Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

By little collections among us poor devils the funds were raised with which at last to
advertise the meeting by notices in the then independent Munchener Beobachter in Munich.
And this time the success was positively amazing. We had organized the meeting in the
Munich Hofbrauhauskeller (not to be confused with the Munich Hofbrauhaus-Festsaal), a
little room with a capacity of barely one hundred and thirty people. To me personally the
room seemed like a big hall and each of us was worried whether we would succeed in filling
this 'mighty' edifice with people.
At seven o'clock one hundred and eleven people were present and the meeting was opened.
A Munich professor made the main speech, and I, for the first time, in public, was to speak
second.
In the eyes of Herr Harrer, then first chairman of the party, the affair seemed a great
adventure. This gentleman, who was certainly otherwise honest, just happened to be
convinced that I might be capable of doing certain things, but not of speaking. And even in
the time that followed he could not be dissuaded from this opinion. "
Things turned out differently. In this first meeting that could be called public I had been
granted twenty minutes' speaking time.
I spoke for thirty minutes, and what before I had simply felt within me, without in any way
knowing it, was now proved by reality: I could speak After thirty minutes the people in the
small room were electrified and the enthusiasm was first expressed by the fact that my
appeal to the self-sacrifice of those present led to the donation of three hundred marks. This
relieved us of a great worry. For at this time the financial stringency was so great that we
were not even in a position to have slogans printed for the movement, or even distribute
leaflets. Now the foundation was laid for a little fund from which at least our barest needs
and most urgent necessities could be defrayed. But in another respect as well, the success of
this first larger meeting was considerable.
At that time I had begun to bring a number of fresh young forces into the committee. During
my many years in the army I -had come to know a great number of faithful comrades who
now slowly, on the basis of my persuasion, began to enter the movement. They were all
energetic young people, accustomed to discipline, and from their period of service raised in
the principle: nothing at all is impossible, everything can be done if you only want it.
How necessary such a transfusion of new blood was, I myself could recognize after only a few
weeks of collaboration.
Herr Harrer, then first chairman of the party, was really a journalist and as such he was
certainly widely educated. But for a party leader he had one exceedingly serious drawback:
he was no speaker for the masses. As scrupulously conscientious and precise as his work in
itself was, it nevertheless lacked-perhaps because of this very lack of a great oratorical giftthe
great sweep. Herr Drexler, then chairman of the Munich local group, was a simple
worker, likewise not very significant as a speaker, and moreover he was no soldier. He had
not served in the army, even during the War he had not been a soldier, so that feeble and
uncertain as he was in his whole nature, he lacked the only schooling which was capable of
turning uncertain and soft natures into men. Thus both men were not made of stuff which
would have enabled them not only to bear in their hearts fanatical faith in the victory of a
movement, but also with indomitable energy and will, and if necessary with brutal
ruthlessness, to sweep aside any obstacles which might stand in the path of the rising new
idea. For this only beings were fitted in whom spirit and body had acquired those military
virtues which can perhaps best be described as follows: swift as greyhounds, tough as
leather, and hard as Krupp steel.
At that time I myself was still a soldier. My exterior and interior had been whetted and
hardened for well-nigh six years, so that at first I must have seemed strange in this circle. I,
too, had forgotten how to say: 'that's impossible,' or 'it won't work'; 'we can't risk that,' 'that
is too dangerous,' etc.