Adolf Hitler got his
start in the military during World War I. He
was a dispatch runner on the Western Front. He actually gets
fairly decorated. And by most accounts, this
is where he finds meaning. He finds meaning in being
part of the military. He finds meaning in
frankly, the war itself. But then in 1918, we, of
course, have the end of the war. Well, first you have the
abdication of the Kaiser. You have the
Republican government, people who want to form
a republic, take control. And then they sign an armistice
with the Allies in November. And this is not well
received by Hitler. And frankly, it's
not well received by many in the military. From their point of
view, they somewhat delusionally
believed that Germany would have won World War
I if they weren't stabbed in the back by these
November Criminals, by the folks who had taken
over after the Kaiser. So you have this whole
stab in the back theory by those who had taken over
and signed the armistice. And this wasn't just believed
by folks like Hitler. This was believed even by very
senior people in the military. This right over here is
General Ludendorff, one of two people-- the
other gentleman, Hindenburg-- who were in charge
of the entire German military. He believed in the stab
in the back theory. He thought that
they would have won if they didn't
sign the armistice, if these November
Criminals, these people who had taken control
of the government, did not sign this
with the Allies. And then you go to 1919. From the point of view
of people of like Hitler, things only got worse. You have the Treaty
of Versailles that applied all the war
guilt to the Germans. You have these huge
reparations that would even be paid in resources. You have the former
German Empire, a significant amount
of its territory is given over to the Allies,
or to form new states. Then, you also have the
formal establishment of the Weimar Republic. It's called the Weimar
Republic because the new German constitution is
drafted in the town of Weimar. And it sets it up as a
parliamentary democracy. That's why it's
called a republic. But it's a little bit of
a bizarre parliamentary democracy. It actually gave a
good bit of power, a directly elected
president that had a reasonable
amount of power, especially in emergencies. And that would
become relevant later on when Hitler actually comes
to power over a decade later. But then in 1919,
Hitler was still looking-- he was very
upset about the war ending. He stays part of the military. And part of the
military he's assigned to start infiltrating or spying
on the German Workers' Party. And the acronym in
German is the DAP. But the English
translation would be the German Workers' Party. But he actually gets quite
impressed by the German Workers' Party, which is
really ultra-nationalist. And when we talk about
ultra-nationalist it's all about German
race superiority. It's in line with
this whole idea that they would have
won the war if they weren't stabbed in the back. And it's also anti-communist. It's anti-capitalist. And it's anti ethnic minorities,
in particular anti-Jewish. And all of these ideas
Hitler found very impressive. And just to be clear, a lot
of times when people talk about ultra-nationalist
groups they often will call them as
ultra-right wing. And this bears
some clarification because the right wing
is also often viewed as very capitalist. But ultra-nationalists really
put the nation, and the race that they view as
indicative of the nation, above all other concerns. So yes, they were
anti-communist. They were anti-distribution
of wealth. Communists believe
in no classes, as little private
property as possible. The German Workers' party
didn't believe in that. They were anti that. But they were also anti
unfettered capitalism, especially capitalism
that might get in the way of the
nation's interests. But he becomes very
impressed with them. And he actually joins
as the 55th member. So you can imagine,
this, at this point, is a very, very small party. But then we fast
forward to 1920. By 1920, the party leadership
has taken note of Hitler. They actually notice him
when he's arguing with people and that other
people are listening. He's actually a
really great orator. And so they allow him to
give more and more talks. He has more and more authority. And in order for the party
to have more of an appeal, especially to
nationalists in general, they change their name. To German Workers' Party they
add the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party,
DAP, German Workers' Party, or the NSDAP. And if you pronounce
nationalist in German, it sounds something
like-- and I'm going to butcher it
right now-- Nazionalist. And so, if you
were to shorten it, they called
themselves the Nazis. And Hitler actually
designed the logo for the Nazis, which
included this symbol right over here, the swastika. And the swastika is
worth talking about because it was really this
bizarre corruption of a very ancient symbol. Hitler and the Nazis created
this entire mythology around the Germans being the
