HISTORICAL DATA-1920:

JANUARY   FEBRUARY:  February 24, 1920:  At 7:30     P.M. this evening  Adolf Hitler addresses the largest mass meeting to date of the German  Workers' Party. (This is only some eight months after the Allies had signed the Treaty of Versailles, and it had been ratified by the German government. Also at this time the country is under partial military occupation; the American  Forces in Germany is the main U.S. Army organization in the country.) Some 2,000 people fill the Festsaal of the Hofbrauhaus in Munich. At this meeting, Hitler unveils the Party's 25-point platform; there is jeering and throwing of beer steins, but Hitler's former Army buddies, armed with rubber clubs and whips, eject the trouble-makers and restore order. Hitler uses a common orator's ploy: after explaining  a point, he would pause and then ask the audience to give a judgment on that point. By the time that he has done this twenty-five times, the audience is wildly cheering and applauding (those who have not been chased out of the hall by Hitler's Army friends, that is). Hitler is not dismayed by the opposition of the Communists and others opposing this new party; he, in fact, enjoys inciting them to shout and scream. This gives his "protectors" all the more excuse to smash heads and gain notoriety for the Party.     At this time the general political sentiment in Bavaria is for independence from the central German government in Berlin, yet Adolf Hitler, in his speech tonight, sets it as the final point of the new party's program that Germany should have one strong central government, and that the provincial states should be subject completely to that central authority,          On February 25 of this year, the day after Hitler's "25 points" speech in the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, there is little in the city's papers to indicate that a future "major player" had emerged on the political scene, but a hundred new members had joined the German Workers' Party after the speech and Hitler considers the evening to have been a success.     At this time also, two of Hitler's closest friends and collaborators are Captain Ernst Roehm, an officer in the new Reichswehr, and  the writer Dietrich Eckart, who is himself a master of coffeehouse speechmaking, and who becomes Hitler's intellectual mentor.  MARCH:    On March 13 of this year elite German Free Corps troops led by General Walther von Luttwitz , having been ordered to disband by the Weimar government, refuse to do so and instead march on Berlin, which surrenders to them without a shot being fired.  They seize control of the city government and appoint their own Chancellor; he is a minor-ranking civil servant named Kapp, and their revolt is called the "Kapp Putsch".    Dr. Wolfgang Kapp, who is a not-extremely-successful extreme right-wing politician, takes control in Berlin, Germany. Dr. Kapp  declares himself to be the Chancellor of Germany.  The German Regular Army  has refused to intervene against Dr. Kapp and his followers, while the President of the Republic and the government ministers  flee to western Germany.  Later, a general strike by the trade unions will restore the republican government.                                             However, the revolutionaries soon run into great difficulty in trying to convince any leading citizens to join their "government".     In Bavaria at this time, Adolf Hitler and Dietrich Eckart of the fledgling German Workers' Party feel convinced that  the right-wing Kapp Putsch in Berlin offers potential opportunities for their own movement, and they both volunteer to fly there to assess the situation personally and to determine whether there would be a possibility of joint revolutionary action between the Kappists in Berlin and themselves in Bavaria. Captain Ernst Roehm approves the idea, and on the flight up to Berlin-Hitler's first flight-the airplane runs into rough weather and Hitler becomes airsick  several times  and vows never again to take to the air.  (SOURCE:  ADOLF HITLER by John Toland   Ballantine Books (paperback), pp. 99- 100).       On March 14 of this year the Gerrman Reichswehr (Army) stages a successful revolt against the Socialist government of Johannes Hoffmann in Munich, Bavaria. In its place they install a conservative, right-wing government led by Gustav von Kahr.  Munich soon begins to attract people from all over Germany who are dedicated to ending the national German Republic, replacing it with a strict, authoritarian regime, and repudiating the Versailles Treaty.  Among those coming to Munich is General Ludendorff, the true "power behind the throne"  in Germany during the final two years of the last war. He is joined by many other disillusioned and discharged former Army officers.       By March 20 of this year  in Germany a Red Army of 50,000 workers loyal to the Communist Party  has occupied  a large part of the Ruhr industrial district, and on today also the Communist newspapre the Ruhr Echo announces that the red flag must fly in victory over all of Germany.  "Germany must become a Republic of Soviets and, in union with Russia, the springboard for the coming victory of the World Revolution and World Socialism." (SOURCE: Quoted in ADOLF HITLER by John Toland   Ballantine Books (paperback), pp. 100-101)..   APRIL     On April 1, 1920 in Germany the German Workers' Party officially changes its name to the National Socialist German Workers'  Party.  On this day also Adolf Hitler resigns permanently from the German army. He plans now to devote himself full-time to building up the National Socialist German Workers' Party, with himself at its head. He has much work to do; the Party is still very small, and even in Bavaria it is just one of a few right-wing groups which are clamoring for public attention and support. Most definitely, the "Nazi" Party does not have the field to itself, yet.                 MAY   JUNE:    At about this time in Munich, Germany Adolf  Hitler organizes a group of tough and rowdy war veterans into "strongarm" squads, or Ordnertruppe; they are commanded by Emil Maurice, who is a former convict and a watchmaker by trade. Hitler intends to use these troops to frighten the party's opponents and to enforce order at party meetings.    