In 1893, Franko Stein from the town of Eger (Cheb) and Ludwig Vogel an apprentice bookbinder from Brüx organized the Deutschnationaler Arbeiterbund (DNAB - the German National Workers League). This group was a collection of laborers, apprentices, and labor unionists from the local railroads, mines and textile industries, who took up German nationalism in response to their ongoing conflicts with the non-German speaking portions of the workforce, and especially in the railway systems.

In 1899, Stein once again convened a workers congress in Eger where they promulgated a new 25-point program that was strongly aligned with the increasingly popular Pan-Germanic movement. Three years later, in April of 1902, the members of this group organized yet another convention at Saaz taking the name Deutschpolitischer Arbeiterverein für Österreich (DPAV - German Workers' Political Association).

Founding of the DAP

The movement took a concrete form on on November, 15 1903, at Aussig (Ústí nad Labem in Czech), Bohemia, now in the present-day Czech Republic, when Ferdinand Burschowsky along with Karl Hermann Wolf, an adherent of Austrian politician and proto-Nazi Georg von Schönerer, along with a number of others founded the German Workers Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) of Austria-Hungary.

Afterward the DAP secretariat was stationed in Aussig (Ústí nad Labem in Czech). At several later party congresses, Hans Knirsch proposed that they call themselves the Nationalsozialistische (National-Socialist) or Deutsch-soziale (German-social) Workers Party. This proposal was blocked by the Bohemian groups, who did not want to copy the name of the Czech National Socialist Party. An early member of this group was Ferdinand Burschowsky, a printer from Hohenstadt (Moravia), who was active in writing and publishing.

Fifteen years later, at a party congress in Vienna in May 1918, the DAP officially changed its name to the Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei (DNSAP) and produced a National Socialist Program which almost certainly influenced the later German Nazi manifesto.

In 1923, the Austrian DNSAP split into two factions, the Deutschsozialen Verein (German Social Association) led by Dr. Walter Riehl, and the Schulz-Gruppe, led by Karl Schulz.

After 1930, most former DNSAP members became supporters of the German NSDAP led by Hitler, and were one of the chief elements leading the pro-Nazi coup in 1938 that brought about the Anschluss with Germany.

Sources:

1. Austrian National Socialism, Andrew Gladding Whiteside, publisher: Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1962.

2. Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis: A History of Austrian National Socialism, Pauley, Bruce F., University of North Carolina Press, 1981.

3. Pauley, Bruce F. (1979). "From Splinter Party to Mass Movement: The Austrian Nazi Breakthrough". German Studies Review 2 (1): 7–29.