After the Putsch Hitler was sentenced to 5 years in prison for treason, however the judge wrote to the officials and he was let out after just 9 months. The Putsch helped Hitler eventually come to power in a number of ways. Firstly the trial received massive media attention, as this sort of thing was rare in 1923. This meant that the Nazi party were brought to the attention of Germany, as they were virtually unknown at this point. Also during the trial the judge allowed Hitler to speak his mind. This meant that the Nazi party got to have their beliefs broadcasted to the whole of Germany for free. Thirdly Hitler’s time in prison gave him time to dictate “Mein Kampf”, which eventually convinced many people to vote for the Nazi party. He also wrote the 25-point programme, which was the view of the Nazi party, which were designed to appeal to the vast majority of the German people. He appealed to the church as Hitler promised to get rid of communism and the church hated communists, as they are atheists. He appealed to the aristocrats, as they also feared communism. Hitler also promised re-armament, which was what they wanted. The 25-point programme also appealed to the middle class who wanted law and order – Hitler promised to give them this. They also feared communism. Lastly Hitler appealed to the working class, as there was a mass unemployment in Germany, Hitler promised to end this and provide jobs.
The next reason that Hitler was able to come into power was the Wall Street crash. This helped Hitler come into power as it caused another depression in Germany, which the government was not able to solve. Because America was now in an economic crisis, it was demanding back loans that had previously been lent to Germany in order to try and solve this. This was a problem for Germany as it had been using these loans to re-build its economy and more importantly to pay of reparations from WW1 to France and Britain, which they were still demanding back and Germany was unable to pay them. This depression helped Hitler come into power as in extreme times; people are more likely to turn to extreme politics when the current government can’t solve the problem. Statistics of voting polls from then also showed that as the situation got worse and the levels of unemployment grew, so did the number of votes for the Nazi party. This led to Hitler being appointed chancellor as no other party was offering a solution to the depression except Hitler.
Once he was chancellor, Hitler then did everything in his power to gain the overall majority of seats in the Reichstag. The opportunity to do this arose when the Reichstag building burnt down and a communist was found on the scene. The Nazis took full advantage of this and blamed the communist for the fire. They also made people fearful of a “communist plot” to take over the country. This helped Hitler become a dictator as he demanded emergency special powers to deal with the situation and was given them by President Hindenburg. The Nazis used these powers to arrest communists and break up their meetings and frighten voters into voting for the Nazi party.
It also allowed Hitler to get rid of the 81 seats the communists had in the Reichstag, which meant the Nazi party now had far less opposition. This led to the Nazis receiving a huge percentage of the votes in the 1933 election and meant they had an overall majority in the Reichstag. This led to Hitler being able to pass the “Enabling act”. This meant that he could make laws for the next 4 years without consulting the Reichstag. This meant that no one could stand in his way; he had achieved this power through legal means.
Now that Hitler had this power he started to get rid of people in his own party who could potentially become a problem. On the “Night of the Long Knives”, Hitler used the SS (a military branch of the Nazi party who were loyal personally to Hitler) to kill 200 members of the SA, including its leader Ernst Rohm. He did this because the SA had a lot of socialist views and wanted the SA and the army to come together with Ernst Rohm as leader. Neither Hitler, President Hindenburg or the army wanted this as the SA’s socialist views were completely against Hitler ruling Germany in a dictatorship. By using the SS to kill members of the SA, Hitler appeased Hindenburg and the army and sent a message to others who may have thought of challenging him.
Then President Hindenburg died of old age. This allowed Hitler to take over as Supreme leader (the Führer) of Germany. On the 2nd of August 1934 the entire army swore an oath of personal loyalty to Hitler and he began his dictatorship.
In my opinion the Wall Street crash was the most important reason for Hitler coming into power. This is because if this hadn’t happened, Germany would still have been able to recover economically and there would have been no depression and therefore no need for extreme politics to solve the situation.
