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âDer deutsche Staat auf nationaler und sozialer Grundlageâ
Gottfried Federwas a German political activist who was the principal economic theoretician of the initial phase of German Nazism.
Feder, a civil engineer, gained notoriety in 1919 for his vaguely socialistic âManifest zur Brechung der Zinsknechtschaftâ (âManifesto on Breaking the Shackles of Interestâ), and his speech before a German Workersâ Party meeting at Munich in September of that year provided the immediate inspiration for Adolf Hitlerâs entry into politics. Federâs socialist and anticapitalist ideas subsequently found expression in Hitlerâs 25-point program for the National Socialist German Workersâ (Nazi) Party in March 1920, as well as in Federâs own book, Der deutsche Staat auf nationaler und sozialer Grundlage (1923; âNational and Social Bases of the German Stateâ), considered by Hitler to be âthe catechism of the [Nazi] movement.â Between 1924 and 1936 Feder sat in the German Reichstag and served as chairman of the Nazi Partyâs economic council (1931), state secretary of the German Ministry of Economics (1933), and state housing commissioner (1934). With the general accommodation of Nazi policy to the existing economic system, however, Federâs role in party affairs drastically diminished, and by 1936 he had been relegated to virtual obscurity.
