"Lack of a strong political system in Germany was the main reason for the rise and eventual empowerment of the Nazi Party," Discuss.

History Extended Essay

“Lack of a strong political system in Germany was the main reason for the rise and eventual empowerment of the Nazi Party,” Discuss

After the First World War, Hitler became a V-man, and continued work for the army as a spy. His job was to spy on political parties. In the course of this job, Hitler stumbled across a small fringe party with few members called the German Worker’s Party. Hitler decided to join this party and before long became the leader. After serving about a year in prison after trying to seize Munich, Hitler returned to leading the party, changing the name to the National Socialist German Worker’s Party. This essay will discuss how Hitler got such a small party into power. Such reasons as the weak economy, the death of Stresemann and the use of the SA will be discussed. Hitler’s skills, Nazi promises, right wing deal and the failure of the left wing to unite will also be looked at.

The political system in Germany was run by a system called Proportional Representation (PR). This system made it very difficult for any one party in Germany to gain a majority vote. As a result of this, co-allition governments were formed. This meant that two or more parties joined together to share the rule of the country. These were often very weak and indecisive and in the space of ten years, there were nineteen different governments in Germany. People in Germany at that time were sick of this and, with the Nazi party offering strong, single leadership; they grew increasingly ...

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However, this was not the only reason for the rise of Hitler and his Nazi party. The weak economy in Germany also played a huge part in the rise of the Nazis. In the 1920s share prices in the USA rose year after year. Many American’s believed that they could make money by investing in shares. The selling and buying of shared was almost uncontrolled in the USA. Many people bought shares without realising they could lose all their money. Share prices went up because companies encouraged people to go on buying on credit. Hire purchase was easily available, but few people realised that it was very dangerous to go on selling on credit. Eventually people would not be able to make the repayments. Some companies that people invested their money in were bogus; they simply did not exist. Other companies did not tell the truth. It was difficult for the investors to know what they were buying. The US government did not believe that it had any responsibility for what was happening. Some Americans predicted that a crash was coming, but very few people took them seriously. Most people believed that the USA was so wealthy and so powerful that it could not happen. They were wrong. In 1929 the American stock market crashed in a massive economic disaster, the Wall St. Crash. This affected millions of people and the effects were felt throughout Europe.

Germany was the country worst affected by the Depression. This was because Germany depended upon the Dawes plan for loans from the USA to help repay the Reparations set by the Treaty of Versailles. When the depression began, the Dawes plan was replaced by the Young plan.

Unemployment in Germany rose very quickly, reaching 6,000,000 by the end of 1932. This gave Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party the chance they had been waiting for. Hitler was able to use unemployment to gain support in the general elections from 1930 to 1933. He posed as Germany’s “last hope”. As German’s became more and more desperate, they became more and more ready to listen to Hitler. He was able to pose as a strong leader who would be able to sort out Germany’s problems.