Hitler's Rise to Power

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Hitler's Rise to Power

Looking back at the horrendous events that occurred during the Second World War, many of the people effected or even not so effected often ask the question

‘Who let a mad man like Hitler come into power?’ The answer is, no one let him come into power, therefore it’s probably more accurate, to say ‘What enabled Hitler to come to power’

To answer this question, one must study the episode from 1918-1935 closely in order to understand the mood in post war Germany that would make such a rash and ludicrous decision possible.

Of the many reasons that permitted Hitler to come to power, the core reason was most probably The Economic Depression and this was due to Germanys’ unexpected defeat in 1918.

Like most countries in post war period, whether defeated or victorious, The economy is usually failing due to all the damage and destruction to industries and the loss of life during the war. However, Germany‘s economy failed considerably worse than expected.

 A few years after war ended, German politicians forcefully signed the Peace Treaties that had a terrible impact on Germany.

By signing the Treaty, Germany had agreed to accept its terms. Germany had to loose all its colonies, disarm but most harsh of all it had to pay reparations.

The reparation figure was £6600 million- an enormous amount, which the Germans thought, was very unreasonable.

Nevertheless they had no choice but to pay it back to the allies. In the first year payments were on time however by 1922, Germany fell behind in payments, which caused the French to invade the Ruhr. The German governments ordered the workers to go on strike. The strike meant a great shortage in production and therefore left Germany with no goods to trade and no money to buy things with. This added to Germany's economic problems.

The government thought that the solution to all of this was to print more money, and so they did, but the German people soon realised that the money was worthless and couldn't buy anything of use. Slowly but surely, the German currency collapsed. The German mark was worthless; the price of goods would rise between joining the back of a queue in a shop and reaching the front.

Hyperinflation set in. The whole of Germany suffered, including the rich! A house in 1921 was cheaper than a loaf of bread in 1923, savings were worthless and many pensioners didn't receive enough money for food, which lead to starvation.

The situation needed immediate attention and so they abolished the mark and created a new currency called the Rentenmark. This plan succeeded in gaining German stability and things were going well.  

‘When America sneezes, Europe catches a cold’ this saying was especially true in Germany after the American stock exchange crashed in 1929.  The effects of the crash were devastating on both the people and the economy. It left American speculators ruined, the once rich almost poor. Many people were not able to pay back loans, which they had used to play the stock market with, which left them bankrupt and soon homeless and starving. The crash caused a great depression in the USA, though for Germany it was a whole lot worse!

During the war USA lent a lot of money to Britain and to Germany to pay back her loans and pick herself up again. However, after the Wall Street Crash, America was desperate for money and demanded all of it back.

This made the German people fall back into The Great Depression and economic collapse that they had almost overcome in 1924. Yet again, the German people were starving, homeless, unemployed and now fed up.

During this great depression and throughout this time of misery and starvation Hitler was just below the surface organizing his party and waiting for the perfect opportunity to seize control.

He was whipping up crowds of starving unemployed Germans to his rallies. He would roar solutions to their grave problems by putting across comprehensible and straightforward demands. He inconspicuously stirred nationalist passions into their minds and gave them scapegoats to blame for Germanys problems. This was a major aid in his rise to power because people were so devastated that they needed someone to blame and someone to save them, Hitler offered both; therefore one can say that all these economic problems assisted immensely in Hitler's rise to power.

The depression had weakened Germany both physically and mentally, they needed someone to boost their confidence, raise moral, bring order and take Germany out of its misery as they were so desperate they saw Hitler as their last hope even if they knew he was mad.

 

Voting behavior changed in 1932 when unemployment reached its peak at 6 million people had had enough of idle promises and saw that the only solution to their problems was Hitler's twenty five point program which included the Nationalization of large businesses, a strong central government in Germany abolition of the appalling Treaty of Versailles that had been the source of so many of Germanys problems. People liked the sound of this and they also wanted a dictator, someone to rule them, like in the days of the Kaiser, so they began voting for Hitler.

Finally, In 1933 Hitler was appointed as  chancellor over Germany. Apart from the devastating effects of the economic depression, there were other factors that aided Hitler's sudden rise to power such as the Treaty of Versailles. One could say that the Treaty of Versailles brought about the economic depression and  without it, the impact of the depression would have been less bleak or even non existent and therefore fewer people would have been depressed enough to vote for Hitler.

The Munich Putsch of 1923 ; although it was a failure in the short term, the effects for Hitler were good in the long term.

Hitler gained enormous publicity for  his ideas (his every word was reported in the newspapers) He used his time in prison to write Mien Kampf - his autobiography, which set out his ideas for Germany. He concluded that the Nazis would not be able to seize power by force. They should gain power through democratic progress, but once in power they would destroy that system. Thus, the Nazis fought the Reichstag elections for the first time in 1924.

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Once Hitler had regained his freedom and publicity, His speech-making, personality and leadership skills were vital to his success. However good or bad his policies were, he was able to convince people that it was the right way to go. Endless rallies saw Hitler draw up more and more German support as he convinced them that his ideas were the solutions to their problems.

 He also managed to make people believe that the Jews were to blame for their problems. This was a great quality that enabled him to do the things he had planned to do.

After ...

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