Dietrich Eckart

Dietrich Eckart was a German anti-Semitic volkisch poet, playwright, journalist, publicist, and political activist who was one of the founders of the German Workers' Party, the predecessor to the Nazi Party. 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, and the lyricist of the first party anthem, Sturmlied. He was a participant in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 and died on December 23 of that year, shortly after his release from Landsberg Prison, from a heart attack compounded by alcoholism and morphine addiction. He was buried in Berchtesgaden.