and organizational
structures. The party also owed its growth to the gradual fading away of
competitor nationalist groups, such as the German National People's Party
(DNVP). As Hitler became the recognised head of the German
nationalists, other groups declined or were absorbed. In the late 1920s,
seeing the party's lack of breakthrough into the mainstream, Goebbels
proposed that instead of focusing all of their propaganda in major
cities where there was competition from other political movements, they
should instead begin holding rallies in rural areas where they would be
more effective.
Despite these strengths, the Nazi Party might never have come to power had it not been for the Great Depression
and its effects on Germany. By 1930, the German economy was beset with
mass unemployment and widespread business failures. The Social Democrats
and Communists were bitterly divided and unable to formulate an
effective solution: this gave the Nazis their opportunity and Hitler's
message, blaming the crisis on the Jewish financiers and the Bolsheviks, resonated with wide sections of the electorate. At the September 1930 Reichstag elections, the Nazis won 18% of the votes and became the second-largest party in the Reichstag
after the Social Democrats. Hitler proved to be a highly effective
campaigner, pioneering the use of radio and aircraft for this purpose.
His dismissal of Strasser and his appointment of Goebbels as the party's
propaganda chief were major factors. While Strasser had used his
position to promote his own leftish version of national socialism,
Goebbels was completely loyal to Hitler, and worked only to improve
Hitler's image.
The 1930 elections changed the German political landscape by
weakening the traditional nationalist parties, the DNVP and the DVP,
leaving the Nazis as the chief alternative to the discredited Social
Democrats and the Zentrum, whose leader, Heinrich Brüning,
headed a weak minority government. The inability of the democratic
parties to form a united front, the self-imposed isolation of the
Communists and the continued decline of the economy, all played into
Hitler's hands. He now came to be seen as de facto leader of the opposition and donations poured into the Nazi Party's coffers. Some major business figures, such as Fritz Thyssen, were Nazi supporters and gave generously and some Wall Street figures were allegedly involved,
but many other businessmen were suspicious of the extreme nationalist
tendencies of the Nazis and preferred to support the traditional
conservative parties instead.[99]
In 1930, as the price for joining a coalition government of the Land (state) of Thuringia, the Nazi Party received the state ministries of the Interior and Education. On 23 January 1930, Wilhelm Frick was appointed to these ministries, becoming the first Nazi to hold a ministerial-level post at any level in Germany.
German NSDAP Donation Token 1932, Free State of Prussia elections
In 1931 the Nazi Party altered its strategy to engage in perpetual
campaigning across the country, even outside of election time. During 1931 and into 1932, Germany's political crisis deepened. Hitler ran for president against the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg
in March 1932, polling 30% in the first round and 37% in the second
against Hindenburg's 49% and 53%. By now the SA had 400,000 members and
its running street battles with the SPD and Communist paramilitaries
(who also fought each other) reduced some German cities to combat zones.
Paradoxically, although the Nazis were among the main instigators of
this disorder, part of Hitler's appeal to a frightened and demoralised
middle class was his promise to restore law and order. Overt
antisemitism was played down in official Nazi rhetoric, but was never
far from the surface. Germans voted for Hitler primarily because of his
promises to revive the economy (by unspecified means), to restore German
greatness and overturn the Treaty of Versailles and to save Germany from communism. On 24 April 1932, the Free State of Prussia elections to the Landtag resulted in 36% of the votes and 162 seats for the NSDAP.
On 20 July 1932, the Prussian government was ousted by a coup, the Preussenschlag; a few days later at the July 1932 Reichstag election
the Nazis made another leap forward, polling 37% and becoming the
largest party in parliament by a wide margin. Furthermore, the Nazis and
the Communists between them won 52% of the vote and a majority of
seats. Since both parties opposed the established political system and
neither would join or support any ministry, this made the formation of a
majority government impossible. The result was weak ministries
governing by decree. Under Comintern directives, the Communists maintained their policy of treating the Social Democrats as the main enemy, calling them "social fascists", thereby splintering opposition to the Nazis. Later, both the Social Democrats and the Communists accused each other of having facilitated Hitler's rise to power by their unwillingness to compromise.
