adolf hitler rise to power essay

The Rise of Hitler to Power Essay

Introduction, the weimar republic, anti-semitism, reference list.

Adolf Hitler rose to power as the chancellor of Germany in 1933 through a legal election and formed a coalition government of the NSDAO-DNVP Party. Many issues in Hitler’s life and manipulations behind the curtains preceded this event.

Hitler and the Nazi party rose to power propelled by various factors that were in play in Germany since the end of World War I. The weak Weimar Republic and Hitler’s anti-Semitism campaigns and obsession were some of the factors that favored Hitler’s rise to power and generally the Nazi beliefs (Bloxham and Kushner 2005: 54).

Every public endorsement that Hitler received was an approval for his hidden Nazi ideals of dictatorship and Semitism regardless of whether the Germans were aware or not.

Hitler’s pathway to power was rather long and coupled with challenges but he was not ready to let go; he held on to accomplish his deeply rooted obsessions and beliefs; actually, vote for Hitler was a vote for the Holocaust.

Hitler joined the German Worker’s Party in the year 1919 as its fifth member. His oratory talent and anti-Semitism values quickly popularized him and by 1920, he was already the head of propaganda.

The party later changed its name to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartel (NSDPA) and formed paramilitary groups in the name of security men or gymnastics and sports division.

It was this paramilitary formed by Hitler that would cause unrest later to tarnish the name of the communists leading to distrust of communism by the Germans and on the other hand rise of popularity of the Nazi (Burleigh 1997: 78).

A turning point of Hitler took place when he led the Beer Hall Putsch, in a failed coup de tat and the government later imprisoned him on accusations of treason. The resulting trial earned him a lot of publicity, he used the occasion to attack the Weimar republic, and later while in prison, he rethought his approach to get into power.

The military defeat and German revolution in November 1918 after the First World War saw the formation of Weimar republic.The military government handed over power to the civilian government and later on revolutions in form of mutinies, violent uprisings and declaration of independence occurred until early 1919.

Then there was formation of constituent assembly and promulgated of new constitution, which included the infamous article 48. None of the many political parties could gain a majority vote to form government and therefore many small parties formed a coalition government.

What followed were a short period of political stability mainly because of the coalition government in place and the later the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. Many factors caused the rise of the Nazi party to power.

The most notable factor was his ability to take advantage of Germany’s poor leadership, economical and political instability.

The Weimar’s Republic collapse under pressure due to hyperinflation and civil unrest was the result of Hitler’s ability to manipulate the German media and public while at the same time taking advantage of the country’s poor leadership (Schleunes 1990: 295).

The period between 1921 and 1922, Germany was struggling with economic instability due to high inflation and hyperinflation rates prior to the absolute collapse of the German currency. The German mark became almost useless resulting into instability-fuelled unrest in many sectors of the economy. To counter the effects, the government printed huge amounts of paper money.

Germany had to sign the unforgiving treaty of Versailles, which the Weimar Republic was responsible for and was later to become the ‘noose around Germany’s neck’, a situation that caused “feelings of distrust, fear, resentment, and insecurity towards the Weimar Republic” (Bartov 2000: 54).

Hitler built on these volatile emotions and offered the option of a secure and promising leadership of the extremist Nazi party as opposed to the weak and unstable coalition government of the Weimar republic. Dippel notes, “Hitler’s ability to build upon people’s disappointed view of the hatred of the treaty of Versailles was one of the major reason for the Nazi party’s and Hitler’s rise to power” (1996: 220).

The Treaty of Versailles introduced the German population to a period of economic insatiability and caused an escalation of hard economic standards. The opportunistic appearance of an extremist group that promised better options than the prevailing situation presented a temptation to the vulnerable Germans to accept it (Dippel 1996: 219).

During the period of hyperinflation, unemployment rose sharply and children were largely malnourished. The value of people’s savings spiraled downwards leading to low living standards and reduction in people buying power.

People became desperate and started a frantic search for a better alternative to the Weimar Government. Germany in a state of disillusionment became a prey to the convincing promises of Hitler. Hitler promised full employment and security in form of a strong central government.

The Weimar republic also faced political challenges from both left-wingers and right-wingers. The communists wanted radical changes like those one implemented in Russia while the conservatives thought that the Weimar government was too weak and liberal.

The Germans longed for a leader with the leadership qualities of Bismark especially with the disillusionment of the Weimar republic. They blamed the government for the hated Versailles treaty and they all came out to look for a scapegoat to their overwhelming challenges (Thalmann and Feinermann 1990: 133).

In their bid to look for scapegoats, many Germans led by Hitler and Nazi party blamed the German Jews for their economic and political problems.

Hitler made a failed attempt to seize power through a coup de tat that led to his arrest and imprisonment. In prison, he wrote a book that was later to become the guide to Nazism known as Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

The book reflected Hitler’s obsessions to nationalism, racism, and anti-Semitism and he insisted that Germans belonged to a superior race of Aryans meaning light-skinned Europeans. According to Hitler, the greatest enemies of the Aryans were the Jews and therefore the Germans should eliminate them at all costs since they were the genesis of all their misfortunes.

These views on Semitism could trace its genesis in history from which it Historians suspect that Hitler’s ideas were rooted. In this view, Christians persecuted Jews mainly because of their difference in beliefs.

Nationalism in the 19 th century caused the society to view Jews as ethnic outsiders while Hitler viewed Jews not as members of a religion but as a unique race (Longerich 2006: 105). Consequently, he blamed the German’s defeat on a conspiracy of Marxists, Jews, corruption of politicians and businesspersons.

Hitler urged the Germans on the need to unite into a great nation so that the slaves and other inferior races could bow to their needs (Bergen 2003: 30). He further advocated for removal and elimination of the Jews from the face of the earth to create enough space for ‘great nation’.

He spread propaganda that for Germany to unite into one great nation it required a strong leader one he believed to be destined to become.

These Semitism views contributed to the sudden change of fortunes for the Nazi party and Hitler because the conditions were appropriate. The Germans were desperate for some hope in the midst of frustrating times due to the failure of the Weimar republic and rising communism (Stone 2004: 17).

They involuntarily yielded to the more appealing Nazism values especially with the promises of destroying communism and improved living standards.

However, in accepting the Nazi party and Hitler, the Germans were giving in to Semitism, which was deeply rooted in the core values of Nazism, and Hitler had clearly outlined them in the Mein Kampf, which laid out his ideas and future policies.

Hitler’s well timed and precise way of “introducing the secure option of Nazism at an appropriate time and taking advantage of a disjointed Weimar republic that faced unprecedented challenges” (Cohn-Sherbok 1999: 12) was one of the many reasons that underscored Hitler’s fame.

He promised a strong and united German nation very timely when the German nation had suffered a dent to their pride and union due to the defeat in the First World War. Hitler’s promise of a strong and powerful nation began to look very appealing causing a large proportion of Germans, who were in disillusionment, to divert their support the Nazi Party (Gordon 1987: 67).

Hitler’s opportunistic approach and perfectly timed cunning speeches as well as his manipulation of certain circumstance were significant reasons for the rise of Nazism and Hitler in Germany.

During the Great depression and release from prison, Hitler introduced large-scale propaganda and at the same time manipulated the media with his ideas. This led to the Nazi supporter’s increase of detests against their opposition and many Germans believed in the cunning lies of Hitler (Kaplan 1999: 45).

He managed to spread lies against the communist society and a case in point is when a communist supporter set the Reichstag building ablaze in one of the civil unrests in Germany, supposedly.

This event caused the communism society to loose popularity and allowed Hitler to activate the enabling act when he came to power. The act marked a turning point in the success of Hitler’s dictatorship and Historians accredit it as the foundation of the Nazi rule.

