Vol. 2. - 458 p.

NATIONAL SOCIALISM as an intellectual movement emanated in the years 1926–28 from the brains of a few—chiefly north—German thinkers. As a political force it sprang from the mass-membership of the great Fatherland Party and the Pan-German Association. In a word—it was born of the annexationist militarism of 1917. In 1919 it became an independent political movement. Out of its raw material the Reichswehr in Munich forged a political weapon. This weapon was given shape in 1921 by Captain Ernst Röhm, and by a man of outstanding intellect but unstable character—Adolf Hitler. The movement derived its title from Hitler’s native Austria. It was adopted against the wishes of the present leaders and does not represent their political ideas. Those members of the National Socialist Workers Party who subsequently sought to give a literal interpretation to its title found themselves compelled by force of logic to leave its ranks.