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At the end of war he returned to Munich. He joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) in 1919 and from April of the following year he worked for them on a full time basis. In 1921 he was elected as party chairman, "Führer". He soon became a key figure in Bavarian politics and he spread his ideas about racial hate and objections to democracy. In November 1923 he led a coup de etat in Munich (Marsch zur Feldherrnhalle) against the postwar Weimar Republic, proclaiming himself chancellor of a new authoritarian regime. However this putsch failed. He was captured and sentenced to five years imprisonment in Landsberg. During this time he dictated his autobiography "Mein Kampf". Due to a general political amnesty he already was released nine months later and he immediately began rebuilding the Nazi party. In 1930 the Nazi party was represented with 107 seats in the German parliament (Reichstag). Three years later on 30th January 1933 he became German chancellor. |
Once in power he quickly established himself as a dictator. He began rearming Germany which met little protest from other European countries. In 1936 he sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland, but France and the rest of the world did not react. During the Spanish Civil War in 1936 he supported the Nationalist leader Francisco Franco by supplying airplanes and weapons and sending German troops (Legion Condor). In 1938 Hitler occupied Austria and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Britain and France feared the outbreak of a war so they agreed in the Munich Pact to this annexations on the basis that Hitler would not take over any additional Czech territory. However in March 1939 Hitler occupied the reminder of Czechoslovakia.
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