The communists later realized that the Nazis were responsible for the act at Reichstag building and the act meant to provoke hatred between the communists and Nazi supporters.

Hitler had a very charming personality that made him very easy to get along with people. His likable character and oratory skills enabled him to put forward the strong sense of authority that the Weimar Republic lacked.

This, in combination with other factors, made him very appealing to the desperate Germans, making them believe in the Nazi ideals like Semitism and supporting the Nazi party while concurrently fueling hatred of the ruling Weimar Republic.

Hitler’s ability to manipulate circumstances and situation in the favor of himself and his Nazi Party was reason for their success to rise to power. Hitler waited patiently to take hold of the realms of power before unleashing his full force of dictatorship and hatred for the Jews, which led to the holocaust. It is therefore just to state that every Hitler’s vote was a vote for the holocaust.

Bartov, O., ed., The Holocaust: origins, implementation, aftermath , Routledge, London/New York, 2000.

Bergen, D. L., War & Genocide: a concise history of the Holocaust , 2 nd ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

Bloxham, D. & T. Kushner, The Holocaust. Critical historical approaches , Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2005.

Burleigh, M., Ethics and Extermination. Reflections on Nazi Genocide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997.

Cohn-Sherbok, D., Understanding the Holocaust , Cassell. London/New York, 1999.

Dippel, J. H., Bound upon a Wheel of Fire. Why so many German Jews made the tragic decision to remain in Nazi Germany , Basic Books, New York, 1996.

Gordon, A. S., Hitler, Germans and the ‘Jewish Question’ , Blackwell, Oxford, 1987.

Kaplan, M., Between dignity and despair: Jewish life in Nazi Germany , New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Longerich, P., The Unwritten Order. Hitler’s Role in the Final Solution, Tempus, The Mill, GLS, 2006.

Schleunes, K. A., The Twisted Road to Auschwitz. Nazi Policy towards German Jews, 1933-9, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1990.

Stone, D., Histories of the Holocaust , Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2004.

Thalmann, R. & E. Feinermann, Crystal night, 9-10 November 1938 , Thames and Hudson, London, 1990.

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Adolf Hitler

By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 30, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany’s  Nazi Party , was one of the most powerful and notorious dictators of the 20th century. After serving with the German military in World War I , Hitler capitalized on economic woes, popular discontent and political infighting during the Weimar Republic to rise through the ranks of the Nazi Party.

In a series of ruthless and violent actions—including the Reichstag Fire and the Night of Long Knives—Hitler took absolute power in Germany by 1933. Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the outbreak of  World War II , and by 1941, Nazi forces had used “blitzkrieg” military tactics to occupy much of Europe. Hitler’s virulent  anti-Semitism  and obsessive pursuit of Aryan supremacy fueled the murder of some 6 million Jews, along with other victims of the  Holocaust . After the tide of war turned against him, Hitler committed suicide in a Berlin bunker in April 1945.

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, a small Austrian town near the Austro-German frontier. After his father, Alois, retired as a state customs official, young Adolf spent most of his childhood in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria.

Not wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps as a civil servant, he began struggling in secondary school and eventually dropped out. Alois died in 1903, and Adolf pursued his dream of being an artist, though he was rejected from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts.

After his mother, Klara, died in 1908, Hitler moved to Vienna, where he pieced together a living painting scenery and monuments and selling the images. Lonely, isolated and a voracious reader, Hitler became interested in politics during his years in Vienna, and developed many of the ideas that would shape Nazi ideology.

Military Career of Adolf Hitler

In 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, in the German state of Bavaria. When World War I broke out the following summer, he successfully petitioned the Bavarian king to be allowed to volunteer in a reserve infantry regiment.

Deployed in October 1914 to Belgium, Hitler served throughout the Great War and won two decorations for bravery, including the rare Iron Cross First Class, which he wore to the end of his life.

Hitler was wounded twice during the conflict: He was hit in the leg during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and temporarily blinded by a British gas attack near Ypres in 1918. A month later, he was recuperating in a hospital at Pasewalk, northeast of Berlin, when news arrived of the armistice and Germany’s defeat in World War I .

Like many Germans, Hitler came to believe the country’s devastating defeat could be attributed not to the Allies, but to insufficiently patriotic “traitors” at home—a myth that would undermine the post-war Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitler’s rise.

After Hitler returned to Munich in late 1918, he joined the small German Workers’ Party, which aimed to unite the interests of the working class with a strong German nationalism. His skilled oratory and charismatic energy helped propel him in the party’s ranks, and in 1920 he left the army and took charge of its propaganda efforts.

In one of Hitler’s strokes of propaganda genius, the newly renamed National Socialist German Workers Party, or  Nazi Party , adopted a version of the swastika—an ancient sacred symbol of  Hinduism , Jainism and Buddhism —as its emblem. Printed in a white circle on a red background, Hitler’s swastika would take on terrifying symbolic power in the years to come.

By the end of 1921, Hitler led the growing Nazi Party, capitalizing on widespread discontent with the Weimar Republic and the punishing terms of the Versailles Treaty . Many dissatisfied former army officers in Munich would join the Nazis, notably Ernst Röhm, who recruited the “strong arm” squads—known as the Sturmabteilung (SA)—which Hitler used to protect party meetings and attack opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch 

On the evening of November 8, 1923, members of the SA and others forced their way into a large beer hall where another right-wing leader was addressing the crowd. Wielding a revolver, Hitler proclaimed the beginning of a national revolution and led marchers to the center of Munich, where they got into a gun battle with police.

Hitler fled quickly, but he and other rebel leaders were later arrested. Even though it failed spectacularly, the Beer Hall Putsch established Hitler as a national figure , and (in the eyes of many) a hero of right-wing nationalism.

'Mein Kampf' 

Tried for treason, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison, but would serve only nine months in the relative comfort of Landsberg Castle. During this period, he began to dictate the book that would become " Mein Kampf " (“My Struggle”), the first volume of which was published in 1925.

In it, Hitler expanded on the nationalistic, anti-Semitic views he had begun to develop in Vienna in his early twenties, and laid out plans for the Germany—and the world—he sought to create when he came to power.

Hitler would finish the second volume of "Mein Kampf" after his release, while relaxing in the mountain village of Berchtesgaden. It sold modestly at first, but with Hitler’s rise it became Germany’s best-selling book after the Bible. By 1940, it had sold some 6 million copies there.

Hitler’s second book, “The Zweites Buch,” was written in 1928 and contained his thoughts on foreign policy. It was not published in his lifetime due to the poor initial sales of “Mein Kampf.” The first English translations of “The Zweites Buch” did not appear until 1962 and was published under the title “Hitler's Secret Book.” 

Obsessed with race and the idea of ethnic “purity,” Hitler saw a natural order that placed the so-called “Aryan race” at the top.

For him, the unity of the Volk (the German people) would find its truest incarnation not in democratic or parliamentary government, but in one supreme leader, or Führer.

" Mein Kampf " also addressed the need for Lebensraum (or living space): In order to fulfill its destiny, Germany should take over lands to the east that were now occupied by “inferior” Slavic peoples—including Austria, the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia), Poland and Russia.

The Schutzstaffel (SS) 

By the time Hitler left prison, economic recovery had restored some popular support for the Weimar Republic, and support for right-wing causes like Nazism appeared to be waning.

Over the next few years, Hitler laid low and worked on reorganizing and reshaping the Nazi Party. He established the Hitler Youth  to organize youngsters, and created the Schutzstaffel (SS) as a more reliable alternative to the SA.

Members of the SS wore black uniforms and swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler. (After 1929, under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler , the SS would develop from a group of some 200 men into a force that would dominate Germany and terrorize the rest of occupied Europe during World War II .)

