Hitler remained in the army in Munich after the war. He participated in various "national thinking" courses, organised by the Education and Propaganda Department of the Bavarian Army under Captain Karl Mayr, of which Hitler became an agent. Captain Mayr ordered Hitler, then an army (not the equivalent of lance corporal, but a special class of private) and holder of the Iron Cross, First Class, to infiltrate the tiny ("German Workers' Party", abbreviated DAP). Hitler joined the DAP on 12 September 1919. He soon realised that he was in agreement with many of the underlying tenets of the DAP, and rose to its top post in the ensuing chaotic political atmosphere of postwar Munich. By agreement, Hitler assumed the political leadership of a number of Bavarian revanchist "patriotic associations", called the . This political base extended to include about 15,000 (SA, literally "Storm Detachment"), the paramilitary wing of the NSDAP.