The third and most important reason was that the Germans felt that the government should not have made peace because they thought that the army could have won the war. They called the politicians who had made the peace “November Criminals”. (Source 4, page 24, Brooman is a German poster. It is a primary source and is biased. It goes against the government and there is a picture of a criminal stabbing a soldier in the back. It portrays how the Germans thought that they had been “stabbed in the back” by the politicians).
The financial settlement forced upon the Germans caused them huge problems. They paid the first instalment of this huge bill in 1921. But in 1922 they announced that hey wouldn’t be able to give any other payments for the next three years. The French didn’t believe this, so on 9th January the French and Belgian troops invaded Ruhr and they confiscated the factories and mines (Source 1, page 28, Brooman is a map of the Ruhr Valley and Rhineland. It shows the parts that were occupied by the allied troops and Franco-Belgian troops. It is a factual source.) German trade then came to a standstill because the workers refused to work for the Franco-Belgian armies, and soon unemployment rose rapidly. Soon the prices of goods increased because they had become scarce. (Source1, page 30, Brooman shows the ridiculous price rise on everyday goods). Then the German people demanded higher wages and unemployment benefits so they could afford the goods. This was called hyperinflation and it made the Mark useless. (Source 3, page 31, Brooman, although posed, is a good source because it shows a woman using bank notes as fuel to burn in a fire. This shows us how useless the Mark had become. This is a primary source but is posed and biased.)
The people who were most acutely affected by hyperinflation were the pensioners who were living on fixed incomes and small savings. Such people were usually middle class and wanted a strong government to restore confidence to the German currency. The government of the time was however failing to do this and other parties started to become more popular than they otherwise would have been.
One of the political parties around at the time was “The German Workers Party”. In the early years it was very small and disorganised. After being a company runner in the First World War, Hitler was sent to Munich in 1919 to keep watch on extremist groups to find out whether they were a danger to the government. He mainly watched “The German Workers Party” because although it was poorly organized, he likes its ideas and he joined as member no. “55”. Hitler soon became leader of the party and decided to give it a new image. He changed the name to “National Socialist German Workers Party” – abbreviated to Nazi. He also gave the party a new 25-point programme describing its aims. The party adopted a new eye-catching emblem, the swastika. Hitler gave the party more publicity by organizing meetings, putting advertisements in newspapers and putting posters on walls.
The party began to grow rapidly and its membership increased from around 50 to over 50thousand in just four years! (Source B2 in assignment booklet is a secondary source that tells us what the Nazi party was like when Hitler joined). The party created an armed force called Sturmabteilung, which translates to storm troopers, and they were nicknamed brown shirts because of their uniform.
The Nazi party published its own newspaper to spread its views. Hitler blamed different races for losing the war. He also talked about making Germany a “greater Germany” which only had pure Germans in it, even thought Hitler was originally Austrian. He wanted everyone who was not German to be made to leave the country. He also promised to get rid of the Treaty Of Versailles and to get back the territories lost because of the treaty. Hitler also wanted to set up a dictatorship with him as the dictator. (Source 2, page 37, Brooman tells us about the Nazi policies in more detail). The next paragraph shows how his early attempts at this failed and caused him to be placed under arrest.
By late 1923 the Nazi party had over 55,000 members. Hitler decided that the party was now strong enough to seize power in Germany. He attempted a putsch in Munich called the “Beer Hall Putsch”. The attempt failed because the army and local leaders refused to join them. 16 Nazi’s were shot dead and the Nazi Party was banned. Hitler was tried for treason and was found guilty. He was sentenced 5 years, only 9 months of which he served. (Source 3, page 40, Brooman shows how Hitler got his early release. It is a primary source from 1933. It was written by the fortress governor. I don’t think that it is biased because there was no reason for the governor to be biased).
While Hitler was in prison he wrote a book called “Mein Kampf” (source A, page 44, Lancaster is a picture of the book). It was half autobiography and it said all about the Nazi’s policies. During prison he realised that the putsch had failed and learnt that he had to change the way he made people aware of his policies. He had to follow democracy to succeed (source 2, page 40, Brooman is a primary source. It is one of Hitler’s speeches and it is trying to get people on his side and to make them think he’s changed).
Hitler was freed in December 1924 and was given permission to re-found the Nazi party, after promising not to break any laws (source 5, page 41, Brooman shows Hitler re-founding the Nazi party. This primary source is a photograph and is not posed.).
The years between 1924 and 1929 were called “The Golden Twenties” as Germany’s economy recovered from the crisis of 1923. People were happy with the government and so extremist parties like the Nazi’s didn’t have many members. However the economy slumped again in 1929. The government was blamed by many Germans, who voted instead for extremist political parties in elections. As a result the Nazi party grew to become the largest party in Germany. (Source 4, page 51, Brooman is a factual source. It is a graph showing the numbers of members in some of the political parties from May 1924 to November 1932).
Between 1930 and 1932 the Nazi’s had worked hard to increase their votes by spreading their ideas in newspapers, posters and pamphlets. As a result of the election in July 1932 the Nazi’s were the biggest party in the Reichstag.
During 1932 there were many changes in the post of Chancellor. Chancellor Bruning was sacked by President Hindenburg after being persuaded by General Schleicher to do so. Franz Von Papen became chancellor instead, but had few supporters in the Reichstag. Another election was held in 1932 to try and get more supporters but the result went in favour of the Nazi’s. Hitler demanded that he should be made chancellor. But Hindenburg refused. Hindenburg’s choice for chancellor was still Von Papen. But he had suffered a vote of no confidence in the Reichstag. Papen arranged a further election for November but lost some of his seats. He asked Hindenburg to govern by decree but General Schleicher said that this would cause a civil war. Von Papen was forced to resign and was replaced by Schliecher who lasted only 2 months. As Hindenburg had no other choices he had to offer the post to Hitler who became chancellor on 30th January 1933.
Hitler wasn’t satisfied and wanted to make his position more secure. He arranged another election hoping to increase his seats in the Reichstag. The election took place on March 5th but Hitler still didn’t have a majority (source 3, page 59, Brooman shows the number is seats) so he persuaded the Nationalist party to join with the Nazi party which gave him just over half of the seats in the Reichstag.
Hitler persuaded the Reichstag to pass an “Enabling Law” which gave him absolute power for 4 years. As this meant a change to Germanys constitution he needed 2/3 of the Reichstag to vote in favour. He achieved this through a threatening presence at the vote. (Source 5, page 60, Brooman was written in 1963 by a Social Democrat. He tells us about the frightening presence that the SA and SS gave).
Between March and July 1933 Hitler brought the political system under Nazi control – his “Gleischaltung”. By July 1933 the only party still in existence was the Nazi party.
In 1934 when Hindenburg died Hitler assumed the title as president as well as chancellor. He took the new title Fuhrer.
