Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazism in Germany, was an Austrian citizen. He began his career as a political agitator after the war. In 1920 he joined the German Workers Party, which subsequently came to be known as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (also known as Nazi Party). Soon he succeeded in ousting Drexter, the leader of the party and emerged as leader.
In 1923 he made unsuccessful to stage a coup defetat which brought him in open clash with the Republican authorities. In the course of his trial Hitler said, “There is no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918”, which won him great admiration of those sections of German population who were eager to undo the wrong done to Germany by peace settlement of 1919.
Hitler was sentenced to five years imprisonment, although actually he was released after nine months. It was during the period of imprisonment that Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, which became the bible of German militarism. During this period, the Nazi Party was prescribed and its membership considerably declined. The party took part in the elections of 1924 but could not give a good account of itself.
In 1925 Nazi Party was reorganized. Thereafter the popularity of the party started increasing. In the elections of 1932 the Nazi Party captured 230 of 608 seats in the Reichstag. However, Hitler was restless to capture power. In 1932 he contested the Presidental elections but lost to Hindenburg by a narrow margin. Thus we can say that by this time the Nazi movement had grown quite powerful and could not be ignored by the government.
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In early 1933 Hindenburg dismissed his Chancellor Schleicher and Hitler succeeded him as the Chancellor by forming a coalition with the Nationalists and the Big business. It may be noted that Hitler assumed power not through any electoral victory but by a conspiracy entered into against the last Republican Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher.