In January 1921, Stolzing-Cerny, who joined the NSDAP in December 1920, wrote to Chamberlain about the new man on the political scene, "one Adolf Hitler, an Austrian worker, a man of extraordinary oratorical talents and an astonishingly rich political knowledge who knows marvelously how to thrill the masses". Initially, Chamberlain was hesitant about Hitler, believing that he might be another Kapp, but after the "battle of Coburg", in which Hitler had personally fought with his followers in a street battle against the Communists, Chamberlain started to see Hitler as someone who practiced what he preached. From that time onwards, Chamberlain started to closely follow and admire Hitler, whom he saw as "Germany's savior". Hitler in his turn had read "The Foundations", Chamberlain's biography of Wagner, and many of his wartime essays, and was much influenced by all that Chamberlain had written. British historian Sir Ian Kershaw, a biographer of Hitler, writes that