Chancellor Franz von Papen called another Reichstag
election in November, hoping to find a way out of this impasse. The
electoral result was the same, with the Nazis and the Communists winning
50% of the vote between them and more than half the seats, rendering
this Reichstag
no more workable than its predecessor. However, support for the Nazis
had fallen to 33.1%, suggesting that the Nazi surge had passed its
peak—possibly because the worst of the Depression had passed, possibly
because some middle-class voters had supported Hitler in July as a
protest, but had now drawn back from the prospect of actually putting
him into power. The Nazis interpreted the result as a warning that they
must seize power before their moment passed. Had the other parties
united, this could have been prevented, but their shortsightedness made a
united front impossible. Papen, his successor Kurt von Schleicher and the nationalist press magnate Alfred Hugenberg
spent December and January in political intrigues that eventually
persuaded President Hindenburg that it was safe to appoint Hitler as
Reich Chancellor, at the head of a cabinet including only a minority of
Nazi ministers—which he did on 30 January 1933.
Ascension and consolidation
Reichsparteitag (Nuremberg Rally): Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler and SA-leader Ernst Röhm, August 1933
In Mein Kampf, Hitler directly attacked both left-wing and right-wing politics in Germany. However, a majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as being a far-right form of politics.[When asked in an interview in 1934 whether the Nazis were "bourgeois
right-wing" as alleged by their opponents, Hitler responded that Nazism
was not exclusively for any class and indicated that it favoured neither
the left nor the right, but preserved "pure" elements from both "camps"
by stating: "From the camp of bourgeois tradition, it takes national
resolve, and from the materialism of the Marxist dogma, living, creative
Socialism".
The votes that the Nazis received in the 1932 elections
established the Nazi Party as the largest parliamentary faction of the
Weimar Republic government. Hitler was appointed as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.
The Reichstag fire
on 27 February 1933 gave Hitler a pretext for suppressing his political
opponents. The following day he persuaded the Reich's President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended most civil liberties. The NSDAP won the parliamentary election on 5 March 1933
with 44% of votes, but failed to win an absolute majority. After the
election, hundreds of thousands of new members joined the party for
opportunistic reasons, most of them civil servants and white-collar
workers. They were nicknamed the "casualties of March" (German: Märzgefallenen) or "March violets" (German: Märzveilchen). To protect the party from too many non-ideological turncoats who were viewed by the so-called "old fighters" (alte Kämpfer) with some mistrust, the party issued a freeze on admissions that remained in force from May 1933 to 1937.
On 23 March, the parliament passed the Enabling Act of 1933,
which gave the cabinet the right to enact laws without the consent of
parliament. In effect, this gave Hitler dictatorial powers. Now
possessing virtually absolute power, the Nazis established totalitarian control as they abolished labour unions and other political parties and imprisoned their political opponents, first at wilde Lager, improvised camps, then in concentration camps. Nazi Germany had been established, yet the Reichswehr remained impartial. Nazi power over Germany remained virtual, not absolute.
After taking power: intertwining of party and state
The Nazis embarked on a campaign of Gleichschaltung
(coordination) to exert their control over all aspects of German
government and society. During June and July 1933, all competing parties
were either outlawed or dissolved themselves and subsequently the Law Against the Formation of Parties of 14 July 1933 legally established the Nazi Party's monopoly. On 1 December 1933, the Law to Secure the Unity of Party and State entered into force, which was the base for a progressive intertwining of party structures and state apparatus. By this law, the SA—actually a party division—was given quasi-governmental authority and their Stabschef became a cabinet minister without portfolio. By virtue of the 30 January 1934 Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich, the Länder (states) lost their sovereignty and were demoted to administrative divisions of the Reich government. Effectively, they lost most of their power to the Gaue
that were originally just regional divisions of the party, but took
over most competencies of the state administration in their respective
sectors.
During the Röhm Purge
of 30 June to 2 July 1934 (also known as the "Night of the Long
Knives"), Hitler disempowered the SA's leadership—most of whom belonged
to the Strasserist (national revolutionary) faction within the NSDAP—and ordered them killed. He accused them of having conspired to stage a coup d'état,
but it is believed that this was only a pretense to justify the
suppression of any intraparty opposition. The purge was executed by the
SS, assisted by the Gestapo and Reichswehr units. Aside from Strasserist
Nazis, they also murdered anti-Nazi conservative figures like former
chancellor von Schleicher.
After this, the SA continued to exist but lost much of its importance,
while the role of the SS grew significantly. Formerly only a
sub-organisation of the SA, it was made into a separate organisation of
the NSDAP in July 1934.
