Anton Drexler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portrait shot of Drexler

Anton Drexler (born June 13, 1884 in Munich ; † February 24, 1942 there ) was a German politician and in 1919 co-founder of the German Workers' Party (DAP). This anti-Semitic and nationalist party was soon renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party . In 1921 Drexler was pushed out of the chair by Adolf Hitler . Drexler was later active in other organizations. In National Socialist Germany it was of no political importance.

Origin, job and family

Drexler was the son of a railroad worker. From 1902 to 1923 he worked as a tool fitter. He was married to Anna Drexler and had the children Anton Drexler jr. and Annemarie Drexler.

Empire and Weimar Republic

Political beginnings

In 1917 Drexler first joined the newly founded German Fatherland Party . Together with 27 work colleagues in what was then the Royal Bavarian State Railroad Central Workshop in Munich , he founded the Free Workers Committee for a Good Peace on March 7, 1918 , in order, as he wrote, "to strengthen the Bavarian will to win, especially the workers".

Also in 1918, he and others founded the nationalist right-wing conservative political working group . In 1918 Drexler expressed his anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic political stance in a leaflet entitled “Political Awakening” , which culminated in the sentence that Bolshevism was “Jewish fraud”.

On October 2, 1918, the first meeting of Drexler's Free Workers' Committee was held. Sports journalist Karl Harrer , a member of the Munich Thule Society , also took part in this event .

Party formation

Drexler founded the German Workers 'Party (DAP) together with Karl Harrer on January 5, 1919 , which was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) in February 1920 . In January 1919 Drexler published the article The Failure of the Proletarian International and the Failure of the Idea of ​​Fraternization . His pamphlet Mein political awakening , also published in 1919 , with which he propagated a nationalist people's community , had the subtitle From the diary of a German socialist worker and was the first National Socialist program publication. Even Adolf Hitler to the thinking contained therein have received.

Party activity

On February 24, 1920, the DAP was given the new name NSDAP in the Hofbräuhaus in Munich . In a later transcript, Alfred Rosenberg expressed his assumption that the 25-point program read out there had been worked out by Gottfried Feder as well as Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler .

Anton Drexler initially took over the second chairmanship of the new party and was first chairman in 1920/21 as Harrer's successor. He held this office until he was replaced by Hitler in 1921. Drexler had negotiated with other right-wing parties because of a closer union or a union during Hitler's absence. Thereupon Hitler declared his resignation on July 11th. Three days later he wrote a detailed letter demanding the party leadership with dictatorial powers as a condition for his return. In fact, the party committee submitted to his demands.

On July 25, Drexler appeared at the Munich police authority and warned in vain about Hitler. On July 29, Hitler was elected the new party leader of the NSDAP with 553 of 554 votes. Drexler was resigned to the office of honorary chairman, which he held from 1921 to 1923.

He was picked up from home on the day of the Hitler putsch , but when Hitler explained his plan to him, he did not take part. However, he was temporarily detained afterwards. In December 1923, Drexler, together with the lawyer Roder, convinced Hitler to break off a hunger strike that Hitler had started while in captivity.

After the NSDAP was disbanded in 1923, he became involved in the Völkischer Block and was a member of the Bavarian state parliament from 1924 to 1928 .

National Socialist League

In 1925 Drexler founded the National Social People's Union . When the NSDAP was re-established in 1925, it no longer played a role. In Mein Kampf , Hitler characterized him as a simple worker without military experience and rhetorical talent, who was unsuitable as a party leader, "unable to remove with the most brutal ruthlessness the resistance that might get in the way of the new idea".

National Socialism

After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933, Anton Drexler joined again in the Nazi Party. In 1934 he received the NSDAP Blood Order because of his role as a founding member of the party . However, until his death he could no longer gain any political significance. He died on February 24, 1942 "after a long illness" in Munich and was buried in the Westfriedhof (field 104-A, grave 9).

Fonts

  • Anton Drexler: My political awakening. From the diary of a German socialist worker. Deutscher Volksverlag , Munich 1919. DNB .

literature

Web links

Commons : Anton Drexler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Family ads. In:  Völkischer Beobachter. Battle sheet of the national (-) socialist movement of Greater Germany. Vienna edition / Vienna observer. Daily supplement to the “Völkischer Beobachter” , February 27, 1942, p. 5 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / vob
  2. a b c Ernst Piper: Alfred Rosenberg. Hitler's chief ideologist. Blessing, Munich 2005, p. 43.
  3. ^ Ernst Piper: Alfred Rosenberg. Hitler's chief ideologist. Blessing, Munich 2005, p. 44 (Source: Ernst Deuerlein: The rise of the NSDAP in eyewitness reports. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1974, p. 59).
  4. Alfred Rosenberg: Last Notes. Göttingen 1955, p. 92, DNB ; The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg November 14, 1945–1. October 1946. Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984, p. 494.
  5. Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf. Rather Verlag, Munich 1932, p. 391.
  6. Anton Drexler died. In:  Völkischer Beobachter. Battle sheet of the national (-) socialist movement of Greater Germany. Vienna edition / Vienna observer. Daily supplement to the “Völkischer Beobachter” , February 26, 1942, p. 2 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / vob