They were led by a group of people, some very much noblemen and officers, and some well-educated and competent people.

The criterion for success was being defined by the corporal, because in some sense German conservatives of the Weimar republic times turned pessimist of their nobility, their upper and middle class, and, a bit like Russian narodniks would look for rebirth in the way Russian peasants lived (knowing nothing of that), they were looking for rebirth in the propaganda picture of some patriotic and depressed corporal, and they've found one.