The Weimar government were put into power in 1918, right after the end of World War One, this does not help any new government but the Weimar had further difficulties and it could be said they were doomed from the start. A year after the Weimar were put into power the NSDAP were formed. The Weimar signed the Treaty of Versailles that had terrible consequences for Germany, for a start they were ordered to pay reparations of an incredible fee and if Germany continued to pay these reparations they would of only just finished paying last year! Germany could not afford this and had to borrow money from America. In the mid 1920’s The Weimar was overcoming its difficulties and this maybe why the NSDAP performed so poorly in the 1928 elections. But disaster struck in 1929 with the Wall Street crash and America needed its money back, thus Germany was left in huge debt. When a country is in debt it has to adjust it’s spending to get more income. Therefore they had to raise taxes which left company’s in a difficult situation financially, not only due to the taxes but due to the fact that the customer’s didn’t have as much money to spend. This lead to an extreme inflation in unemployment in 1928 three million were unemployed and 2 years later 8.5 million were unemployed this is a huge figure and this leads to even more economical difficulty for the country as there are less taxes coming in. I do not think that its coincidence that when unemployment peaked the Nazi parties popularity rocketed as Hitler promised to reduce unemployment. This one point already shows that the German society do vote on politics and no race and ideology.
But this only factor didn’t get the Nazi’s into power. As we mentioned before he was an incredible speaker and knew just how to get the voters behind him. In an interview Hitler spoke “working classes want nothing but bread and games,” the meaning behind this is that back in when the Romans ruled the most popular leaders were the one's that gave the peasants free bread and games. He implemented this into modern society by telling the peasants what they wanted to hear. Jobs and lower taxes, But he didn’t tell the same story to all the class’s. He told each group exactly what they wanted to hear. For the businessman he promised protection from state ownership, rid the country of trade unions and less tax. For the shopkeepers he promised to lower taxes and get rid of department stores as they took away business. He promised the workers that they would be all equal (Communism) and redistribute wealth. The only group Hitler did not promise any thing to were the Junkers (Aristocrats) as they were the minority. Overall he promised to improve the German’s quality of life and bring back Germany to the high status it was all those years ago. He wanted Autarky and make the country very strong on its own two feet. Another huge reason for the Nazi’s gaining power was the fact that Hitler planned to rid the country of the Treaty of Versailles, which was the German publics main wish.
The Aryan race was where Hitler believed that true Germans (Blonde hair and Blue eyes) where superior to any other race, and therefore wished the country to be filled with only true German’s. However I feel most of the public felt that this was an ideal way to get rid of the bad in the country, Gypsies and the homeless, and possibly the Jewish.
In conclusion to say that the Nazi party only gained power through race and ideology would be incorrect and the party’s politics helped far more. However without each other neither would succeed. Hitler was just what the Germany needed and although many of Hitler’s claims where impossible to fill it was too difficult for the German’s to dismiss them. Unemployment and depression was high and Hitler helped boost their moods. Combined with the failure of the Weimar The Nazi’s were almost guaranteed to get into power.
