Because of great dissatisfaction with the loss of the WW1 and the poor economic condition in which Germany found itself in, Dietrich Eckart a German anti-Semitic völkisch poet, playwright, journalist, publicist, and political activist was one of the founders of the German Workers' Party, the predecessor to the Nazi Party.

Adolf Hitler became involved with the German Workers Party. The later Nazi Party NSDAP (National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei). Eckart was a key influence on Adolf Hitler in the early years of the Party, the original publisher of the party newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter ("People's Observer"). But Hitler set the violent tone of the movement by forming the paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA) with Ernst Röhm. Catholic Bavaria resented rule from Protestant Berlin and Hitler at first saw revolution in Bavaria as a means to power. An early attempt at a coup d'état, the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, proved fruitless and Hitler was imprisoned (along with Eckart, Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess and Röhm) for leading the putsch.

He used this time to write Mein Kampf his personal view on the world and society in general. But Hitler has learned from the failed coup attempt, he decided on the tactic of pursuing power through legal means rather than seizing control of the government by force. To get the whole of Germany behind the NSDAP and an all-out war, a common enemy was found in the Jews. The NSDAP or Hilter's party propagated social Darwinist theories. They saw the Germanic "Aryan" race as the most developed race and considered it their task to subdue or exterminate "lesser" races.

In his book Hitler stated that the living space or "Lebensraum" of the Germanic people was too small. The party also called for change in the social and economic structure of Germany. The Nazi's saw the Jews as inferior and unwanted members (Untermenschen) of society. Shortly after he came to power in 1933, Hitler instituted the first measures to exclude Jews in Germany from public life. Jews were getting less and less freedom. From 1933 onwards Jews were no longer allowed to hold government positions and the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 deprived Jews of citizenship. Marriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews are also restricted.

In 1938 it comes to the first major action against Jews. After the attack by 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan on the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath on the German embassy in Paris, who died two days later as a result of his injuries, the German population is incited against the Jewish population. All Jews are held responsible for this attack. Grynszpan was expelled from Hanover with his family earlier that year as part of anti-Jewish measures. During the "Kristallnacht" from 9 to 10 November, shops, houses and synagogues belonging to Jews are destroyed. Thousands of Jews are arrested and deported to concentration camps.