24th February 1920: Hitler announces the 25 Point Programme and the establishment of the NSDAP

The German Workers’ Party (DAP) was established in Munich in early 1919 by Anton Drexler. Hitler was originally assigned to monitor the activities of the DAP by the army, but soon found himself drawn to the party’s nationalist and anti-Semitic ideals and became an influential member.

On February 24, 1920, during a meeting of 2,000 people in Munich’s Hofbräuhaus am Platzl, Hitler announced the DAP had officially become the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), known colloquially as the Nazi Party. Alongside the name change, he also introduced the 25 Point Programme, a set of ideological principles outlining the party’s objectives. This was a blend of nationalist, anti-Semitic, and anti-communist sentiments, reflecting the volatile post-World War I political climate in Germany.

Key points of the 25 Point Programme included the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, the unification of all German-speaking people, the demand for Lebensraum (living space) for the German nation, and the exclusion of Jews from German citizenship. These principles went on to underpin Nazi ideology and policy for the next twenty-five years.

While it was to be more than a decade before the Nazis came to power in Germany, the events of February 24, 1920, marked the first stage of the party’s development into a political force set on exploiting the country’s post-war turmoil. Through his appeal to a disenchanted population, Hitler’s powerful rhetoric would go on to see him dominate the party and secure support across Germany.