The men who are known as born leaders have one overriding characteristic: they know that they are leaders. And the overriding characteristic of the easily led is to follow the born leader. Hitler set about proving these propositions in no uncertain fashion. Within months he was the party organizer, its propagandist and, no matter the scheduled speaker, it was he who usually ended each meeting with a rabble-rousing speech. There is really no way of telling now just what it was that made him a demagogue but follow him the people did. Listening to recordings of later speeches and even allowing for the fact that one does not speak German, the effect now is more of a monotonous delivery in quite a high pitched voice, with crescendos somewhat higher. Observers have said that it was his blazing conviction, the light in his intense slightly protuberant eyes that swayed crowds, that and the calls for immediate action to right this or that wrong that often formed the perorations. Whatever the cause the effect was to send away aroused men, passing on Hitler's words and bringing in increasing crowds.
Part of being a born leader must be being a born politician, but there still has to be learnt the methods of achieving power. From his observation of the Social Democrats in Vienna, Hitler says that he found three strategies essential for successful government, and here he meant a successful dictatorship. The first is the necessity of creating a mass movement to bring the party to power; the second, the use of propaganda in maintaining it there; and, third, the use of terror to ensure the 'loyalty' of the people thereafter (although no one could accuse any Social Democrat party then, or since, of using the last). Hitler carried out the first two to such an effect that within 18 months he found the necessity of introducing the third had become urgent. Party membership was growing and the meetings were becoming increasingly rowdy but they were still a local Munich phenomenon, just another among many trying for the top. It was these many that needed eliminating or neutralizing. From early days, ex-servicemen had been employed as bouncers at meetings of the party which had become, on 1st April 1920, six short months after Hitler joined, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, quickly known as the Nazi Party. By the summer Hitler had organized these thugs into Ordnertruppe who not only dealt with hecklers, but were themselves sent to heckle and possibly break up meetings of other parties. On 5th October 1921 they were officially renamed the Sturmabteilung, the S.A., the storm troopers. Until the creation of the SS and the Gestapo, the Brown Shirts were Hitler's instrument of terror. And he was already, in a small way, a dictator. Earlier, in July, he had survived a challenge to his leadership that left him with the title of President, the only spokesman for the party and the sole authority; the Fuehrerprinzip had arrived.