Hitler spent much of his time at Berchtesgaden during these years, and his half-sister, Angela Raubal, and her two daughters often joined him. After Hitler became infatuated with his beautiful blonde niece, Geli Raubal, his possessive jealousy apparently led her to commit suicide in 1931.

Devastated by the loss, Hitler would consider Geli the only true love affair of his life. He soon began a long relationship with Eva Braun , a shop assistant from Munich, but refused to marry her.

The worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929 again threatened the stability of the Weimar Republic. Determined to achieve political power in order to affect his revolution, Hitler built up Nazi support among German conservatives, including army, business and industrial leaders.

The Third Reich

In 1932, Hitler ran against the war hero Paul von Hindenburg for president, and received 36.8 percent of the vote. With the government in chaos, three successive chancellors failed to maintain control, and in late January 1933 Hindenburg named the 43-year-old Hitler as chancellor, capping the stunning rise of an unlikely leader.

January 30, 1933 marked the birth of the Third Reich, or as the Nazis called it, the “Thousand-Year Reich” (after Hitler’s boast that it would endure for a millennium).

HISTORY Vault: Third Reich: The Rise

Rare and never-before-seen amateur films offer a unique perspective on the rise of Nazi Germany from Germans who experienced it. How were millions of people so vulnerable to fascism?

Reichstag Fire 

Though the Nazis never attained more than 37 percent of the vote at the height of their popularity in 1932, Hitler was able to grab absolute power in Germany largely due to divisions and inaction among the majority who opposed Nazism.

After a devastating fire at Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag, in February 1933—possibly the work of a Dutch communist, though later evidence suggested Nazis set the  Reichstag fire  themselves—Hitler had an excuse to step up the political oppression and violence against his opponents.

On March 23, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving full powers to Hitler and celebrating the union of National Socialism with the old German establishment (i.e., Hindenburg ).

That July, the government passed a law stating that the Nazi Party “constitutes the only political party in Germany,” and within months all non-Nazi parties, trade unions and other organizations had ceased to exist.

His autocratic power now secure within Germany, Hitler turned his eyes toward the rest of Europe.

In 1933, Germany was diplomatically isolated, with a weak military and hostile neighbors (France and Poland). In a famous speech in May 1933, Hitler struck a surprisingly conciliatory tone, claiming Germany supported disarmament and peace.

But behind this appeasement strategy, the domination and expansion of the Volk remained Hitler’s overriding aim.

By early the following year, he had withdrawn Germany from the League of Nations and begun to militarize the nation in anticipation of his plans for territorial conquest.

Night of the Long Knives

On June 29, 1934, the infamous Night of the Long Knives , Hitler had Röhm, former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and hundreds of other problematic members of his own party murdered, in particular troublesome members of the SA.

When the 86-year-old Hindenburg died on August 2, military leaders agreed to combine the presidency and chancellorship into one position, meaning Hitler would command all the armed forces of the Reich.

Persecution of Jews

On September 15, 1935, passage of the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship, and barred them from marrying or having relations with persons of “German or related blood.”

Though the Nazis attempted to downplay its persecution of Jews in order to placate the international community during the 1936 Berlin Olympics (in which German-Jewish athletes were not allowed to compete), additional decrees over the next few years disenfranchised Jews and took away their political and civil rights.

In addition to its pervasive anti-Semitism, Hitler’s government also sought to establish the cultural dominance of Nazism by burning books, forcing newspapers out of business, using radio and movies for propaganda purposes and forcing teachers throughout Germany’s educational system to join the party.

Much of the Nazi persecution of Jews and other targets occurred at the hands of the Geheime Staatspolizei (GESTAPO), or Secret State Police, an arm of the SS that expanded during this period.

Outbreak of World War II

In March 1936, against the advice of his generals, Hitler ordered German troops to reoccupy the demilitarized left bank of the Rhine.

Over the next two years, Germany concluded alliances with Italy and Japan, annexed Austria and moved against Czechoslovakia—all essentially without resistance from Great Britain, France or the rest of the international community.

Once he confirmed the alliance with Italy in the so-called “Pact of Steel” in May 1939, Hitler then signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union . On September 1, 1939, Nazi troops invaded Poland, finally prompting Britain and France to declare war on Germany.

Blitzkrieg 

After ordering the occupation of Norway and Denmark in April 1940, Hitler adopted a plan proposed by one of his generals to attack France through the Ardennes Forest. The blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) attack began on May 10; Holland quickly surrendered, followed by Belgium.

German troops made it all the way to the English Channel, forcing British and French forces to evacuate en masse from Dunkirk in late May. On June 22, France was forced to sign an armistice with Germany.

Hitler had hoped to force Britain to seek peace as well, but when that failed he went ahead with his attacks on that country, followed by an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor that December, the United States declared war on Japan, and Germany’s alliance with Japan demanded that Hitler declare war on the United States as well.

At that point in the conflict, Hitler shifted his central strategy to focus on breaking the alliance of his main opponents (Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union) by forcing one of them to make peace with him.

Concentration Camps

Beginning in 1933, the SS had operated a network of concentration camps, including a notorious camp at Dachau , near Munich, to hold Jews and other targets of the Nazi regime.

After war broke out, the Nazis shifted from expelling Jews from German-controlled territories to exterminating them. Einsatzgruppen, or mobile death squads, executed entire Jewish communities during the Soviet invasion, while the existing concentration-camp network expanded to include death camps like Auschwitz -Birkenau in occupied Poland.

In addition to forced labor and mass execution, certain Jews at Auschwitz were targeted as the subjects of horrific medical experiments carried out by eugenicist Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death.” Mengele’s experiments focused on twins and exposed 3,000 child prisoners to disease, disfigurement and torture under the guise of medical research.

Though the Nazis also imprisoned and killed Catholics, homosexuals, political dissidents, Roma (gypsies) and the disabled, above all they targeted Jews—some 6 million of whom were killed in German-occupied Europe by war’s end.

End of World War II

With defeats at El-Alamein and Stalingrad , as well as the landing of U.S. troops in North Africa by the end of 1942, the tide of the war turned against Germany.

As the conflict continued, Hitler became increasingly unwell, isolated and dependent on medications administered by his personal physician.

Several attempts were made on his life, including one that came close to succeeding in July 1944, when Col. Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb that exploded during a conference at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia.

Within a few months of the successful Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Allies had begun liberating cities across Europe. That December, Hitler attempted to direct another offensive through the Ardennes, trying to split British and American forces.

But after January 1945, he holed up in a bunker beneath the Chancellery in Berlin. With Soviet forces closing in, Hitler made plans for a last-ditch resistance before finally abandoning that plan.

How Did Adolf Hitler Die?

At midnight on the night of April 28-29, Hitler married Eva Braun in the Berlin bunker. After dictating his political testament,  Hitler shot himself  in his suite on April 30; Braun took poison. Their bodies were burned according to Hitler’s instructions.

With Soviet troops occupying Berlin, Germany surrendered unconditionally on all fronts on May 7, 1945, bringing the war in Europe to a close.

In the end, Hitler’s planned “Thousand-Year Reich” lasted just over 12 years, but wreaked unfathomable destruction and devastation during that time, forever transforming the history of Germany, Europe and the world.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich iWonder – Adolf Hitler: Man and Monster, BBC . The Holocaust : A Learning Site for Students, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum .

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The Nazi rise to power

Courtesy of The Wiener Holocaust Library Collections.

In the nine years between 1924 and 1933 the Nazi Party transformed from a small, violent, revolutionary party to the largest elected party in the Reichstag.

This topic will explain how Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power.

