ABSTRACT
The precursors of the Nazi Party are to be found in the volkisch and Pan-German movements of both Germany and Austria at the end of the nineteenth century. The radical right of German-speaking Europe was organisationally fragmented, but shared an ideology characterised to a greater or lesser extent by a number of common features. The origins of the Munich DAP were in a militantly nationalist anti-semitic group called the Thule Society, which served as a focus for the extreme right in the city. The party itself was very much a local group of relatively minor significance when Hitler joined it in 1919. Despite the electoral breakthrough of the depression years the Nazis were no more successful than any other party in their attempt to win an absolute majority in the Reichstag. The cabinets of Heinrich Bruning, Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher dispensed with the necessity of Reichstag majorities by ruling through presidential decree.
