Friday July 29, 1921. A dark and momentous day.

On this day in 1921 an obscure Austrian born veteran of World War One, who had been employed by the Reichsheer to inform on an obscure upstart German political party, was voted its head in an election with a foreordained result.  In doing so, Adolph Hitler replaced Anton Drexler as the leader of the German Workers Party, with only one person voting no.

The election in the then tiny party came about due to an interparty feud in which Hitler, who had become the party's primary spokesman, had resigned on July 11.  Given that Hitler had become the most notable public figure of the party, even early on, a deal was reached in which he would become its leader, with the title führer, and Drexler was cease to be more than a figure in the party.  That deal resulted in Hitler's accession to dictatorship status on this day in 1921.

The evolution of events was remarkable. Drexler had been a primary figure in the party from its onset and was the partial originator of its original anti-Semitic platform.  Hitler was an early member, but not one of the earliest members.  Effectively, Hilter had co-opted the leadership of what would soon be renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party, the Nazi party.

There was no reason to believe that the Nazis would go anywhere in 1921. They were only one of a plethora of radical German parties with mushy ideas.  Even the virulent anti-Semitism wasn't unique to the Nazi Party, but common in extreme right wing German parties of the time.  The only really unique thing about the party was Hitler himself, who would prove to be a charismatic leader.

The title "Socialist" wasn't unique to them by any means either, but the change in name, which would come about soon, and due to Hitler, has led to decades of debate on how socialist the Nazi Party was. Early on, it was fairly socialist, but this changed during the party's early years to where it adopted autarky as an economic platform.  The fact that capitalist were generally not shy about the Nazi Party demonstrates that by the early 1930s it was not regarded as a socialist party by German industrialist and business figures.

Drexler dropped out of the party after the Beer Hall Putsch, which he had no role in, and only rejoined it in 1933 after it had come into power.  He died at age 57 in 1942 due to alcoholism.  He was not unique in being a very early member of the party who was sidelined after Hitler took over.  Nobody in the movement was admirable, but if Drexler had resisted Hitler's taking over the party, and if its members had supported him, the Nazis in the form they were soon to become would never have come into being, and Hitler would have faded from history.

The Council On Foreign Relations, a think tank, was formed on this day in 1921.  The organization ponders the international relations and policy of the United States.