JULY:    At about this time in Munich, Germany Adolf Hitler completes the design of the official symbol and flag for the National Socialist German Workers'  Party. He adopts the hakenkreuz or "twisted cross", the swastika, and places it in the center of a white disk on a red flag. This swastika had been painted on the steel helmets of the Ehrhardt Brigade when they came into Berlin during the Kapp putsch in March of this year, so it is not completely original to Hitler.   AUGUST:    On August 18 of this year in the United States of America the "women's suffrage" issue comes down to a question of whether Tennessee will become the thirty-sixth and deciding stae to ratify the proposed nineteenth amendment to the U. S. Constitution, which would give women nationwide the right to vote. After much intense lobbying on both sides in the days leading up to this vote, the state legislature, meeting in Nashville, on this day approves the amendment by an extremely close 49-47 plurality.  (SOURCE: See Women's History page on About.com here:).   AUGUST:    On August 26 of this year Headquarters, American Forces in Germany, issues Field Order "A" calling for field maneuvers to be held in Germany, beginning on August 30th. The units involved will be the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the American Forces in Germany.      These orders call for the 1st Brigade to begin marching, on August 30, to the vicinity of  Ursfeld; the 2nd Brigade will march, starting a day earlier, to the area of Nazweiler. Headquarters of the overall commanding unit, American Forces in Germany, will be at Coblenz. Advance Headquarters of A.F.G. will be established at Mayen by 12:00 hours on  August 31, and at Kelburg by 12:00 hours on September 2. Basically, the maneuvers were to take place on the west bank of the Rhine River, between Coblenz and  Aachen: the "Occupied Rhineland". SEPTEMBER:    On september 25 of this year  the New Zealand government approves the country's first official aviation policy, which states that the government will "make provision for the development of Aviation along lines which will enable the Dominion to possess civil aviation for commercial and other needs and at the same time provide for the necessites of aerial defence in case of emergency."  (Source:  OFFICIAL HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR 1939-45  ROYAL NEW ZEALAND AIR FORCE by Squadron Leader J. M. S. Ross  War History Branch Department of Internal Affairs Wellington, New Zealand 1955, pg.10).           SEPTEMBER:    At some time during this month , only a sort time after the return of members of the British Foreign Service to Germany, and following a reorganization of the Service's operations in that country, Robert Smallbones-who is the rather young British consul in Munich-collects the first information for the Foreign Office regarding the still new and small National Socialist (Nazi) Party in Germany. It is this party's loud and raucous demonstrations that have captured Smallbones' attention. He tells London that the Nazis are making themselves more visible among the crowd of parties vying for public support by their frequent meetings and lectures, and even more so by their posters announcing the meetings. He identifies [correctly] Anton Drexler and Adolf Hitler as the key leaders of the party, and speculates that they must have a ready source of funds at their disposal.  Smallbones believes that it is a group of reactionary and wealthy industrialists who are the main financial backers of his new party, because, he notes, the party's socialism is "subordinated to the idea of nationalism".(SOURCE:   The "Bavarian Mussolini" and his "Beerhall Putsch": British Images of Adolf Hitler, 1920-24  by Detlev Clemens--no page listed).    OCTOBER    NOVEMBER:    In the United States of America this month, the percentage of eligible voters who actually cast their votes in this year's presidential  elections reaches a new, all-time low: just less than half (49.2%) do so.  (SOURCE:  THE GREAT DEPRESSION  AMERICA IN THE 1930s by T. H. Watkins  Back Bay Books  Little, Brown and Company New York Boston London October, 2009 ((paperback)) pg. 27). [This comes about despite the fact that women in the U. S. have just won the right to vote in these elections.-GD]    DECEMBER:  At some time during this month the Nazi Party in Germany  comes into possession of a not-too-successful newspaper called the Voelkischer Beobachter, which is an anti-Semitic publication that deals largely in rumors and gossip. It comes out two times each week, and is carrying a heavy load of debt. The purchase price for the paper (or newsletter, really) is sixty thousand marks, according to William L. Shirer, and the funds might have come from secret funds of the German Army. It is an accepted fact that the person who raised the money for the purchase was  Ernst Roehm's commander in the Reichswehr, Major General Ritter von Epp.   NO SPECIFIC DATE:    At some time during this year Rudolf Hess joins the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party). He is the son of a German businessman who lives in Egypt, and he himself had lived there from birth until he was fourteen years old. He had then emigrated to the Rhineland to attend school there. During the Great War Hess had served in the same regiment as Hitler (the List Regiment), but he had not made Hitler's acquaintance at that time.     He became a pilot in the German Air Force after having twice been wounded in ground fighting.     Following the war he studied economics at the University of Munich, but he was not a dedicated student. He preferred to spend most of his time handing out anti-Semitic tracts and fighting with the different armed squads roaming around Bavaria at the time. NO SPECIFIC DATE:    At about this time, Roman Catholics  make up about 1/3 of the German population.  (SOURCE:    HITLER'S POPE  The Secret History of Pius XII--By John Cornwell, Penguin Books edition ((paperback)), pp. 80-81).

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