Death of a Cynic

The founder of the Nazi Party died last week in Munich. His name was not in the official Party register or in Wer Ist's (the German Who's Who). His name was Anton Drexler.

Anton Drexler was a Munich locksmith who was unfit for service during World War I. He opposed trade unions, hated Marxism, believed that if Germany did not become mighty she would be ruined by international finance. In March 1918, he gathered 40 Germans into a Munich beer hall, formed the Committee of Independent Workmen. The next year they called themselves the German Workers' Party and Adolf Hitler was admitted as the seventh member of the inner cell. In 1920 the organization's name was again changed to the National Socialist German Workers' Party and Hitler began muscling Drexler out of his way.

In Mein Kampf Hitler called Anton Drexler "a simple workman . . . little importance . . . not a soldier . . . weak and uncertain."

In 1925 Drexler left the Nazi Party, founded a rival National Social People's Union, which soon expired. After Hitler came to power, Anton Drexler became a cynical, political nonentity.

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