descendants of the Aryans, or being the purest
example of the Aryans. And the Aryans are
the superior race that's responsible for all of
civilization's advancement. It was a delusion
because frankly, there was an ancient Aryan race. But the most indicative
descendants of them are frankly, the
Persians or the Indians. And actually, the
swastika symbol here, you might actually even
see it at a Hindu temple. It does not mean all of what
we associate with Nazism now. It actually is an ancient
Hindu symbol of auspiciousness, of good luck. But the Nazis usurped it. But for them, this was
a very important idea to create this mythology
around race superiority and to even have a symbol
like this as opposed to say something like a cross
that's a religious symbol. Anyone could believe in
Christianity and say, hey, I'm a Christian. But the swastika, at least in
Hitler's mind and the Nazi's mind, was a racial symbol. So it represented
their superior race. And obviously, if their
race was superior, a lot of what they consider
the ills of Germany were caused by being infiltrated
with what they considered less pure races, like Jews,
and also infiltrated with less pure ideas, like
the ideas of communism. But Hitler gets more and more
recognition with the party. The party membership
continues to grow. And by 1921, you have some
disagreements in the party. Some people threatened
to splinter off. And when Hitler says, hey look,
if this is going to happen, I'm going to leave
the party, they realize that he has so
much value to the party that the party would just
dissolve if Hitler leaves. And so they make
him the chairman. Hitler takes control. Hitler is the chairman
of the Nazi party. And by this point, he's
becoming more and more well known on the speaking circuit. And we now have several thousand
members of the Nazi party. Although, it's still
a fairly small group. But then, things start to get
a lot worse in Weimar, Germany. You start having hyperinflation. The government keeps printing
more and more currency. The economy is weak. It's trying to pay reparations. And so what you have
here-- and this is actually one of the most famous cases
of hyperinflation in world history-- you see the
value of their currency, it devalues from 1919 to
1923 not by a factor of 1,000 or a million or a billion,
but nearly a trillion. So the currency becomes,
frankly, worthless. The hyperinflation is
happening this entire time. And you see, it accelerates
through 1922 and then 1923. But then in 1922,
you have Mussolini comes to power in Italy. And he comes to power
through his March on Rome. And Mussolini is a fascist. That's where the
word comes from. He's a member of
the Fascist Party. And the Fascists' ideas were
very similar to the Nazis. It was all about extreme
nationalism, all about racial superiority, a
very strong government. And this Hitler finds
quite inspiring. The Weimar Republic is
having economic difficulty. You have many other groups,
including the communists, attempt their own coup d'etats. They fail. But things are getting
less and less stable. And then you fast
forward to 1923. The inflation is getting
super bad, about as bad as inflation can get. The currency is worthless. The economy is going
into a tailspin. And on top of that,
because Germany can't pay the reparations
to France anymore, France occupies the Ruhr. So the Ruhr region is
occupied by France. And you might remember
from the terms of the Treaty of
Versailles, the Saar region was already being occupied. And all that coal was being
shipped out to France. The Ruhr region was
another significant region of coal and steel production. And now the French are
fully occupying this. They're forcing a lot of the
civilians out of the region. They're forcing a
lot of the workers to work in the mines
and the factories. And then they're shipping all
of that supply out to France. So this further
debilitates the economy, but it's a huge humiliation. The Treaty of Versailles,
in the minds of Germans, especially in the minds of
nationalists, was bad enough. But now you have this huge
humiliation by the French. And this isn't just
amongst the nationalists. The general German population is
getting very, very, very, very upset about this. And so this gives a lot of fuel
to extreme nationalist groups, like the Nazis. So this fuels the Nazis. And based on the
estimates I've seen, entering into the
year they're starting to have in excess
of 10,000 members, starting to be several
tens of thousands. And as we get into the
later part of the year, we're approaching,
I've seen estimates of 40,000 to 55,000
members of the Nazi party. And that's just formal members. And then on top
of that, you might have non-members who are growing
increasingly sympathetic. And so what we'll see in the
next video, at the end of 1923, Hitler sees this as his chance. He's inspired by Mussolini,
the economy is in a tailspin, the Germans have been further
humiliated by the French, and the Nazis, in
particular, are starting to get quite popular.