|
|
Dietrich Eckart was born on 23rd March, 1868. He studied medicine but left before he obtained his degree. For the next few years he attempted to make a living from writing plays and poems.
In 1913 he joined the right-wing Thule Society and was actively involved in politics in Munich. This included writing the nationalist play, Heinrich of the High Baptism.
After the First World War Eckart was a fierce critic of the Weimar Republic and in 1919 joined with Anton Drexler and Gottfried Feder to form the German Workers's Party (GPW) in Munich.
Adolf Hitler joined the party soon afterwards. He was only the fifty-fourth person to join the party. Hitler was immediately asked to join the executive committee and was later appointed the party's propaganda manager.
In the next few weeks Hitler brought several members of his army into the party, including one of his commanding officers, Captain Ernst Roehm. The arrival of Roehm was an important development as he had access to the army political fund and was able to transfer some of the money into the GWP.
The German Workers's Party used some of this money to advertise their meetings. Adolf Hitler was often the main speaker and it was during this period that he developed the techniques that made him into such a persuasive orator.
Hitler successfully persuaded members of the GWP should change its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). Eckart wrote Germany, Awake!, a song sung by Nazis at meetings.
In 1923 Eckart took part in the Beer Hall Putsch. He was briefly imprisoned with Adolf Hitler in Landsberg Prison. Dietrich Eckart died of a heart-attack on 26th December, 1923.
Forum Debates
Second World War Discussions
Second World War: Questions for Historians
Nazism and Communism
Churchill and Hitler
Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church
Who won the Second World War?
(1) Morgan Philips Price, Germany in Transition (1923)
The rump of the old parties is now working in close touch with a new party, the so-called National Socialist Party under Herr Hitler and Herr Eckert, who is organizing under a Fascist banner those elements of the trade unions who are tired of the cowardice of the Social-Democratic leaders. These new groups under the leadership of Hitler and Ludendorff have come out openly for a Fascist dictatorship, and by tactics of provocation of the Socialists and Republican elements in the rest of Germany, and by attacks on Socialist meetings and demonstrations, hope to ferment civil war, leading up to the seizure of power by their armed forces. During the winter of 1922-23, Hitler's storm battalions organized raiding expeditions to the industrial towns of North Bavaria. His plan of campaign is to seize power in North Bavaria, or Frankenland, and use it as a base of operations against Thuringen and Saxony where Social-Democratic governments are in power with the aid of Communist votes. From there the way would be open to the industrial districts of Prussia in the North. Success will very much depend on the goodwill of the German heavy industry trusts who, after the murder of Rathenau, withdrew their financial support from most of these Fascist bodies. But after the French occupation of the Ruhr, the heavy industries began again to support the Bavarian Fascists.
Hitler is available from Amazon
Educational Websites
Standards Site, BBC History, PBS Online, Open Directory Project, Virtual Library,
Education Forum, History GCSE, Design & Technology, Learn History, Music Teacher Resource,
Freepedia, Teach It, Science Active, Geography IST, Brighton Photographers, Sussex Photo History,
Compton History, Universal Teacher, English Teaching, English Online, History Learning Site,
History on the Net, Black History, Greenfield History, School History, Active History, I Love History,
E-HELP, Ed Podesta Blog, Macgregorish History, Historiasiglo20, Sintermeerten, ICT4LT |
News and Search
Guardian Unlimited, Times Online, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, New York Times,
Washington Post, BBC, CNN, Yahoo News, New Scientist, Google News, Channel 4, ZDNet,
Google, Excite, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, AOL Search, Hotbot, Metacrawler, Netscape, Ask, Search,
Go, Looksmart, Dogpile, Raging Search, All the Web, Kartoo, Search Engine Watch, About
|
|
|
|
