Was Hitler’s Rise To Power Between 1929 And Jan 1933 Inevitable?

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Was Hitler’s Rise To Power Between 1929 And Jan 1933 Inevitable

There were many reasons why Hitler was able to take power in 1933. The short term reasons were after 1929. The economic crisis and instability in Germany was a main reason why he was able to gain power. The weakness of the opposition made it easier for him to gain power also this opposition would not join and form a coalition government. After the death of Stressemann and later Hindenburg, it was much easier for Hitler to obtain political power.

Germany was unstable at the time and after the formation of the Weimar republic, the constitution became weak the constitution also had a number of key flaws in it too. For instance allowing the chancellor to stop democratic voting and perspone it as long as he or she wanted and he or she could make a decision without putting it through the courts if he or she felt it was important enough. Also it included proportional representation which meant that it was near to impossible to get a larger number of seats over everyone else put together thus you had to form a coalition government which resulted in weak leadership and government. The Weimar republic was successful for some time but people always felt resentment towards the republic due to the Long-term implications of the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles. The reparations that Germany had to pay through the Treaty meant that it was in economic crisis. This helped to cause weakness in the democracy and although the Weimar Republic did have a period of recovery between 1924 and 1929 the death of Stresseman and the Wall Street Crash helped to bring it down again. The republic was weak because of all the reasons stated above. Crises in countries do happen as they did in Germany but the government has to be able to survive. If it can’t survive it leaves the way open for people like Hitler to work their way to power.

The German people didn’t want communism, which was the other option so they turned to Nazism, as it was the only alternative to a moderate government which always lost votes in a depression or time of crisis. This is because when a country is prosperous they have no need for any extremism to change the country dramatically, and in times of crisis they need to because in general in order to get prosperity back an extreme change is needed. The middle classes feared communism because since they had established themselves from the lower or working classes, they now had a small amount of money and power in the world. They believed that economic and social chaos would move their positions about radically. They thought that the Communists would bring about this and by would drag them back down the ladder.

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Albert Speer, after seeing Hitler for the first time in 1931 said, “Here it seemed to me was hope…. The perils of Communism could be checked, Hitler persuaded us, and instead of hopeless unemployment, Germany could move towards economic recovery.” The Wall Street crash had introduced mass unemployment to Germany and it had also caused poverty. Hitler promised to the people that he would do everything to make Germany recover from this unemployment and to also gain Germany prosperity and economic stability. After hyperinflation had occurred shortly after the end of the First World War the German people wanted economic ...

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