Senior officers were impressed with Hitler's skills as a speaker, and he discovered his greatest talent: public oratory. In September 1919, he visited a meeting of the German Workers' Party, an extreme, anti Semitic, anti communist, right-wing nationalist party lead by Karl Drexler, with 40 members. Hitler informed the army it posed no threat to Germany. Hitler later joined the party and became the propaganda officer (Bullock, 1962, p. 112).
Hitler joined the party in 1920, and helped rename it the National Socialist German Worker's Party, or N.S.D.A.P. in German; the familiar contraction of this was "Nazi." Former soldiers who had been in the Free Corps joined the Nazi Party and their "skills" were used to break up meetings of let-wing parties, particularly the Communists. The use of violence became a way of life for the Nazis. During the next two years he became a fixture in radical politics in Bavaria, during the period of hyperinflation in Germany following the imposition of the sanctions of the Versailles Treaty. (Bullock, 1962, 142)
Contrary to the "speaker" on the stage, when in small gatherings, whether social or party business, Hitler normally talked in a soft, low keyed, voice. Though many of his ideas were radical, he spoke reasonably, simply and earnestly, and was always convincing. An assistant US military attach? in 1922 noted: "Have rarely listened to such a logical and fanatical man."_ Others found him "pleasant," "modest," "friendly" and a person who was "interested it them" (Dolan, 1981, p. 123).
Though it would later be said that Hitler was a believer in astrology, in reality he considered it "another swindle" and later stated: "In judging any question connected with superstition, it must be remembered that, although an oracle's prophecies may be wrong a hundred times..., it suffices for one prophecy to be fortuitously confirmed by subsequent events, for it to be believed, cherished and handed down fr...