At the end of November 1918, Adolf Hitler returned to Munich and then proceeded to a military camp in Traunstein in south-eastern Bavaria. When the camp was disbanded in April 1919, he went back to Munich, which was still being ruled by a Soviet republic founded by a Polish Jew Kurt Eisner (real name Salamon Kosmanowsky).
At the beginning of May, a few days after the communist revolution had been terminated on May 1, 1919 by the Bavarian Freikorps, Hitler was summoned as a member of the 2nd Infantry Regiment to attend a course on political instruction. The purpose of this course of lectures was to provide the soldiers with a background of politics, which would enable them to monitor the many revolutionary and political movements present in Munich at that time.
One of the lecturers was a former construction engineer turned economist, Dr Gottfried Feder (1881-1941). In 1917 Feder had formed an organization called the Deutscher Kampfbund gegen Zinsknechtschaft (German Fighting League for the Breaking of Interest Slavery). His first lecture was entitled “The Abolition of the Interest-Servitude”. Hitler was enthralled by what he heard, and this was to be a turning point in his political career. The following quotations from Mein Kampf reflect his initial thoughts.
“For the first time in my life I heard a discussion which dealt with the principles of stock-exchange capital and capital which was used for loan activities. After hearing the first lecture delivered by Feder, the idea immediately came into my head that I had now found a way to one of the most essential pre-requisites for the founding of a new party.
To my mind, Feder’s merit consisted in the ruthless and trenchant way in which he described the double character of the capital engaged in stock-exchange and loan transaction, laying bare the fact that this capital is ever and always dependent on the payment of interest. In fundamental questions his statements were so full of common sense that those who criticized him did not deny that his ideas were sound but they doubted whether it be possible to put these ideas into practice. To me this seemed the strongest point in Feder’s teaching, though others considered it a weak point.” (Mein Kampf, Volume I, Chapter 8)
And again,
…I understood immediately that here was a truth of transcendental importance for the future of the German people. The absolute separation of stock exchange capital from the economic life of the nation would make it possible to oppose the process of internationalization in German business without at the same time attacking capital at such, for to do this would be to jeopardize the foundations of our national independence. I clearly saw what was developing in Germany, and I realized then that the stiffest fight we would have to wage would not be against the enemy nations but against international capital. In Feder’s speech I found an effective rallying-cry for our coming struggle.”
Further, he wrote,
“When I heard Gottfried Feder’s first lecture on ‘The Abolition of the Interest-Servitude’, I understood immediately that here was a truth of transcendental importance for the future of the German people. The absolute separation of stock-exchange capital from the economic life of the nation would make it possible to oppose the process of internationalization in German business without at the same time attacking capital as such, for to do this would jeopardize the foundations of our national independence. I clearly saw what was developing in Germany and I realized then that the stiffest fight we would have to wage would not be against the enemy nations but against international capital. In Feder’s speech I found an effective rallying-cry for our coming struggle.”
A few weeks later Hitler received an instruction from his superiors to investigate a political association called the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers Party). At this meeting held in the Sterneckerbrau Inn in Munich, about 20 to 25 persons were present. The main speaker was Dr Gottfried Feder.
Shortly thereafter Hitler joined this party and received a provisional certificate of membership numbered seven. His first act on assuming control of the party was to rename it the Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party).
Feder, who was the principal drafter of the party’s 25 points, became the architect and theoretician of the program, entitled, “The Program of the NSDAP, The National Socialist German Workers’ Party and its General Conceptions,” until his unfortunate dismissal as Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in August 1934. Approximately 40 percent of Feder’s ”The Program of the NSDAP” is devoted to economic and financial policies.
This Programme is the focus of this site, to demonstrate the genius behind the Programme (as revealed in his earlier work, Manifesto for the Abolition of Interest-Slavery.”
Feder's Genius 