Upon the death of President Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, Hitler
merged the offices of party leader, head of state and chief of
government in one, taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler by passage of the Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich. The Chancellery of the Führer,
officially an organisation of the Nazi Party, took over the functions
of the Office of the President (a government agency), blurring the
distinction between structures of party and state even further. The SS
increasingly exerted police functions, a development which was formally
documented by the merger of the offices of Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police on 17 June 1936, as the position was held by Heinrich Himmler who derived his authority directly from Hitler. The Sicherheitsdienst
(SD, formally the "Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS") that had
been created in 1931 as an intraparty intelligence became the de facto intelligence agency of Nazi Germany. It was put under the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939, which then coordinated SD, Gestapo and criminal police, therefore functioning as a hybrid organisation of state and party structures.
Officially, Nazi Germany lasted only 12 years. The Instrument of Surrender was signed by representatives of the German High Command at Berlin, on 8 May 1945, when the war ended in Europe. The party was formally abolished on 10 October 1945 by the Allied Control Council, followed by the process of denazification along with trials of major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg. Part of the Potsdam Agreement called for the destruction of the Nazi Party alongside the requirement for the reconstruction of the German political life.
In addition, the Control Council Law no. 2 Providing for the
Termination and Liquidation of the Nazi Organization specified the
abolition of 52 other Nazi affiliated and supervised organisations and
outlawed their activities. The denazification was carried out in Germany and continued until the onset of the Cold War.
Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazi Party led regime, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, was responsible for the deaths of at least eleven million people, including 5.5 to 6 million Jews (representing two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe), and between 200,000 and 1,500,000 Romani people. The estimated total number includes the killing of nearly two million non-Jewish Poles, over three million Soviet prisoners of war, communists, and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled.
The National Socialist Programme was a formulation of the policies of
the party. It contained 25 points and is therefore also known as the
"25-point plan" or "25-point programme". It was the official party
programme, with minor changes, from its proclamation as such by Hitler
in 1920, when the party was still the German Workers' Party, until its
dissolution.
At the top of the Nazi Party was the party chairman ("Der Führer"),
who held absolute power and full command over the party. All other
party offices were subordinate to his position and had to depend on his
instructions. In 1934, Hitler founded a separate body for the chairman, Chancellery of the Führer, with its own sub-units.
Following Hitler's suicide on 30 April 1945, Bormann would be
named as Party Minister, which gave him the top position in the Nazi
Party itself; unlike Hitler, however, Bormann would not have a leadership role over the government of Nazi Germany.
Bormann, whose fate would remain unknown for several decades, would
soon afterwards commit suicide as well on 2 May 1945 while trying to
flee Berlin around the time Soviet Union forces captured the city. His remains were first identified in 1972, then again in 1998 through DNA testing.
Reichsleiter
Directly subjected to the Führer were the Reichsleiter
("Reich Leader(s)"—the singular and plural forms are identical in
German), whose number was gradually increased to eighteen. They held
power and influence comparable to the Reich Ministers' in Hitler's Cabinet. The eighteen Reichsleiter formed the "Reich Leadership of the Nazi Party" (Reichsleitung der NSDAP), which was established at the so-called Brown House in Munich. Unlike a Gauleiter, a Reichsleiter did not have individual geographic areas under their command, but were responsible for specific spheres of interest.
Nazi Party offices
The Nazi Party had a number of party offices dealing with various political and other matters. These included:
The SA in Berlin in 1932. The group had nearly two million members at the end of 1932.
In addition to the Nazi Party proper, several paramilitary groups
existed which "supported" Nazi aims. All members of these paramilitary
organisations were required to become regular Nazi Party members first
and could then enlist in the group of their choice. An exception was the
Waffen-SS,
considered the military arm of the SS and Nazi Party, which during the
Second World War allowed members to enlist without joining the Nazi
Party. Foreign volunteers of the Waffen-SS were also not required to be
members of the Nazi Party, although many joined local nationalist groups
from their own countries with the same aims. Police officers, including
members of the Gestapo,
frequently held SS rank for administrative reasons (known as "rank
parity") and were likewise not required to be members of the Nazi Party.
A vast system of Nazi Party paramilitary ranks developed for each of the various paramilitary groups. This was part of the process of Gleichschaltung
with the paramilitary and auxiliary groups swallowing existing
associations and federations after the Party was flooded by millions of
membership applications.
The major Nazi Party paramilitary groups were as follows:
The Hitler Youth
was a paramilitary group divided into an adult leadership corps and a
general membership open to boys aged fourteen to eighteen. The League of German Girls was the equivalent group for girls.
Affiliated organisations
Certain nominally independent organisations had their own legal
representation and own property, but were supported by the Nazi Party.
Many of these associated organisations were labour unions of various
professions. Some were older organisations that were nazified according
to the Gleichschaltung policy after the 1933 takeover.