Reorganisation and the Bamberg Conference

Whilst Hitler was in prison following the Munich Putsch in 1923, Alfred Rosenberg took over as temporary leader of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was an ineffective leader and the party became divided over key issues.

The failure of the Munich Putsch had shown Hitler that he would not be able to take power by force. Hitler therefore decided to change tactic and instead focus on winning support for his party democratically and being elected into power.

Following his release from prison on the 20 December 1924, Hitler convinced the Chancellor of Bavaria to remove the ban on the Nazi Party.

In February 1926, Hitler organised the Bamberg Conference. Hitler wanted to reunify the party, and set out a plan for the next few years. Whilst some small differences remained, Hitler was largely successful in reuniting the socialist and nationalist sides of the party.

In the same year, Hitler restructured the Nazi Party to make it more efficient.

Firstly, the Nazi Party adopted a new framework, which divided Germany into regions called Gaue . Each Gaue had its own leader, a Gauleiter. Each Gaue was then divided into subsections, called Kreise . Each Kreise then had its own leader, called a Kreisleiter. Each Kreise was then divided into even smaller sections, each with its own leader, and so on. Each of these sections were responsible to the section above them, with Hitler at the very top of the party with ultimate authority.

The Nazis also established new groups for different professions, from children, to doctors, to lawyers. These aimed to infiltrate already existing social structures, and help the party gain more members and supporters.

These political changes changed the Nazi Party from a paramilitary organisation focused on overthrowing the republic by force, to one focused on gaining power through elections and popular support.

The role of the SA and the SS

The Nazi Party’s paramilitary organisation were the Sturm Abeilung , more commonly known as the SA. The SA were formed in 1921 and were known as ‘brownshirts’ due to their brown uniform. Initially most members were ex-soldiers or unemployed men. Violent and often disorderly, the SA were primarily responsible for the protection of leading Nazis and disrupting other political opponents’ meetings, although they often had a free rein on their activities.

If Hitler was to gain power democratically, he needed to reform the SA. He set out to change their reputation. A new leader, Franz von Salomon, was recruited. Rather than the violent free rein they had previously enjoyed, Salomon was stricter and gave the SA a more defined role.

In 1925, Hitler also established the Schutzstaffel , otherwise known as the SS. The SS were initially created as Hitler’s personal bodyguards, although they would go on to police the entire Third Reich.

The SS were a small sub-division of the SA with approximately 300 members until 1929. In 1929, Heinrich Himmler took over the organisation, and expanded it dramatically.

By 1933, the SS had 35,000 members. Members of the SS were chosen based on their ‘racial purity’, blind obedience and fanatical loyalty to Hitler.

The SS saw themselves as the ultimate defenders of the ‘Aryan’ race and Nazi ideology. They terrorized and aimed to destroy any person or group that threatened this.

The SA and the SS became symbols of terror. The Nazi Party used these two forces to terrify their opposition into subordination, slowly eliminate them entirely, or scare people into supporting them.

Propaganda and the Nazi rise to power

Whilst the SA and the SS played their part, the Nazis primarily focused on increasing their membership through advertising the party legitimately. They did this through simple and effective propaganda .

The Nazis started advocating clear messages tailored to a broad range of people and their problems. The propaganda aimed to exploit people’s fear of uncertainty and instability. These messages varied from ‘Bread and Work’, aimed at the working class and the fear of unemployment, to a ‘Mother and Child’ poster portraying the Nazi ideals regarding woman.  Jews and Communists also featured heavily in the Nazi propaganda as enemies of the German people.

Joseph Goebbels was key to the Nazis use of propaganda to increase their appeal. Goebbels joined the Nazi Party in 1924 and became the Gauleiter for Berlin in 1926. Goebbels used a combination of modern media, such as films and radio, and traditional campaigning tools such as posters and newspapers to reach as many people as possible. It was through this technique that he began to build an image of Hitler as a strong, stable leader that Germany needed to become a great power again.

This image of Hitler became known as ‘The Hitler Myth’. Goebbels success eventually led to him being appointed Reich Minister of Propaganda in 1933.

The role of economic instability in the Nazi rise to power

Whilst the Nazis’ own actions, such as the party restructure and propaganda, certainly played a role in their rise to power, the economic and political failure of the Weimar Republic was also a key factor.

Germany’s economy suffered badly after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 .

Germany was particularly badly affected by the Wall Street Crash because of its dependence on American loans from 1924 onwards. As the loans were recalled, the economy in Germany sunk into a deep depression. Investment in business was reduced.

As a result, wages fell by 39% from 1929 to 1932.  People in full time employment fell from twenty million in 1929, to just over eleven million in 1933. In the same period, over 10,000 businesses closed every year. As a result of this, the amount of people in poverty increased sharply.

The Depression associated economic failure and a decline in living standards with the Weimar democracy. When combined with the resulting political instability, it left people feeling disillusioned with the Weimar Republic’s democracy and looking for change.

This enhanced the attractiveness of the Nazis propaganda messages.

Reparations suspended

By 1932, Germany had reached breaking point. The economic crisis, which in turn had led to widespread social and political unrest in Germany, meant that it could no longer afford to pay reparations . At the Lausanne Conference held in Switzerland, from the 16 June 1932 to the 9 July 1932, the Allies conceded and indefinitely suspended Germany’s reparation payments.

This concession helped to give the economy a small boost in confidence. Under Brüning  and later von Papen and, briefly, von Schleicher , there was an increase in state intervention in the economy. One example of this was the work creation schemes which began in the summer of 1932. These work creation schemes would later be expanded and reinvested in by the Nazis to combat unemployment.

These small signs started to hint at a positive climb in the economy.

These small improvements, only truly evident with the benefit of hindsight , were still at the time completely overshadowed by the poverty and widespread discontent about the general economic situation.

It was into this bleak situation that the Nazis were elected into power.

The role of political instability in the Nazi rise to power

The political instability in the late 1920s and early 1930s played an important role in helping the Nazis rise to power.

This topic will explain how the political situation escalated from the hope of the ‘Grand Coalition’ in 1928, to the dismissal of von Schleicher and the end of the Weimar Republic in 1933.

The ‘Grand Coalition’

In June 1928, Hermann Müller had created the ‘grand coalition’ to rule Germany. This coalition was made up of the SPD, DDP, DVP and the Centre Party: parties from the left and right. Müller had a secure majority of 301 seats out of a total of 491. Political parties seemed to be putting aside their differences and coming together for the good of Germany.

But this was not how it worked out. The parties could not agree on key policies and Müller struggled to get support for legislation.

As the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash hit Germany and unemployment spiralled, the government struggled to balance its budget. On top of its usual payments, the amount of people claiming unemployment benefits was increasing. As the government struggled to agree on the future of unemployment benefits, Müller asked Hindenburg for the use of Article 48 to try and restore stability.

President Hindenburg was a right-wing conservative politician and therefore disliked having the left-wing SPD in power. He refused Müller‘s request. Müller resigned on the 27 March 1930.

Br üning’s government

Müller’s successor was Heinrich Brüning. Although he did not have a majority of seats in the Reichstag, Brüning was well-respected by Hindenburg. Brüning increasingly relied upon, and was granted, use of Article 48 . This set a precedent of governing by presidential decree and moved the Republic away from parliamentary democracy.

As the economic crisis worsened in 1931, Brüning struggled to rule effectively. Extremism became more popular as people desperately sought a solution.

After a disagreement over provisions for the unemployed in 1932, Hindenburg demanded Brüning’s resignation.

Von Papen and von Schleicher

A new election was called, and von Papen replaced Brüning.

Von Papen agreed with the conservative elite that Germany needed an authoritarian leader to stabilise the country. He called for another election in November 1932, hoping to strengthen the frontier against communism and socialism.

