ABSTRACT
Hitler's first appearance before the German public as the prophet of a new order occurred on February 24, 1920. On this date, which marks the beginning of the movement, Hitler proclaimed the program of a new political organization, the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Never has there been a movement which originated from so many chance occurrences. Voltaire was able to predict the French Revolution. But nobody really wanted a revolution in Germany, and had anyone predicted it in 1914, he would have been considered ridiculous. Many workers and members of the lower and middle class are found to have responded negatively to the revolution, and at least 10 per cent of these relate their negative reaction definitely to their subsequent joining of the Hitler movement. The significance of the negative reaction to the revolution is overshadowed by the far more general and more deep-seated reaction against the Versailles Treaty and the Republican regime that signed it.
