The First Days of the Movement

During the initial phase of our movement, our greatest handicap was that none of us were known.

Our most difficult task then was to make our members believe that there was a tremendous future for the movement and to maintain this belief as a living faith.

Back then, only 6-8 persons came to hear one of our speakers.

Only 6-7 poor devils, entirely unknown, came together to found a movement which would succeed in doing what the great mass-parties had failed to do – to reconstruct the German REICH even in greater power and glory than before.

We would have been very pleased if we were attacked or even ridiculed.

But the most depressing fact was that nobody paid any attention to us.

This utter lack of interest in us caused me great mental pain at that time.

When I entered the circle of those men, there was not yet any question of a party or a movement.

The committee consisted of all the party members.

Somehow or other it seemed just the kind of thing we were about to fight against–a miniature parliament.

The voting system was employed.

When the great parliament cried until they were hoarse–at least they shouted over problems of importance–here this small circle engaged in interminable discussions as to the form in which they might answer the letters which they were delighted to have received.

The public knew nothing of all this.

In Munich, nobody knew of our party except our few members and their small circle of acquaintances.

Every Wednesday what was called a committee meeting was held in one of the cafés, and a debate was arranged for one evening each week.

In the beginning all the members of the movement were also members of the committee, therefore the same persons always turned up at both meetings.

The first step that had to be taken was to extend the narrow limits of this small circle and get new members, but the principal necessity was to utilize all the means at our command for the purpose of making the movement known.

We chose the following methods: We decided to hold a monthly meeting to which the public would be invited.

Some of the invitations were typewritten, and some were written by hand.

For the first few meetings we distributed them in the streets and delivered them personally at certain houses.

Each one canvassed among his own acquaintances and tried to persuade some of them to attend our meetings. The result was lamentable.

I personally delivered 80 of these invitations. We waited in the evening for the crowds to come.

After waiting in vain for a whole hour, the chairman finally had to open the meeting.

Again there were only 7 people present, the old familiar seven.

We then changed our methods. We had the invitations written with a typewriter in a Munich stationer’s shop and then multigraphed them.

The result was that a few more people attended our next meeting.

The number increased gradually from 11 to 13 to 17, to 23 and finally to 34.

We collected some money within our own circle, each poor devil giving a small contribution, and in that way we raised sufficient funds to be able to advertise one of our meetings in the MUNICH OBSERVER, which was still an independent paper.

This time we had an astonishing success.

We had chosen the Munich HOFBRÄU HAUS KELLER as our meeting-place. It was a small hall and would accommodate scarcely more than 130 people.

To me, however, the hall seemed enormous. We were all trembling lest this tremendous edifice would remain partly empty on the night of the meeting.

At 7:00, 111 persons were present, and the meeting was opened.

A Munich professor delivered the principal address, and I spoke after him. That was my first appearance as public orator.

The whole thing seemed a very daring adventure to Herr Harrer, who was then chairman of the party.

• He was a very decent fellow.
• But he had an A PRIORI belief that I did not have a talent for public speaking.

I talked for 30 minutes about what I always had felt deep in my heart. My talk proved that I could make a good speech.

• All the people in the little hall had been profoundly impressed.

The enthusiasm aroused among them brought us donations of up to 300 marks. That was a great relief for us.

Our finances were at that time so meagre that we could not afford to have our party prospectus printed, or even leaflets.

Now we had the nucleus of a fund from which we could pay the most urgent and necessary expenses.

But the success of this meeting was also important because I could now persuade many good comrades that I met in the military to join our party.

They were all energetic and disciplined young men. Through their years of military service, they had been imbued with the principle that:

• nothing is impossible
• where there’s a will there’s a way.

The need for this fresh blood supply became evident after a few weeks of collaboration with the new members.

Herr Harrer, who was then chairman of the party, was a journalist by profession. He had general knowledge.

But as leader of the party, he could not speak to the crowd.

He did his work conscientiously. But it lacked the necessary driving force because he had no oratorical gifts whatsoever.

Herr Drexler, at that time chairman of the Munich local group, was a simple working man and not a great speaker.

• He was not a soldier.
• He had never done military service, even during the War.

Therefore neither of those two men were of the stuff to:

• stir up an ardent and indomitable faith in the movement’s ultimate triumph.
• brush aside, with obstinate force and brutal ruthlessness, all obstacles.

Such a task could be carried out only by men who had been trained, body and soul, in those military virtues which make a man:

• agile as a greyhound
• tough as leather
• hard as Krupp steel.

Back then, I was still a soldier.

Physically and mentally I had the polish of six years of service. So I was a stranger to this circle.

In common with my army comrades, I had forgotten such phrases as:

• “That will not go”
• “That is not possible”
• “We should not take such a risk; it is too dangerous”.