Whilst the left-wing and socialist SPD did lose votes, so did the right-wing Nazi Party. The Communist Party gained votes, winning eleven more seats in the Reichstag. Once again, no one party had a majority. The election was a failure.

Following von Papen’s failure, Hitler was offered the chancellorship, but without the right to rule by presidential decree. He refused, and von Schleicher became chancellor.

However, without a majority of his own in the Reichstag, von Schleicher faced the same problems as von Papen. Hindenburg refused to grant von Schleicher permission to rule by decree.

Von Schleicher lasted just one month.

The role of the conservative elite in the Nazi rise to power

The conservative elite were the old ruling class and new business class in Weimar Germany. Throughout the 1920s they became increasingly frustrated with the Weimar Republic’s continuing economic and political instability, their lack of real power and the rise of communism. They believed that a return to authoritarian rule was the only stable future for Germany which would protect their power and money.

The first move towards this desired authoritarian rule was Hindenburg’s increasing use of Article 48 . Between 1925-1931 Article 48 was used a total of 16 times. In 1931 alone this rose to 42 uses, in comparison to only 35 Reichstag laws being passed in the same year. In 1932, Article 48 was used 58 times.

The conservative elite’s second move towards authoritarian rule was helping the Nazi Party to gain power.  The conservative elite and the Nazi Party had a common enemy – the political left .

As Hitler controlled the masses support for the political right, the conservative elite believed that they could use Hitler and his popular support to ‘democratically’ take power. Once in power, Hitler could destroy the political left.  Destroying the political left would help to remove the majority of political opponents to the ring-wing conservative elite.

Once Hitler had removed the left-wing socialist opposition and destroyed the Weimar Republic, the conservative elite thought they would be able to replace Hitler, and appoint a leader of their choice.

As Hitler’s votes dwindled in the November 1932 elections, the conservative elite knew that if they wanted to use Hitler and the Nazis to destroy the political left, they had to act quickly to get Hitler appointed as chancellor.

Von Papen and Oskar von Hindenburg (President Hindenburg’s son) met secretly and backed Hitler to become chancellor. A group of important industrialists, including Hjalmar Schacht and Gustav Krupp, also wrote outlining their support of Hitler to President Hindenburg.

The support of these figures was vital in Hindenburg’s decision to appoint Hitler as chancellor. Once elected, the conservative elite soon realised that they had miscalculated Hitler and his intentions.

Electoral success

Despite the party restructure, the reorganisation of the SA and the initial development of their propaganda under Goebbels, the Nazi Party gained very little in the 1928 elections. They won just 2.6% of the vote, gaining them 12 seats in the Reichstag.

The following year however, the Wall Street Crash and the resulting economic and political instability swung the conservative elite and electorate in their favour. Goebbels carefully tailored propaganda slowly became considerably more attractive.

In 1930, the Nazis attracted eight times more votes than in 1928. They managed to secure 18.3% of the vote, and 107 seats in the Reichstag. The continuing failure of the government to stabilise the situation only increased the Nazis popularity.

In February 1932, Hitler ran against Hindenburg to become president. Goebbel’s propaganda campaign presented Hitler as a new, dynamic and modern leader for Germany. To emphasise this point, Hitler flew from venue to venue via aeroplane. Hitler lost the election, with 36.8% of the vote to Hindenburg’s 53%. Despite losing, people now viewed Hitler as a credible politician.

Following another Reichstag election in July 1932, the Nazis became the largest party with 230 seats and 37.3% of the vote.

Hitler becomes chancellor

Hitler was not immediately appointed chancellor after the success of the July 1932 elections, despite being leader of the largest party in the Reichstag.

It took the economic  and political instability (with two more chancellors failing to stabilise the situation) to worsen, and the support of the conservative elite , to convince Hindenburg to appoint Hitler.

Hitler was sworn in as the chancellor of Germany on the 30 January 1933. The Nazis were now in power.

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How did the Nazi consolidate their power?

What happened in may.

On 10 May 1933, university students supported by the Nazi Party instigated book burnings of blacklisted authors across Germany.

On 1 May 1935, the German government issued a ban on all organisations of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Image courtesy of USHMM.

On 10 May 1940, German forces invaded the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Luxembourg.

On 29 May 1942, the German authorities in France passed a law requiring Jews to wear the Star of David.

On 16 May 1944, inmates of the Gypsy camp in Auschwitz resisted the SS guards attempting to liquidate the camp.

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How did adolf hitler happen.

Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. He ruled absolutely until his death by suicide in April 1945. 

Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power 

Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 - April 30, 1945) was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. He ruled absolutely until his death by suicide in April 1945. Upon achieving power, Hitler smashed the nation’s democratic institutions and transformed Germany into a war state intent on conquering Europe for the benefit of the so-called Aryan race. His invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, triggered the European phase of World War II. During the course of the war, Nazi military forces rounded up and executed 11 million victims they deemed inferior or undesirable—“life unworthy of life”—among them Jews, Slavs, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Hitler had supreme authority as führer (leader or guide), but could not have risen to power or committed such atrocities on his own. He had the active support of the powerful German officer class and of millions of everyday citizens who voted for the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party and hailed him as a national savior in gigantic stadium rallies. 

How were Hitler and the Nazis possible? How did such odious characters take and hold power in a country that was a world pacesetter in literature, art, architecture, and science, a nation that had a democratic government and a free press in the 1920s?

Hitler rose to power through the Nazi Party, an organization he forged after returning as a wounded veteran from the annihilating trench warfare of World War I. He and other patriotic Germans were outraged and humiliated by the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which the Allies compelled the new German government, the Weimar Republic, to accept along with an obligation to pay $33 billion in war reparations. Germany also had to give up its prized overseas colonies and surrender valued parcels of home territory to France and Poland. The German army was radically downsized and the nation forbidden to have submarines or an air force. “We shall squeeze the German lemon until the pips squeak!” explained one British official. 

Paying the crushing reparations destabilized the economy, producing ruinous, runaway inflation. By September 1923, four billion German marks had the equal value of one American dollar. Consumers needed a wheelbarrow to carry enough paper money to buy a loaf of bread.

Hitler, a mesmerizing public speaker, addressed political meetings in Munich calling for a new German order to replace what he saw as an incompetent and inefficient democratic regime. This New Order was distinguished by an authoritarian political system based on a leadership structure in which authority flowed downward from a supreme national leader.

In the new Germany, all citizens would unselfishly serve the state, or Volk; democracy would be abolished; and individual rights sacrificed for the good of the führer state. The ultimate aim of the Nazi Party was to seize power through Germany’s parliamentary system, install Hitler as dictator, and create a community of racially pure Germans loyal to their führer, who would lead them in a campaign of racial cleansing and world conquest.

“Either victory of the Aryan, or annihilation of the Aryan and the victory of the Jew.”

Adolf Hitler

Hitler blamed the Weimar Republic’s weakness on the influence of Germany’s Jewish and communist minorities, who he claimed were trying to take over the country. “There are only two possibilities,” he told a Munich audience in 1922. “Either victory of the Aryan, or annihilation of the Aryan and the victory of the Jew.” The young Hitler saw history as a process of racial struggle, with the strongest race—the Aryan race—ultimately prevailing by force of arms. “Mankind has grown great in eternal war,” Hitler wrote. “It would decay in eternal peace.” 

Jews represented everything the Nazis found repugnant: finance capitalism (controlled, the Nazis believed, by powerful Jewish financiers), international communism (Karl Marx was a German Jew, and the leadership of the German Communist Party was heavily Jewish), and modernist cultural movements like psychoanalysis and swing music.

