To what extent was Hitlers rise to power due to Economic Problems?

                 

                The Nazi party appeared to stop growing after 1923 due to the Treaty of Locarno signed by Germany and France in 1925 and also due to the Kellog-Briand Pact which brought peace throughout Europe. There simply was no need for a Nazi Party in Germany when problems were beginning to dissipate. These years were called “the years of stagnation”. The Munich putsch taught Hitler to stick to elections rather then revolutions. Hitler wrote in a letter from prison in 1923, “When I resume active work it will be necessary to pursue a new policy...Any lawful process is slow. Sooner or later we will have a majority, and after that-Germany!” Although there seems to be any long term benefit for Hitler in the Munich Putsch, it was a good starting point on which Hitler and his Nazi party could start to become recognised and begin its reign which inevitably turned out to be a long term benefit for them.

            Hitler regrouped the Nazi Party in 1925 with himself as the undisputed leader, already demonstrating his ideas about democracy. The party and the SA were kept separate and the party began to admit women as the legal aspect of the party’s work was emphasised. This appeared to shoe equality and modernism but in fact it was a screen for Hitler’s true incentives, without knowing this, the public would continue to support whom thy saw as an up and coming politician. The SA and the SS were described as ‘support groups’ and these members were composed largely of unemployed workers. Although elections had little success, the Nazi Party continued to grow. The growth can be owed to the gradual fading away of competitor nationalists groups, such as the DNVP. This view was echoed in the first German biography of Hitler, by Görlitz and Quint, two conservative historians who wrote under pseudonyms. Their Hitler (1952) was a fanatical radical who rose to power because of the weakness of his political opponents, and not directly because of the economic crisis. However without the economic crisis, Hitler may never have become a politician with the ambition of once again creating a strong, powerful Germany to overturn the Treaty of Versailles, whom Hitler often referred to the people who signed it as “November Criminals”. Hitler riled the German people by reminding them of aspects of the treaty that they particularly despised, such as the reparations, military restrictions and the land which was ‘stolen’ from Germany. He knew how hard the depression was for the German people and influenced them to blame their problems on the treaty, this caused many to turn towards Hitler as he was against the treaty from the beginning.

                 As Hitler became the recognised head of the German nationalists, other groups declined or were absorbed into Hitler’s own party. The areas of strongest Nazi support came were in rural areas of Germany. Although the German economy recovered quickly from hyper-inflation, agricultural prices slumped. Food prices had been very high however this had changed and the farmers were unhappy that they were suffering when it seemed that others were doing well and therefore they turned to the Nazis. Support from these citizens were only due to the economic crisis so it does show that without this support Hitler’s rise to power would have been brought to a standstill and indicates that the economic crisis was a vital component for Hitler.

          The small business class was susceptible to Hitler’s anti-Semitism since they blamed “Jewish big business” for their economic problems. University students who were disappointed at being too young to serve in the First World War were attracted by the Nazi’s radical eloquence and become loyal members. Yet despite the support from these groups it is highly unlikely that the Nazi party would ever have come to power had it not been for the Great Depression. This is the major factor that contributed to the growth of Nazism. After the Wall Street Crash in 1929 the German economy was once again plunged into crises with mass unemployment and widespread business failure. Taking 1929 levels of industrial production as 100, by 1932, that of Germany had fallen to 53.3 Americans who had been investing abroad began to return their money to the USA, leaving many foreign economies high and dry. Britain and Austria were very badly hit by this action, but it was Germany, already vulnerable as a result of the reparations, that suffered the most. In just six weeks from the beginning of June to the middle of July, the German central bank was obliged to hand out over two billion dollars-worth of gold and foreign currency. The resulting chaos led to great social unrest and was a key factor in the rise of Adolf Hitler.

