In October 1929, Gustav Stresemann died and the Wall St Crash occurred October 29th. This did not just upset Germany; it sent the whole world plummeting into the “Great Depression”. Therefore, you could say that Hitler was lucky Weimar broke down, and that Germany was in such a bad situation, otherwise he would have never legally become Fuhrer.
The next general elections where held in 1930. In these elections the Nazi party gained 107 seats. This proves that when a Government is doing well the extreme political groups of each side of the political spectrum do badly and when the Government does badly the extremes take advantage and do very well.
The biggest shock came in 1932 when Adolf Hitler ran in the presidential elections. He received 11million votes, Hindenburg gained 18million. Even though Hitler was largely beaten by votes, it warned Weimar that Hitler was a serious threat, only a few years ago, he received 12 seats in the Reichstag, but now he gained 11million votes for the presidential elections.
The voting system in Germany at the time was called ‘Proportional Representation’. This worked so that if a political group gained 9% of the votes in an election they would get 9% of the seats in the Reichstag. This crucial flaw let in extreme political parties like the Nazis. This gave the minorities a voice and is the reason why Germany was said to have the most free-est democracy.
On the night of 27th February 1933, a fire destroyed the Reichstag. The Dutch communist Marinus Van der Lubbe was made scapegoat for the incident, the outcome was that Hitler was given an excuse to have all the communist leaders arrested, plus he managed to obtain a decree from Hindenburg giving the Nazis governmental powers to inter anyone they deemed a threat to the nation. Furthermore, the decree allowed the Nazi government to suppress the free speech of its political opponents.
The Enabling act on 23rd March allowed the powers of legislation to be taken away from the Reichstag and transferred to Hitler’s cabinet. The act was passed easily as Hitler had achieved the support of the Centre and Nationalist parties, and the suppression of all communist and social democrats.
I believe that if Stresemann’s death and the Wall St Crash had not happened then the Weimar Government would not have been destroyed… yet and Hitler would’ve never come to power. Nevertheless, the Proportional Representation voting system was the fatal flaw that the Nazis exploited to get into power. Thus, I agree that Hitler came to power because Weimar was weak.