Nazi Party foreign policy aimed to rid Europe of Jews and other “inferior” peoples, absorb pure-blooded Aryans into a greatly expanded Germany—a “Third Reich”—and wage unrelenting war on the Slavic “hordes” of Russia, considered by Hitler to be Untermenschen (subhuman).

Once conquered, the Soviet Union would be ruled by the German master race, which would exterminate or subdue millions of Slavs to create lebensraum (living space) for their own farms and communities. In a conquered and racially cleansed Russia, they would work on model farms and factories connected to the homeland by new highways, called autobahns.

Hitler was the ideologue as well as the chief organizer of the Nazi Party. By 1921, the party had a newspaper, an official flag, and a private army—the Sturmabteilung SA (storm troopers)—made up largely of unemployed and disenchanted WWI veterans. By 1923, the SA had grown to 15,000 men and had access to hidden stores of weapons. That year, Hitler and WWI hero General Erich Ludendorff attempted to overthrow the elected regional government of Bavaria in a coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch.

The regular army crushed the rebellion and Hitler spent a year in prison—in loose confinement. In Landsberg Prison, Hitler dictated most of the first volume of his political autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). The book brought together, in inflamed language, the racialist and expansionist ideas he had been propagating in his popular beer-hall harangues.

After being released from prison, Hitler vowed to work within the parliamentary system to avoid a repeat of the Beer Hall Putsch setback. In the 1920s, however, the Nazi Party was still a fringe group of ultraextremists with little political power. It received only 2.6 percent of the vote in the Reichstag elections of 1928.

But the worldwide economic depression and the rising power of labor unions and communists convinced increasing numbers of Germans to turn to the Nazi Party. The Nazis fed on bank failures and unemployment—proof, Hitler said, of the ineffectiveness of democratic government. Hitler pledged to restore prosperity, create civil order (by crushing industrial strikes and street demonstrations by communists and socialists), eliminate the influence of Jewish financiers, and make the fatherland once again a world power. 

Adolf Hitler and German President Paul von Hindenburg, shortly after Hindenburg asked Hitler to become chancellor in 1933. (Image: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S38324.)

Adolf Hitler giving the Nazi salute at a rally in Nuremburg in 1928. (Image: National Archives and Records Administration, 242-HAP-1928(46).)

By 1932, the Nazis were the largest political party in the Reichstag. In January of the following year, with no other leader able to command sufficient support to govern, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor of Germany. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in the Reichstag building in Berlin, and authorities arrested a young Dutch communist who confessed to starting it.

Hitler used this episode to convince President Hindenburg to declare an emergency decree suspending many civil liberties throughout Germany, including freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and the right to hold public assemblies. The police were authorized to detain citizens without cause, and the authority usually exercised by regional governments became subject to control by Hitler’s national regime.

Almost immediately, Hitler began dismantling Germany’s democratic institutions and imprisoning or murdering his chief opponents. When Hindenburg died the following year, Hitler took the titles of führer, chancellor, and commander in chief of the army. He expanded the army tremendously, reintroduced conscription, and began developing a new air force—all violations of the Treaty of Versailles.

Hitler’s military spending and ambitious public-works programs, including building a German autobahn, helped restore prosperity. His regime also suppressed the Communist Party and purged his own paramilitary storm troopers, whose violent street demonstrations alienated the German middle class.

This bloodletting—called the “Night of the Long Knives”—was hugely popular and welcomed by the middle class as a blow struck for law and order. In fact, many Germans went along with the full range of Hitler’s policies, convinced that they would ultimately be advantageous for the country.

In 1938, Hitler began his long-promised expansion of national boundaries to incorporate ethnic Germans. He colluded with Austrian Nazis to orchestrate the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria to Germany. And in Hitler’s most brazenly aggressive act yet, Czechoslovakia was forced to surrender the Sudetenland, a mountainous border region populated predominantly by ethnic Germans.

The Czechs looked to Great Britain and France for help, but hoping to avoid war—they had been bled white in World War I—these nations chose a policy of appeasement. At a conclave held at Munich in September 1938, representatives of Great Britain and France compelled Czech leaders to cede the Sudetenland in return for Hitler’s pledge not to seek additional territory. The following year, the German army swallowed up the remainder of Czechoslovakia. 

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, one of the signers of the Munich pact, had taken Hitler at his word. Returning to Britain with this agreement in hand, he proudly announced that he had achieved “peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.” 

A year later, German troops stormed into Poland.

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How Hitler Used Democracy to Take Power

A dolf Hitler never won a majority in a free and open national election. He never received more than 37% of the vote in a free and open national election, but he argued that 37% represented 75% of 51%, and demanded political power. It was the political calculus by which the Nazi leader disabled, then dismantled, the Weimar Republic. Hitler exploited his 37% to gridlock legislative processes, to cudgel or crush the political opposition, and ultimately to undermine the country’s democratic structures. When Hitler had vowed in court, in September 1930, to destroy democracy through the democratic process, a judge asked, “So, only through constitutional means?” Hitler replied crisply, “Jawohl.”

Hitler exercised his constitutional right to free speech and freedom of assembly to hold rallies across the country and spew invective in all directions—against Bolsheviks, social democrats, immigrants, Jews, even fellow rightwing nationalists. He chided the ruling elites. If God had intended aristocrats to run the country, Hitler said at one rally in fall 1932, “we’d all have been born with monocles.” He vowed to make Germany great again. He promised a Third Reich bigger and better than the previous two. 

Hitler fomented outrage and discontent. He endorsed a public referendum backing the “Liberty Law,” proposed legislation that called for the abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles. The German signatories to the treaty were to be executed for treason, along with any government official who implemented the treaty’s provisions that included onerous reparation payments. It was reported, falsely, that the German government was drafting German teenagers and selling them into slavery abroad to service reparation debts. Hitler sowed lies and hatred, and harvested votes.

When he entered the race for president, in spring 1932—the only time Hitler ran for public office—he lost by six million votes, securing just 36.77% of the electorate. Hitler went to court to have the election results overturned amid claims of voter fraud, but the judge dismissed the case out of hand.

Hitler had more success with the legislative branch of government. The Nazis first entered the 600-member Reichstag in 1926 when they secured twelve seats in national elections. “We come not as friends and not as neutrals,” the brash, 32-year-old Reichstag delegate Joseph Goebbels warned at the time. “We come as mortal enemies.” 

The Nazis remained an insignificant, back-row minority until September 1930, following the crash of 1929, when they surged tenfold in Reichstag elections, then doubled that number in July 1932 elections. With 230 brownshirt delegates with swastika armbands, representing 37.3% of the electorate, Hitler commanded the country’s largest political movement. Social democrats trailed with 21%, and the communists with 14%. A dozen other centrist and rightwing political parties filled the remaining seats in the Reichstag’s vast glass-domed and wood-paneled plenary hall.

The country’s largest political party generally had claim to the chancellorship, but President Paul von Hindenburg was concerned by Hitler’s divisive politics, hate mongering, and antisemitism. In private, Hindenburg said that if he were to appoint “that Bohemian corporal” to any position, it would be as Postmaster General, “so he can lick me from behind on my stamps.” Hindenburg told Hitler to his face that he would never appoint him chancellor “for the sake of God, my conscience, and the country.”

Undeterred, Hitler resorted to obstructionist politics. When he leveraged his 37% to gridlock the Reichstag, he forced Hindenburg to rule by “emergency decree,” a power guaranteed the president  under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. Between December 1930 and April 1931, the Reichstag had enacted 19 pieces of legislation, with Hindenburg issuing only two Article 48 decrees. By the end of 1932, there were 59 “emergency decrees” compared with only five pieces of legislation. Writing in December 1932, a Time correspondent dryly observed that the German government appeared to be trying to “out-Hitler Hitler.”

