National Socialist Freedom Movement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The National Socialist Freedom Movement (NSFM) (German: Nationalsozialistische Freiheitsbewegung, or NSFB) or National Socialist Freedom Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Freiheitspartei, or NSFP) was a German political party created in April 1924 in the aftermath of the Munich Putsch. Adolf Hitler and many Nazi Party leaders were jailed after the attempted coup and the Nazi party was outlawed in what came to be known as the "Time of Struggle". The remaining Nazis formed the NSFM as a legal means of carrying on the party and it therefore included the same members and ideology as the Nazi party.

In the May 1924 elections the NSFM won 32 seats in the Reichstag. General Erich Ludendorff and former Sturmabteilung (SA) head Ernst Röhm were among the winning candidates. However, in December 1924 the party lost 18 of these seats. Included in this party was the similarly reformed and renamed Frontbann, which was a legal alternative to the SA. On February 27, 1925 the Nazi party was reformed after the ban expired in January and Hitler was released from prison; the NSFM was then reabsorbed into the Nazis.

In the elections the NSFM formed an electoral alliance with Ludendorff's German Völkisch Freedom Party. In some districts it was called the Völkisch-Nationale Block.