           The high unemployment rate and the economic hardship caused the radicalisation of the electorate, the two extreme parties the Communists on the left and the Nazis on the right. A parliamentary stalemate developed, and between 1930 -1933 no government could secure a parliamentary majority in the Reichstag. The lack of cooperation between the labour parties helped Hitler in gaining power, against the wishes of the majority of Germans.

             The parties of the left, the SPD and the KPD, were bitterly divided and unable to mount an effective opposition which gave the Nazis their opportunity to blame the crisis on the “Jewish financiers” and the Bolsheviks. Although completely not the case, the German people believed Hitler’s message and they become the second-largest party in the Reichstag. Propaganda was an important factor in promoting Hitler and his ideas and ensuring his image was impeccable. The inability of the democratic parties to form a united front, the self-imposed isolation of the KPD and the continued decline of the economy all played into Hitler’s hands. In 1932, Germany’s political crisis deepened and Hitler chose this moment to run for president. Although he was defeated he gained a very respectable 13million votes and since Hindenburg did not campaign, Hitler had the whole of Germany listening to him. Germans had voted for Hitler because of his promises to revive the economy, to restore German greatness and overturn the Treaty of Versailles.

           However by 1933 support for the Nazis fell, possibly because the worst of the depression had passed or possibly because middle-class voters had supported Hitler previously as a protest but had drawn back from the prospect of actually putting him into power. The Nazis interpreted this as a warning that they must seize power before their moment passed. Hitler was then appointed Chancellor a move which was meant to keep him under control yet there was no reason to put him in that position of responsibility as the Nazi party were becoming increasingly unpopular and on the decline. There is a theory that it was the hidden international power brokers who wanted him in power because they knew that he would start World War Two, and this would create enormous wealth for the international elite and the global war machine. This would answer the question that Hitler was not responsible for his rise to power. However, this is seemingly ridiculous as no one could have foreseen the effects that putting Hitler in power would have caused and from the facts we can see clearly that it was Hitler himself who was accountable for his actions and ambitions and therefore responsible for his rise to power.

Fortunately for the Nazis the Reichstag in Berlin was burned down, they were able to blame this on the communists and therefore gain more support from the anti-Communists. The depression also increased the fear of communism and strengthened support for Hitler who promised to demolish it. The public thought that the country was under attack by dangerous extremists and in such an emergency situation they entrusted themselves in the government. The Nazis were the government at that time and Hitler had the nation within his grasp. Due to the Reichstag fire, the Nazis won the 1933 election with 17million votes and 288 seats. Hitler managed to blame the Communists; his opponents in the election (KPD). Hitler was appointed Chancellor soon after and passed the ‘Enabling Law’. Its significance was immense; it meant he was able to do anything he wished without parliamentary approval. Soon after he came into power, in early 1933, all political opponents were rounded up and sent to newly constructed concentration camps. By removing all opposition to the Nazis and having the power to do as he desired, Hitler was untouchable and so the outbreak of the Second World War ensued. John Lukacs claims that: ‘Zeitgeist (the spirit of the times) may have assisted Hitler’s coming to power; but in the end he created his own Zeitgeist’. Similarly, the modern German historian Rainer Zitelmann argues that Hitler intentionally modernised Germany. Zitelmann’s Hitler was ‘far more rational than up to now thought’, and came to power because his ideas were radically revolutionary – and because he had a sound understanding of the economy.

             The depression caused extremism, as desperate people felt that previous politicians had failed them they looked for a way out of their terrible financial problems, if Hitler is promising to get rid of unemployment then seemingly this would be the right choice for them to take. His rise to power is clearly due to the support of the people die to the economic crisis. The people who voted for Hitler were not just the unemployed as they also voted communist which wanted a government which would seize control of banks and businesses and spread the profits between the poor. It is very likely that Hitler’s condemnation of the communists meant that many Nazi voters were middle-class people who had more to lose from communism.