The employees of large businesses with international operations such as Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, and Commerzbank were mostly party members. All German businesses abroad were also required to have their own Nazi Party Ausland-Organization
liaison men, which enabled the party leadership to obtain updated and
excellent intelligence on the actions of the global corporate elites.
For the purpose of centralisation in the Gleichschaltung
process, a rigidly hierarchal structure was established in the Nazi
Party, which it later carried through in the whole of Germany in order
to consolidate total power under the person of Hitler (Führerstaat). It was regionally sub-divided into a number of Gaue (singular: Gau) headed by a Gauleiter, who received their orders directly from Hitler. The name (originally a term for sub-regions of the Holy Roman Empire headed by a Gaugraf) for these new provincial structures was deliberately chosen because of its mediaeval connotations. The term is approximately equivalent to the English shire.
While the Nazis maintained the nominal existence of state and
regional governments in Germany itself, this policy was not extended to
territories acquired after 1937. Even in German-speaking areas such as
Austria, state and regional governments were formally disbanded as
opposed to just being dis-empowered.
After the Anschluss a new type of administrative unit was introduced called a Reichsgau. In these territories the Gauleiters also held the position of Reichsstatthalter
(Reich Governor) thereby formally combining the spheres of both party
and state offices. The establishment of this type of district was
subsequently carried out for any further territorial annexations of
Germany both before and during World War II. Even the former territories of Prussia were never formally re-integrated into what was then Germany's largest state after being re-taken in the 1939 Polish campaign.
The Gaue and Reichsgaue (state or province) were further sub-divided into Kreise (counties) headed by a Kreisleiter, which were in turn sub-divided into Zellen (cells) and Blöcke (blocks), headed by a Zellenleiter and Blockleiter respectively.
A reorganisation of the Gaue was enacted on 1 October
1928. The given numbers were the official ordering numbers. The
statistics are from 1941, for which the Gau organisation of that
moment in time forms the basis. Their size and populations are not
exact; for instance, according to the official party statistics the Gau Kurmark/Mark Brandenburg was the largest in the German Reich. By 1941, there were 42 territorial Gaue for Greater Germany. Of these, 10 were designated as Reichsgaue: 7 of them for Austria, one for the Sudetenland (annexed from Czechoslovakia) and two for the areas annexed from Poland and the Free City of Danzig after the joint invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 at the onset of World War II. Getting the leadership of the individual Gaue
to co-operate with one another proved difficult at times since there
was constant administrative and financial jockeying for control going on
between them.
The first table below describes the organizational structure for the Gaue that existed before their dissolution in 1945. Information on former Gaue (that were either renamed, or dissolved by being divided or merged with other Gaue) is provided in the second table.
The numbering is not based on any official former ranking, but merely listed alphabetically. Gaue that were simply renamed without territorial changes bear the designation RN in the column "later became." Gaue that were divided into more than one Gau bear the designation D in the column "later became." Gaue that were merged with other Gaue (or occupied territory) bear the designation M in the column "together with."
from 11 March 1926 to 20 June 1928 Hans Albert Hohnfeldt, then from 20 August 1928 to 1 March 1929 Walter Maass, then from 1 March 1929 to 30 September 1930 Erich Koch, then from 15 October 1930 to 10 October 1939 Albert Forster
from 1 April 1925 to 22 September 1926 Anton Haselmayer, then from 1 October 1926 to 1 April 1927 Karl Linder, then from 1 April 1927 to 1 January 1933 Jakob Sprenger with a short replacement by Karl Linder (August 1932 – December 1932)
from 1 October 1928 to 1 November 1929 Adolf Wagner, then from 1 November 1929 to June 1930 Franz Maierhofer, then from June 1930 to November 1930 Edmund Heines, then from 15 November 1930 to 17 August 1932 Franz Maierhofer
from 30 May 1926 to 8 December 1926 Walter Jung, then from 8 December 1926 to 21 April 1929 Jakob Jung, then from 21 April 1929 to 30 July 1929 Gustav Staebe (acting), then from 30 July 1929 to 1 September 1931 Adolf Ehrecke, then from 15 September 1931 to 6 May 1933 Karl Brück, then from 6 May 1933 to 1 March 1935 Josef Bürckel
The irregular Swiss branch of the Nazi Party also established a number of Party Gaue in that country, most of them named after their regional capitals. These included Gau Basel-Solothurn, Gau Schaffhausen, Gau Luzern, Gau Bern and Gau Zürich. The Gau Ostschweiz (East Switzerland) combined the territories of three cantons: St. Gallen, Thurgau and Appenzell.
