In Italy, in the meantime a man called Mussolini also known as “il duce” came to power by force, letting his black shirts soldiers marching in Rome. Mussolini used propaganda to look for support and attract Italians, slogans like “Mussolini is always right” and “believe, obey and fight” were endlessly repeated in Italy. His idea was to create a Roman Empire.
With the help of ex army-related people like Hess,Goering,Himmler and Rohm and taking idea from “il duce”, Hitler tried to get power by the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. On the 8 November 1923 he made this speech:
“The National Revolution has begun. This building is occupied by 600 heavily armed men. No one may leave the Hall. The Bavarian and Reich governments have been removed and a provisional government formed. The army and the police are marching on the city under the Swastika”.
He was bluffing. The Weimar government had full control of the nation and Hitler was arrested.
In prison, he grew up mentally, because he understood that Germans could not be overcome by force but by patience. In his jail, he manifested his believes in a book written by him called “Mein Kampf”. In this book Hitler made public his philosophy about the Weimar Republic and his ideas of anti-semitism. While Hitler was serving his sentence, the Nazis were leaderless and the remaining member began to break up into groups.
After serving 9 months he was freed, he was not seem as a threat to the Republic although he could not make speeches in public. He never lost confidence in himself. Hitler wanted to take the Nazis in a point where they could compete with other parties and take over legally. After a while he started doing speeches, he was a “superb speaker” and he was aware of that since he described in “Mein Kampf”: “I was firmly convinced that if once they came they would remain and listen”, he was referring at the meetings that he held at the “first” days of the Nazi party and he thought that “a brilliant orator writes better than a brilliant writers speaks”. Hitler in little time founded the SS his party military force. Politician and ex soldiers were convinced about Hitlers idea, the membership of the Nazi Party grew from 27,000 in 1925 to 72,000in 1927 and 178,000 by 1929.
October 1929 generally by historians is seen as the year/month the “door opened” for the Nazi Party destiny. Gustav Stressman died and the Wall Street Crash. These two factors were significant for the following reason: Gustav Stressman was the man that gave Germans a reliable stable government and with his death Germany lost a great chancellor. After three weeks of his death the stock market on New York’s Wall Street crashed. Germany was affected badly, repayments of old loans from America became due and the German economy became to crack.
Germany’s unemployment began to rise dramatically from 1,320,000 in September 1929 to 3 million in September 1930, and over 4 million a year later.
Bullock said: “The depression put the wind into Hitler sail”.
Although the depression was agreed by a large number of historians to have played a mayor role I the oncoming of the Nazi in power, some argue that other different factors such as the weakness in the Weimar Constitution was fundamental on the matter.
Germany did not have a stable government by 1930. the new Constitution failed to provide a steady government because of the proportional representation that asked parties to form coalition in order to gain a working majority in the Reichstag. Parties were not prepared to do that and as a result parliamentary Government came to an end in1930 when Brunich, the chancellor, had to govern by the use of Presidential decree. Historians saw Brunich as essentially a “sincere statesman desperately struggling in the face of enormous difficulties to save democracy”. Brunich was unable to get enough support in the Reichstag and called an election in September 1930. The Nazi and the Communist had more voters. Even if he lost the election president Hindenburgh allowed Brunich to carry on as a Chancellor for almost another two years and to rule under section 48 of the Weimar Constitution.
Hitler and his party in July 1932 were becoming very popular, they had the support of 37% of the German voters. He had won the backing of more people than any other party in the history of the Weimar Republic. This was not enough for Hitler to become a chancellor, but at least his party was becoming “fashion” although in the election called in November 1932, the Nazis received two million fewer votes but they stayed the largest party.
Bunich to many Germans he became known as “The Hunger Chancellor”, he believed that the government should “balance its book” by raising tax rates and cutting spending. This meant that people had even less to spend and made depression even worse. This did not help him to make “friends” with his people. The Weimar Republic, was shocked when in the presidential election of March 1932 most right-wings votes went to Hitler. This was to blame Brunich, and Hindenburgh by Schleicher’s advice, who represented the views of the army leadership choose an even more right-wing government under Franz Von Papen in April 1932. Schleicher and Von Papen thought they could win the support of the Nazis by ending the ban issued to the SA and by dismissing in July 1932 the government of Prussia. The Prussian government stood in the way of Schleicher and Papen in making a more authoritarian state, but also stood in the way of Hitler ambitions in the same direction.
Von Papen was outmanoeuvred by General Von Schleicher and was dismissed by president Hindenburgh.
In December 1932 Von Schleicher became the third Chancellor within twelve months. He was unable to bring Hitler in his side. Von Papen conspired with Hitler and Hindenburgh to remove Schleicher. Von Papen convinced the president that Schleicher was planning a military putsch.
Although the Nazi Party had never won more than 37% of the vote in an election and the Communists Party had increased its vote at the last election, president Hindenburgh offered Adolf Hitler the Chancellor ship in January 1933.
From 1930 to 1933 Germany changed 3 chancellors, from this evidence some historians deducted that this helped in a vast way Hitler to Chancellor.
Details like the ability of Hitler in speeches and the Nazi propaganda were culminant to gain support from people. Hitler wrote: “our first meetings were distinguished by the fact that there were tables covered with leaflets, papers and pamphlets of every kind. But we relied principally on the spoken word.” Hitler speech were always addressed to the right person because he told them what they want to hear, with simple language, so everybody could understand, he was a “maestro” in his gestures, moving his body and arms in syntony with his voice.
Propaganda was for Hitler “fuel for his car”, he let Goebbels direct the propaganda campaign. He used brilliant tecnique to win mass support for the Fuhrer(1934) and his party. He used the media to campaign. When he campaigned to be elected president in March1932 an aeroplane was charted to fly him from meeting to meeting. Leni Riefenstahl helped the Nazis for their propaganda issue, she was a film maker, so she made a couple of film regarding Nazi and Hitler, one of her famous film is “The triumph of the will” was about Hitler’s 1934 Nuremberg rallies.
It is arguable which event was the main heading for the turning point in Nazi fortunes, although there is no dispute amongst historians that the world economic crisis was an event of epoch making significance for the rise of the Nazi Party and Hitler in power by 1933.
