==Beginnings==
Adolf Hitler was still attached to the German Army in Bavaria after [[World War I]], serving primarily as a gatherer of information on the various political parties which were created as a result of the country's loss in the war. After being assigned to document a small left-wing party in Munich known as the ''Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' ("German Workers' Party" or DAP), he liked what he saw in it and became a member in September 1919; the following year, the party changed its name to the ''National-Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' ("National Socialist German Workers' Party" or NSDAP). In 1921 Hitler assumed leadership of the NSDAP.
[[File:Early-leaders-of-the-nazi-party-full.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Members of the NSDAP Defendant's during the Munich beer hall putsch trial, April 1924 (''l-r:'' Pernet, Weber, Frick, Kiebel, Ludendorff, Hitler, Bruckner, Röhm, Wagner.).]]
As leader of the NSDAP, Hitler reorganized the party and encouraged the assimilation of other radical groups. Gangs of unemployed demobilized soldiers were gathered under the command of a former army officer, [[Ernst Röhm]], to form the [[Storm Troopers]] (''Sturmabteilung'' or SA), Hitler's private army. Under Hitler's leadership, the NSDAP denounced the Weimar Republic and the "November criminals" who had signed the [[Treaty of Versailles]]. The postwar economic slump won the party a following among unemployed ex-soldiers, the lower middle class, and small farmers; in 1923 membership totaled about 55,000. General Erich Ludendorff supported the former corporal in the [[Beer Hall Putsch]] of November 1923 in Munich, an attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government. The putsch failed, and Hitler received a light sentence of five years, of which he served less than one. Incarcerated in relative comfort, he wrote ''Mein Kampf'' (My Struggle), in which he set out his long-term political aims.