German Socialist Party

The German Socialist Party (German: Deutschsozialistische Partei, DSP) was a short-lived German nationalist, far-right party during the early years of the Weimar Republic. Founded in 1918, its declared aim was an ideology that would combine völkisch nationalism with an appeal to the working class. However, the party never became a mass movement.

The DSP was heavily influenced by the antisemitic Thule Society, led by Rudolf von Sebottendorf, as well as publications of engineer Alfred Brunner, who aimed to create a party that would be both nationalist and attractive to the German proletariat. Similar to the NSDAP, the DSP aimed to win the allegiance of the German proletariat away from Socialism, which had become highly influential following the German Revolution of 1918–1919.

In 1920, the party (which had originally only existed in Nuremberg and Franconia) attempted to become a nationwide party and compete in the Reichstag elections. However, the party only received about 7,000 votes.^[1]

This led to various attempts to join forces with similar groups: In the summer of 1921, Julius Streicher, an important party official, formed an alliance with the Völkische Werkgemeinschaft. They also tried to bring the NSDAP into the fold but while NSDAP chairman Anton Drexler was open to a merger, the NSDAP's leading speaker, Adolf Hitler, vehemently opposed such a move and threatened to resign from the party. This directly led to Hitler becoming party leader and assuming absolute control over the NSDAP.^[2] The DSP continued to lose members and popularity and dissolved in late 1922. Streicher and other functionaries joined the NSDAP.

Hitler's opposition might have been influenced by having been rejected by the DSP in 1919. Hans Georg Grassinger, the founding chairman of the DSP, later recalled:

In the autumn of 1919, around September, Hitler appeared in the office of the publishing house to see Grassinger and offered [to] write for the paper, and to join and work for the German Socialist Party. He didn't have any money at the time and he also asked to borrow money from Grassinger. But they [told] him that they had no use for him in the paper and that they also did not want to have him in the party.^[3]

The DSP dissolved in December 1922, and told its members to join the Nazi Party.^[4]

• Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6.
• Orlow, Dietrich (1969). The History of the Nazi Party: 1919-1933. University of Pittsburgh Press. SBN 822931834.

• Siegfried Zelnhefer. Deutschsozialistische Partei (DSP), 1920–1922. Historische Lexikon Bayerns.