Among the organizations of the National Socialist Party the Hitler Youth has long been regarded as unique because of its large working-class membership, estimated as high as seventy percent, its egalitarianism, and its espousal of social revolutionary doctrines. The NSDAP, we know, was overwhelmingly a lower Mittelstand entity, being composed principally of small shopkeepers, craftsmen, peasants, lower civil servants, and white-collar workers. With the onset of the depression there occurred a fairly large influx of new members from the upper Mittelstand, consisting of independent businessmen and executives, middle and higher ranking civil servants, and members of the academically trained free professions. The arrival of these groups gave the party a somewhat more conservative but also considerably more respectable complexion and contributed much to bring Hitler to power.