The conventional view (which I myself have expressed in the past) is that the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or DAP), led by Anton Drexler, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Drexler would have amounted to nothing if Adolf Hitler hadn't joined it in September 1919.
I'm wondering if anyone could successfully challenge this view, and argue that the DAP, even without Hitler, could have become an important part of the German völkisch movement. It is true that the party was small when Hitler joined it, but not quite as small as he claimed: he was the seventh member, not of the party itself but of its steering committee. (OTOH, the fact that his party card listed him as member number 555 is also a bit misleading: for "image" reasons, the membership numbers began at 501 and were then alphabetically assigned.)
In any event, despite Hitler's claims in Mein Kampf about wrangling for days about whether to join the DAP, his Reichswehr superior, Captain Karl Mayr later claimed that he had ordered Hitler to join the DAP--and provided him with funds--in order to further the party's growth. https://books.google.com/books?id=nV-N10gyoFwC&pg=PA127 Now this seems to indicate confidence by Captain Mayr in Hitler's political-propaganda abilities. But it also indicates some confidence in the DAP's growth potential: otherwise why have Hitler join it instead of some other radical-right group? And is it not possible that the Reichswehr would have helped the DAP in some other way without Hitler? Might Röhm for example, have joined the party, even without Hitler, and provided a link between the party and larger "patriotic associations"? Some other early DAP members like Dietrich Eckart (who was speaking at DAP meetings in the summer of 1919, before Hitler joined) had connections with well-to-do Munich "society."
So some important ingredients for potential DAP growth were there, even without Hitler. OTOH, there is the question whether without Hitler the DAP, even if it expanded somewhat, would then be swallowed up by a merger with a larger völkisch group. (In OTL there were discussions of a merger between the DAP and the larger DSP--the Deutschsozialistiche Partei, or German-Socialist Party. But Hitler put an end to merger negotiations, no doubt fearing that any merger would mean the end of his dominance in the smaller but more tightly-knit DAP. Ultimately Hitler did get many DSP members into the NSDAP, as it was now called, on his own terms--especially through the adherence of Julius Streicher, one of the founder-members of the DSP, whose decision to join up with Hitler in 1922 greatly strengthened the Nazis in Franconia.)
I'm wondering if anyone could successfully challenge this view, and argue that the DAP, even without Hitler, could have become an important part of the German völkisch movement. It is true that the party was small when Hitler joined it, but not quite as small as he claimed: he was the seventh member, not of the party itself but of its steering committee. (OTOH, the fact that his party card listed him as member number 555 is also a bit misleading: for "image" reasons, the membership numbers began at 501 and were then alphabetically assigned.)
In any event, despite Hitler's claims in Mein Kampf about wrangling for days about whether to join the DAP, his Reichswehr superior, Captain Karl Mayr later claimed that he had ordered Hitler to join the DAP--and provided him with funds--in order to further the party's growth. https://books.google.com/books?id=nV-N10gyoFwC&pg=PA127 Now this seems to indicate confidence by Captain Mayr in Hitler's political-propaganda abilities. But it also indicates some confidence in the DAP's growth potential: otherwise why have Hitler join it instead of some other radical-right group? And is it not possible that the Reichswehr would have helped the DAP in some other way without Hitler? Might Röhm for example, have joined the party, even without Hitler, and provided a link between the party and larger "patriotic associations"? Some other early DAP members like Dietrich Eckart (who was speaking at DAP meetings in the summer of 1919, before Hitler joined) had connections with well-to-do Munich "society."
So some important ingredients for potential DAP growth were there, even without Hitler. OTOH, there is the question whether without Hitler the DAP, even if it expanded somewhat, would then be swallowed up by a merger with a larger völkisch group. (In OTL there were discussions of a merger between the DAP and the larger DSP--the Deutschsozialistiche Partei, or German-Socialist Party. But Hitler put an end to merger negotiations, no doubt fearing that any merger would mean the end of his dominance in the smaller but more tightly-knit DAP. Ultimately Hitler did get many DSP members into the NSDAP, as it was now called, on his own terms--especially through the adherence of Julius Streicher, one of the founder-members of the DSP, whose decision to join up with Hitler in 1922 greatly strengthened the Nazis in Franconia.)