              Hitler’s path to absolute power involved totalitarian capture of democratic institutions from within, explicitly with the assistance of the power of the state. The technique consisted in the tactic of linking the processes of revolutionary assault with lawful actions that a screen of legality hid the illegality of the system from view. A smoke screen of nationalisation adopted these illusions and persuaded the civil service, the army, the political parties and trade unions, and above all the simultaneously nationalist and law-abiding legal profession, to support precisely those totalitarian aims which some of them at least were trying to avert. Hitler later stated that it was his intention “to seize power swiftly and at one blow” Those who tried to oppose were slaughtered by the Stormtroopers.

After the war, many historians (particularly French writers) believed that it was too soon to write an objective account of Hitler (Lukacs, interestingly, rejects the very terms ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’, instead he believes that, since an historian’s tools are words, which have to be chosen, ‘his selection of every word is not merely a scientific or stylistic problem but also a moral one' The general opinion in present time, is that Hitler genuinely believed what he was dictating. (In 1979, the historian KD Bracher argued that Hitler was an ideologue, propelled to self-destruction by his ideology. A fanatic for whom ‘nothing else mattered in the end’ save a perverse desire to massacre the Jews). Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (1952) is now regarded as out-of-date. Bullock presented a Hitler little different to that of the Munich Post journalists: ‘an entirely unprincipled opportunist’ who was prepared to say, and do, anything necessary to get power. In particular, Bullock drew attention to the political manoeuvring which brought Hitler to power in 1933.Even Bullock has changed his mind on the issue; his position now is that Hitler came to believe his own propaganda. Yet Hitler believed what he was saying and doing a long time before, even when he began to write Mein Kampf, his ideas in there are what shaped Germany for the next several years. The economic crisis led people to believe his ideas, such as uniting Germany and blaming the Jewish people for the financial hardships.

 Ian Kershaw’s Hubris is a broadly functionalist biography. Kershaw seeks to demonstrate that Hitler was created by his environment and propelled to power by it. Kershaw’s Hitler picks up his ideas in Vienna, is given his start in politics as a tool of the army, and comes to power because of developments in Germany such as social Darwinism, nationalism, fear of communism, acceptance of public violence, a disastrous were looking for a saviour, this is agreed by historian AJP Taylor. Although not regarded as an authoritative source nowadays, his collected essays in Europe, Grandeur and Decline (1967) state that it was the Germans who were responsible for Hitler. He was their fault: ‘If there had been a strong democratic sentiment in Germany, Hitler would never have come to power . . . No doubt men deserved what they got, when they went round crying for a hero.’ Kershaw’s Hitler is reactive, dependant on others, inconsistent, lazy, hesitant and nervous. Even after 1933, according to Kershaw, Hitler was of secondary importance. The increase of national socialist activity occurred because organisations and individuals within Germany believed that they should ‘work towards the Führer’. Another time, another place, and neither Hitler nor his ideas would have got anywhere. In this statement is a lot of truth as Hitler’s rise to power was due to outside factors and not just merely his charisma and oratory skills, and therefore from the evidence we can say that it was particularly due to the economic crisis that aided Hitler’s ambition.

             Among many factors, it can easily be stated that the Great Depression was the main reason, along with smaller triggers such as Hitler’s own characteristics, which enabled him to gain power. The Weimar government did nothing to help the economic crisis and people began to lean towards more radical parties in the hope of an economic revival. The policies of the Nazi party attracted the German people who saw it as the only hope in a chaotic situation. The Treaty of Versailles added to the enormous debt and failing economy of Germany, the country was vulnerable and Hitler was able to plant his seed of destruction. Without the economic crisis, Germany would not have looked towards other extremist ideas that promoted violence and injustice. Yet Hitler’s portrayal to the German people enabled them to look past this and see him as an ordinary soldier who had served faultlessly for his country and would become the symbol of the nation and the creator of the new Germany. Hitler’s foreign and domestic policies were successful and he seemed to deliver what he promised. Propaganda and education convinced people that Nazi views were right.  

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