The Nazis produced lots of propaganda, posters and pamphlets. There were several things that they mainly propagandized: The treaty of Versailles, which made Germany lose land and money, not only poor people but middle classes suffered from these as the government simply printed money. The Nazis put the point on blaming the Weimar government who signed the treaty, so the Weimar government lost support from both working and middle classes. The Nazis also blamed all the problems that Germany was facing to the Weimar government although most problems were actually caused by the depression. So the people suffer thought it was all because of the Weimar government who was leading Germany at that time. The Weimar government lost support again. In speeches or in newspapers they put the Nazi policies which seemed a lot better than the Weimar government. So the Nazis not only shared their fears and dislikes with people but also had the policies that people liked. This increased the Nazis’ support from people.
During that time, there were frequent street battles between communist gangs and the police, and the communists seemed the disorderly fact of German. Nazis’ SA and SS, on the other way round, never joined the fights in the streets, and always played the role of helping the police to stop the fights, so the SA and SS gave people the impression of discipline and order. And many people felt the country needed this kind of order, as none wanted to have a government which brought fights on the streets every day, and Nazis seemed a good choice for them to have a quiet and peaceful live. The communists lose support on this, but the support of the Nazis increased.
In 1923 Hitler believed that the moment had come for him to topple the Weimar government, but he failed at ‘the Munich Putsch’ and was sent into prison for 9 months. Hitler used his time in prison to write a book called ‘Mein Kampf’, which clarified and presented his ideas about Germany’s future. This book was very popular throughout Germany after publish and it also brought lots of support to the Nazis. As soon as he got out of prison, Hitler set about rebuilding the Nazi party so that it could take power through democratic means. He saw the communists building up their strength through youth organizations and recruitment drives. Soon the Nazis were doing the same.
The Nazis were the largest single party at the Reichstag election of July 1932, but they were still not a majority party. Hindenburg refused to let Hitler become the Chancellor. Hindenburg allowed Von Papen, who was an old friend of him, and Schleicher became Chancellor. But both Von Papen and Schleicher faced lots of problems as they had no support from the Reichstag. It was clear that the Weimar system of government was not working. Hindenburg had already overthrown the principles of democracy by running Germany with emergency powers and if he was to rescue the democratic system, he needed a Chancellor who actually had support in the right wing. When Hindenburg was trying this, Von Schleicher told Hindenburg ‘let's use Hitler’. On the 30th of January, 1933 they allowed Hitler to become the Chancellor as they were confident that they could limit Hitler’s influence and resisted his extremist demand, and they could get the support brought by Hitler at the same time. Hitler was OK with this, if he played well he could get the majority to become the real Chancellor and kick out the ‘Wiemars’, but if not the one being kicked out would be the Nazis.
After Hitler became Chancellor, he still took steps to complete a Nazis takeover of Germany by using the position of a ‘Chancellor’. On 27th of February 1933 the building of the Reichstag burnt down; Hitler blamed the communists and quickly found a communist (probably a scapegoat) to accuse. The communists lost lots of support on this. Hitler demanded special emergency powers which were given by Hindenburg to deal with the situation. The Nazis used this power to arrest communists, break up meetings and frighten voters, which gave a big hurt to the communists. The emergency decree also allowed Hitler to take over regional governments. Hitler used the control of radio and police to scare and threaten opponents. And on 5th of March, Hitler called another election, the Nazis won their largest-ever share of the votes, 52 percent, now Hitler had an overall majority. However, there was another big problem facing Hitler at that time; there were two arm forces in German, the SA and the Army, Hitler had to make a choice between them. Hitler decided to break the SAs, because the power of the SAs under the leadership of Rohm was too strong (4million men), and Hitler was suspicious of Rohm as he talked about making the SA into a second German army. The SAs could be a big problem in the future although they were badly disciplined. Hitler took action quickly after he made the decision. Over the weekend of 29-30 June, squads of SS men broke into the homes of Rohm and other leading figures in SA and arrested them. Rohm was murdered and about 400 others were executed over the weekend. This ‘purge’ was known as The Night of the Long Knives. Hindenburg was happy with this and the Army said it was well satisfied with the events of the weekend.
Soon after the Night of the Long Knives, Hindenburg died and Hitler took over as Supreme leader of Germany. And on August 1934 the army agreed to stay out of politucs and to serve Hitler. Now Hitler became the real Chancellor and leader of Germany and had the real power.