Hitler had essentially and surprisingly quickly transformed a democratic republic into a constitutional dictatorship. Reichstag delegate Goebbels had  observed a few years earlier, “The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction.” Finally, on January 30, 1933, Hindenburg relented, agreeing to appoint Hitler chancellor to overcome the legislative gridlock and restore democratic procedures. We all know what followed.

Back in the 1980s, as a graduate student at Harvard University, I was a teaching assistant for Dr. Richard M. Hunt in his core curriculum course, Literature and Arts C-45, that explored the moral dilemmas faced by the average German during the Weimar and Nazi eras. Harvard undergraduates facetiously dubbed an earlier incarnation of Hunt’s  course, “Krauts and Doubts.”

In helping explain the Weimar Republic’s tilt into fascism, I used to cite an observation by Hans Frank, Hitler’s private attorney, who helped engineer the strategy to disable democratic processes through constitutional means. Frank became complicit in Germany’s wartime atrocities, including the murder of millions of Jews, for which he was hanged.

“The Führer was a man who was possible in Germany only at that very moment,” Frank observed while awaiting trial in Nuremberg after the war. Had Hitler come a decade later “when the republic was firmly established,” Frank said, it would have been impossible for him to have seized power. Had he come a decade earlier, the German people would have returned to the Kaiser. As it was, Frank said, Hitler came “at exactly this terrible transitory period” when the monarchy was gone and the thirteen-year-old republic was not yet secure.

I invoked the Frank temporal formula to contrast the fragility and ultimate failure of the thirteen-year-old Weimar Republic with the two centuries that Americans—more than ten generations—had had to forge the democratic values and processes that elevated the United States to a shining example for the world. Thirty years on, that contrast and claim seem frighteningly naïve.

As we approach the 250 th anniversary of our nation’s founding, in July 2026, our republic appears to be plagued by the myriad ills that doomed Weimar—political fragmentation, social polarization, hate-filled demagoguery, a legislature gridlocked by partisan posturing, and structural anomalies in voting processes. The electoral college makes it possible, though highly improbable, that a political leader could come to power with just 37% of the popular vote, unless, of course, a third candidate could siphon significant numbers of voters from the two leading candidates.

It has been said that the Weimar Republic died twice. It was murdered and it committed suicide. There is little mystery to the murder. Hitler vowed to destroy democracy through the democratic process—and he did. An act of state suicide is less easily explained, especially when it involves a democratic republic replete with constitutional protections like freedom of expression, due process, and public referendum. As the November presidential election approaches, it is perhaps worthwhile to reflect on the lessons of Weimar and the potential consequences of electing a calculating and calibrating demagogue who promises to make the country great again.

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Adam Gopnik on Hitler’s Rise to Power

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In 2016, before most people imagined that Donald Trump would become a serious contender for the Presidency, the New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik wrote about what he later called the “F-word”: fascism. He saw Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric not as a new force in America but as a throwback to a specific historical precedent in nineteen-thirties Europe. In the years since, Trump has called for “terminating” articles of the Constitution, has celebrated the January 6th insurrectionists as political martyrs, and has called his enemies animals, vermin, and “not people,” and demonstrated countless other examples of authoritarian behavior. In a new essay , Gopnik reviews a book by the historian Timothy W. Ryback, and considers Adolf Hitler’s unlikely ascent in the early nineteen-thirties. He finds alarming analogies with this moment in the U.S. In both Trump and Hitler, “The allegiance to the fascist leader is purely charismatic,” Gopnik says. In both men, he sees “someone whose power lies in his shamelessness,” and whose prime motivation is a sense of humiliation at the hands of those described as élites. “It wasn’t that the great majority of Germans were suddenly lit aflame by a nihilist appetite for apocalyptic transformation,” Gopnik notes. “They [were] voting to protect what they perceive as their interest from their enemies. Often those enemies are largely imaginary.”

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Hitler Comes to Power

By 1933, Adolf Hitler was a well-known figure with widespread support. He did not seize power in Germany. Rather, a series of political and economic crises helped him rise to power legally. 

• Adolf Hitler
• Nazi rise to power
• Third Reich
• Weimar Germany

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[caption=d42f08d8-408e-476e-ac60-b79c912ff55f] - [credit=d42f08d8-408e-476e-ac60-b79c912ff55f]

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by German President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party. The full name of the Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Its members were often called Nazis. The Nazis were radically right-wing, antisemitic, anticommunist, and antidemocratic. 

There are some misconceptions about how Hitler came to power. It is important to understand that: 

• Hitler did not seize power in a coup; 
• and Hitler was not directly elected to power.  

Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power through Germany’s legal political processes.

Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933 because, at the time, the Nazi Party was popular in Germany. However, the Nazi Party was not always so popular. In fact, when the Nazi movement first began in the early 1920s, it was small, ineffective, and marginal.  

What was Germany like in the early 1920s? 

The early 1920s in Germany were a time of social, economic, and political unrest. This unrest was a direct result of World War I (1914–1918). Germany lost the war. As a result, the German Empire collapsed. It was replaced by a new democratic republic. This new German government was called the Weimar Republic. In June 1919, German leaders of the Weimar Republic were forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles. This treaty punished Germany for starting World War I.

In the early 1920s, the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) faced political and economic problems. Wartime devastation had resulted in an economic crisis. German war debts led to hyperinflation and the devaluation of currency. 

There were also political movements that tried to overthrow the new government. They ranged from the far left to the far right on the political spectrum.

Their members were reacting to post World War I discontent in Germany. But they were also fostering and sowing more discontent, and sometimes even violence. One group that caused particular alarm was the German Communist Party. A much less prominent new political group was the Nazi Party. 

What was the Nazi Party like in the 1920s?

The Nazi Party was one of many radical new political movements active in Germany during the early 1920s. The Nazi Party was based in the city of Munich. But the movement gained attention across Germany in November 1923. That month, the Nazis—led by Adolf Hitler—attempted to violently seize power. This failed coup is known as the Beer Hall Putsch. 

Hitler and the Nazis changed tactics after they failed to overthrow the government by violence. Beginning in the mid-1920s, they focused their efforts on winning elections. But the Nazi Party did not immediately succeed in attracting voters. In 1928, the Nazi Party won less than 3 percent of the national vote in elections to the German parliament. 

Beginning in 1930, however, the Nazi Party started to win more votes. Their success was largely the result of an economic and political crisis in Germany. 

What was the German economic and political situation like in the early 1930s? 

In the early 1930s, Germany was in an economic and political crisis.

Beginning in fall 1929, there was a world economic crisis known as the Great Depression. Millions of Germans lost their jobs. Unemployment, hunger, poverty, and homelessness became serious problems in Germany in the early 1930s. 

The German government failed to solve the problems caused by the Great Depression. Germany was politically divided. This made passing new laws almost impossible because of disagreements in the German parliament. Many Germans lost faith in their leaders’ ability to govern. 

Radical political groups like the Nazi Party and the Communist Party became more prominent. They took advantage of the economic and political chaos. They used propaganda to attract Germans who were fed up with the political stalemate. 

How did Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party attract voters in the early 1930s? 

Germany held parliamentary elections in September 1930. This was almost a year into the Great Depression. The Nazis won 18 percent of the vote. This shocked some Germans, especially those who recognized that the Nazis were an extremist, fringe political movement.

Adolf Hitler and the Nazis won followers by promising to create a strong Germany. The Nazis promised to

• fix the economy and put people back to work; 
• return Germany to the status of a great European, and even world, power;
• regain territory Germany had lost in World War I;
• create a strong authoritarian German government; 
• and unite all Germans along racial and ethnic lines.   

The Nazis played on people’s hopes, fears, and prejudices. They also offered scapegoats. They falsely claimed that Jews and Communists were to blame for Germany’s problems. This claim was part of the Nazis’ antisemitic and racist ideology. 

