Episode 3: a Beer Hall Coup and an Invasion too

In Episode 3 of the Saga of World War 2 we finish our bio of Hitler and begin the war with the invasion of Poland.

When Hitler first arrived to spy on the National Socialist German Workers Party, just try saying that in german,  in September of 1919, it was only 25 men strong. They were a cross-section of blue collar city life. There were soldiers, labourers, pseudo-intellectual writers, and peddlers of small goods, all people who would suffer in the depression that struck in the aftermath of the war. Their organizer and founder was a railroad machinist named Anton Drexler. The party he founded was an ideological mut, drawing on an eclectic mix of socialist, pseudo-scientific racial, and nationalist ideas. He believed that the workers must rise up in society but also despised strikers and was a supporter of the war. It was also not unique, there were dozens of extremist, far right, and far left parties popping up all over munich and germany. What made the National Socialists unique was member number 55, who joined on New Year’s day 1920.