The general membership of the Nazi Party mainly consisted of the urban and rural lower middle classes. 7% belonged to the upper class, another 7% were peasants,
35% were industrial workers and 51% were what can be described as
middle class. In early 1933, just before Hitler's appointment to the
chancellorship, the party showed an under-representation of "workers",
who made up 30% of the membership but 46% of German society. Conversely,
white-collar employees (19% of members and 12% of Germans), the
self-employed (20% of members and 10% of Germans) and civil servants
(15% of members and 5% of the German population) had joined in
proportions greater than their share of the general population.
These members were affiliated with local branches of the party, of
which there were 1,378 throughout the country in 1928. In 1932, the
number had risen to 11,845, reflecting the party's growth in this
period.
When it came to power in 1933, the Nazi Party had over 2 million
members. In 1939, the membership total rose to 5.3 million with 81%
being male and 19% being female. It continued to attract many more and
by 1945 the party reached its peak of 8 million with 63% being male and
37% being female (about 10% of the German population of 80 million).
Nazi members with military ambitions were encouraged to join the Waffen-SS, but a great number enlisted in the Wehrmacht and even more were drafted for service after World War II began. Early regulations required that all Wehrmacht members be non-political and any Nazi member joining in the 1930s was required to resign from the Nazi Party.
However, this regulation was soon waived and full Nazi Party members served in the Wehrmacht in particular after the outbreak of World War II. The Wehrmacht Reserves also saw a high number of senior Nazis enlisting, with Reinhard Heydrich and Fritz Todt joining the Luftwaffe, as well as Karl Hanke who served in the army.
The British historian Richard J. Evans
wrote that junior officers in the army were inclined to be especially
zealous National Socialists with a third of them having joined the Nazi
Party by 1941. Reinforcing the work of the junior leaders were the
National Socialist Leadership Guidance Officers, which were created with
the purpose of indoctrinating the troops for the "war of extermination"
against Soviet Russia. Among higher-ranking officers, 29% were NSDAP members by 1941.
Party members who lived outside Germany were pooled into the Auslands-Organisation (NSDAP/AO, "Foreign Organization"). The organisation was limited only to so-called "Imperial Germans" (citizens of the German Empire); and "Ethnic Germans" (Volksdeutsche), who did not hold German citizenship were not permitted to join.
Under Beneš decreeNo. 16/1945 Coll.,
in case of citizens of Czechoslovakia membership of the Nazi Party was
punishable by between five and twenty years of imprisonment.
Deutsche Gemeinschaft
Deutsche Gemeinschaft was a branch of the Nazi Party founded in 1919, created for Germans with Volksdeutsche status. It is not to be confused with the post-war right-wing Deutsche Gemeinschaft, which was founded in 1949.
Nazi flags: The Nazi Party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colours were said to represent Blut und Boden
("blood and soil"). Another definition of the flag describes the
colours as representing the ideology of National Socialism, the swastika
representing the Aryan race and the Aryan nationalist agenda of the
movement; white representing Aryan racial purity; and red representing
the socialist agenda of the movement. Black, white and red were in fact
the colours of the old North German Confederation flag (invented by Otto von Bismarck,
based on the Prussian colours black and white and the red used by
northern German states). In 1871, with the foundation of the German
Reich the flag of the North German Confederation became the German Reichsflagge ("Reich flag"). Black, white and red became the colours of the nationalists through the following history (for example World War I and the Weimar Republic).
The Parteiflagge
design, with the centred swastika disc, served as the party flag from
1920. Between 1933 (when the Nazi Party came to power) and 1935, it was
used as the National flag (Nationalflagge) and Merchant flag (Handelsflagge), but interchangeably with the black-white-red horizontal tricolour. In 1935, the black-white-red horizontal tricolour was scrapped (again) and the flag with the off-centre swastika and disc
was instituted as the national flag, and remained as such until 1945.
The flag with the centred disk continued to be used after 1935, but
exclusively as the Parteiflagge, the flag of the party.
German eagle: The Nazi Party used the traditional German eagle,
standing atop of a swastika inside a wreath of oak leaves. It is also
known as the "Iron Eagle". When the eagle is looking to its left
shoulder, it symbolises the Nazi Party and was called the Parteiadler. In contrast, when the eagle is looking to its right shoulder, it symbolises the country (Reich) and was therefore called the Reichsadler.
After the Nazi Party came to national power in Germany, they replaced
the traditional version of the German eagle with the modified party
symbol throughout the country and all its institutions.
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