How did Adolf Hitler come to power in 1933?

The Nazis continued to win over voters in the early 1930s. In the July 1932 parliamentary elections, the Nazis won 37 percent of the vote. This was more votes than any other party received. In November 1932, the Nazi share of the vote fell to 33 percent. However, this was still more votes than any other party won. 

The Nazi Party’s electoral successes made it difficult to govern Germany without them. Hitler and the Nazis refused to work with other political parties. Hitler demanded to be appointed as chancellor. German President Paul von Hindenburg initially resisted this demand. However, he gave in and appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. 

Hindenburg appointed Hitler to this position as the result of a political deal. Certain conservative politicians convinced President Hindenburg to make the appointment. They wanted to use the Nazi Party’s popularity for their own purposes. They mistakenly believed that they could control Hitler.  

In January 1933, Hitler did not immediately become a dictator. When he became chancellor, Germany’s democratic constitution was still in effect. However, Hitler transformed Germany by manipulating the democratic political system. Hitler and other Nazi leaders used existing laws to destroy German democracy and create a dictatorship. 

In August 1934, President Hindenburg died. Hitler proclaimed himself Führer (leader) of Germany. From that point forward, Hitler was the dictator of Germany. 

June 28, 1919 Treaty of Versailles Germany loses World War I in November 1918. Germans are shocked and horrified. Many people, including Adolf Hitler, refuse to believe that the loss is real. They falsely blame Jews and Communists for Germany’s defeat. 

This shock is intensified in June 1919, when Germany is forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty makes Germany accept responsibility for the war. Many Germans feel that the Treaty’s terms are too harsh. Germany has to make huge payments for damage caused by the war (war reparations). Also, according to the Treaty, the German army is limited to 100,000 troops. Finally, Germany is forced to transfer territory to its neighbors. The Nazi Party makes overturning the Treaty of Versailles a key part of its political platform. Many Germans welcome this Nazi promise. 

November 8 – 9, 1923 Beer Hall Putsch In the early 1920s, the Nazi Party is a small extremist group. They hope to seize power in Germany by force. On November 8–9, 1923, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party attempt to overthrow the government of the state of Bavaria. They begin at a beer hall in the city of Munich. The plotters hope to march on Berlin. But they fail miserably. The Munich police kill more than a dozen of Hitler’s supporters. Hitler and others are arrested, tried, and convicted of treason. This attempted coup d'état is called the Beer Hall Putsch. 

The failure of the Beer Hall Putsch encourages Nazi leaders to change their strategy. Instead of using force, the Nazis focus on winning elections. 

October 24 and 29, 1929 Stock market crash in New York The stock market crashes in New York and sparks a worldwide economic crisis. This crisis is called the Great Depression. By the end of the 1920s, the American and German economies have become closely intertwined. This economic connection is a direct result of financial negotiations relating to World War I reparations payments. Thus, the stock market crash impacts Germany almost overnight. In Germany, about six million people are unemployed by June 1932. These economic conditions make Nazi promises more attractive to voters. 

Series: Nazi Rule

The Nazi Terror Begins

SS Police State

Nazi Propaganda and Censorship

Nazi Racism

World War II in Europe

The Murder of People with Disabilities

German Rule in Occupied Europe

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Debunking Myths: was Adolf Hitler a Communist?

This essay about Adolf Hitler’s political ideology clarifies the misconception that he was a communist. It explains that despite the inclusion of “Socialist” in the Nazi Party’s name, the party’s platform was fundamentally anti-communist, emphasizing nationalism and racial purity contrary to the communists’ goals of classlessness and communal property. The essay details how Hitler actively suppressed communist elements within Germany upon his rise to power, notably following the Reichstag Fire, and how his economic policies supported private capitalism, not communal ownership. It also touches on the ideological and military conflicts between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II, underscoring the deep ideological divide between fascism and communism. This summary highlights the critical need to understand these historical nuances to appreciate the complex political dynamics of the 20th century.

How it works

Adolf Hitler, one of history’s most notorious figures, often evokes strong emotions and diverse interpretations of his political affiliations and ideologies. A question that surfaces occasionally in discussions is whether Hitler was a communist. This query stems from confusion and misconceptions surrounding the complex political landscape of early 20th-century Europe. To address this, we need to delve into the historical context of Hitler’s rise to power and the ideological foundations of his regime.

Hitler’s political journey began in the chaotic aftermath of World War I, a period marked by significant political and economic instability in Germany.

Amidst this turmoil, various political ideologies, including communism and fascism, vied for dominance. Hitler joined the German Workers’ Party in 1919, which later transformed into the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP or Nazi Party). Despite its name, the Nazi Party’s platform was staunchly anti-communist, a stance that became a cornerstone of its identity.

The confusion about Hitler’s ideological stance may partly arise from the Nazi Party’s full name, which includes the term “Socialist.” However, the socialism espoused by the Nazis was fundamentally different from the Marxist socialism advocated by communists. Nazi ideology was intensely nationalist and racially exclusive, focusing on ethnic purity and the superiority of the “Aryan” race. In contrast, communism under Marx and later Lenin sought to abolish class distinctions and promote a stateless, egalitarian society based on communal ownership of property.

One of Hitler’s primary political tactics was the explicit denouncement of communism and Bolshevik influences, which he perceived as existential threats to Germany. This anti-communist sentiment was not just rhetoric but was also actionably manifest in his policies. Upon gaining power, one of Hitler’s first acts was to suppress the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). The Reichstag Fire in 1933, which the Nazis blamed on the communists, led to the arrest of thousands of communists and a significant curtailment of civil liberties. This event marked the beginning of a systematic campaign to dismantle all forms of opposition, particularly those from the left.

Furthermore, the ideological battles between fascism and communism reached their zenith during World War II. Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was ideologically motivated by his desire to crush communism and expand German territory. The brutal conflict that ensued was as much a clash of ideologies as it was a military campaign, with the Nazis viewing the Soviet communists as their archenemies.

Moreover, Hitler’s economic policies also diverged significantly from communist principles. While communists advocate for the abolition of private property and the collectivization of the means of production, the Nazi regime implemented policies that reinforced private property and capitalism, albeit in a controlled and heavily regulated framework. Prominent German industrialists and businessmen, such as Fritz Thyssen and Gustav Krupp, supported Hitler, benefiting from the regime’s armament policies and the use of forced labor.

In conclusion, Adolf Hitler was not a communist; rather, he was a fascist with a vehemently anti-communist stance. His political beliefs and actions sought to establish a totalitarian state underpinned by nationalist and racial ideologies, fundamentally opposed to the classless, stateless vision pursued by communists. Understanding these distinctions is crucial in comprehending the historical impact of Nazi Germany and the destructive nature of its policies. As we continue to study this period, it is essential to clear up such misconceptions and appreciate the complex political dynamics that shaped the 20th century.

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Debunking Myths: Was Adolf Hitler a Communist?. (2024, May 12). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-was-adolf-hitler-a-communist/

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). Debunking Myths: Was Adolf Hitler a Communist? . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-was-adolf-hitler-a-communist/ [Accessed: 14 May. 2024]

"Debunking Myths: Was Adolf Hitler a Communist?." PapersOwl.com, May 12, 2024. Accessed May 14, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-was-adolf-hitler-a-communist/

"Debunking Myths: Was Adolf Hitler a Communist?," PapersOwl.com , 12-May-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-was-adolf-hitler-a-communist/. [Accessed: 14-May-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). Debunking Myths: Was Adolf Hitler a Communist? . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/debunking-myths-was-adolf-hitler-a-communist/ [Accessed: 14-May-2024]

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