Chronology

For a long time the democratic factions of the Weimar Republic underestimated the threat posed by the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). Hitler's history began with this underestimation. As a result the NSDAP was only confronted very late, and the authorities often did so halfheartedly. The various governments of the Weimar Republic consequently failed to take any effective action against the NSDAP. Only the moderate democratic parties (German Democratic Party and Center Party), the Social Democratic Party, and the Communist Party spoke out against National Socialism from the start. Yet because the Communists shunned the Social Democrats as "social fascists" and the Social Democrats denounced Communism as the totalitarian twin brother of National Socialism, no effective defensive common front materialized.

Founding of the German Workers Party (DAP) in Munich.

The DAP renamed National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP).

Adolf Hitler made party chairman of the NSDAP.

Act for the Protection of the Republic Against Left and Right-wing Extremist Activities

NSDAP banned in Prussia, Thuringia, and other German states because of its militaristic behavior.

National Socialist putsch attempt in Munich suppressed within a few hours.

The participants in the Munich putsch, among them Adolf Hitler and former general Erich Ludendorff, are tried before a Munich court. Adolf Hitler is sentenced to five years of confinement in a maximum-security prison but is pardoned as early as Christmas 1924. The other perpetrators of the putsch are given lenient sentences.

After the party splits in 1923-24, it is founded a second time in the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich. Hitler openly declares his antirepublican and antidemocratic goals in a speech. The Bavarian government then issues an injunction on March 9, 1925, prohibiting him from speaking in public. Prussia and several other German states soon follow suit.

The National Socialist Wilhelm Frick enters the government of the state of Thuringia, where he attempts to bring the police and schools into line with the National Socialist ideology. Reich Minister of the Interior Carl Severing (SPD) then cuts off the Reich subsidies for Thuringia.

The Prussian ministry of the interior publishes an extensive memorandum on the NSDAP's subversive goals and demands the party be prohibited.

After the NSDAP's success in the state parliamentary elections in Saxony (14.4% of the vote), the Prussian government forbids its civil servants from being members in the NSDAP or Communist Party.

The Social Democrat Carlo Mierendorff outlines the threat to the Weimar Republic posed by the NSDAP in his book Gesicht und Charakter der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung (The Face and Character of the National Socialist Movement).

The NSDAP increases its mandate in the national elections to six million votes (18.3% of the total vote) as compared to 800,000 in 1928. Only now do the public and the press increasingly debate National Socialism.

The German Communist Party issues an appeal to form an "alliance against fascism," yet claims the political leadership of this alliance for itself.

The German Democratic Party (DDP) member of the Reichstag Theodor Heuss presents a lecture in Tübingen. He later expands this lecture into a book, Hitlers Weg - eine historisch-politische Studie über den Nationalsozialismus (Hitler's Path - a Historical and Political Study of National Socialism), in which he criticizes the antidemocratic goals of the NSDAP from the standpoint of a political moderate.

After rioting occurs at an NSDAP propaganda march, Württemberg prohibits the SA and SS.

In Hesse, the Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Leuschner (SPD) publishes the Boxheimer Dokumente (Boxheim Documents). These writings demonstrate the NSDAP's will to overthrow the government by force and instate a rule of terror.

As the National Socialists, the German National People's Party, and the Stahlhelm (Steel Helmet) band together to establish the Harzburger Front (Harzburg Front), the Eiserne Front (Iron Front) is established in response. It is supported by the labor unions, the SPD, and the Reichsbanner (Reich Banner).

As chairman of the Social Democratic faction in the Reichstag, Rudolf Breitscheid urges: ". . . to let everything else become secondary to the thought: how do we avert fascism? Averting fascism is now the watchword!"

In the Prussian ministry of the interior, Robert M. W. Kempner drafts a memorandum documenting putsch plans of SA and SS. On April 13, 1932, these NSDAP auxiliary organizations are banned, only to be allowed again on June 14, 1932.

The Communist Party issues an appeal to establish the "Antifascist Action" of all opponents of National Socialism under the leadership of the Communist Party. Yet Social Democrats and Communists cooperate as equals only at a local level as the Communists continue to regard the Social Democratic leadership as an important pillar of fascism and the bourgeois regime.

After the murder of worker Konrad Pietzuch in the Upper Silesian village of Potempa, Hitler openly declares his support for Pietzuch's murderers. Alfred Rosenberg writes in the Völkischer Beobachter: "not all law is law; not every human being is human."

In spite of the increasing National Socialist terror in the streets, the authorities did not take any more decisive action against National Socialism in the months that followed than they had previously.