Ben Wilson

In Mein Kampf, he writes about the fact that you actually

don't want to box yourself in ideologically, and he never does.

In fact, he keeps the party platform very open, very fluid, because that way, you know, he can turn on a whim whenever he needs to for tactical purposes.

So what is very well articulated is the end goal, is this idea of German greatness and German restoration.

And how they get there, he leaves open to interpretation so that he doesn't turn

a lot of people off who might have different ideas around how to accomplish exactly what it is that he's pitching.

Okay, so he's released from Landsberg prison on December 20th, 1924.

He served 13 months of a five-year sentence and he leaves with little fanfare.

While he had been in prison, the National Socialist German Workers Party, NSDAP, had been banned.

He had appointed Alfred Rosenberg to lead the successor organization in his absence.

A decision that is very interesting because Rosenberg is a terrible leader.

He's famously bad at his job.

Kershaw describes him as, quote, one of the least charismatic and least popular of Nazi leaders who united party bigwigs only in their intense dislike of him.

Okay, he's so terrible that that's the one thing everyone can get behind, that Rosenberg is a terrible leader of this movement.

So the larger kind of Volkish movement in Hitler's absence descends into squabbling, into factionalism, into internecine strife.

Now, some people have actually tried to argue that he did this on purpose.

He knows Rosenberg is so bad.

And so he appoints him so that he'll look better in comparison.

I don't think he was doing that.

I don't think he appoints Rosenberg very hurriedly, very quickly before he's shuttled off to prison.