How Important Was Hitler's Contribution to the Nazis' rise to Power by 1933?

Emily Clark LVS

28/04/2007

History Coursework.

How Important Was Hitler’s Contribution to the Nazis’ rise to Power by 1933?

There are many factors from between 1919 to 1933 that helped the Nazis’ rise to power as well as the fact that Hitler was their leader. For me to decide how important Hitler’s contribution was, I am going to describe each factor and explain how it affected the Nazis’ rise to power.

My first thoughts on which is the most important factor to the Nazis’ rise to power is probably the Treaty Of Versailles. This is because many of the other factors were caused or affected by the Treaty. However this is my opinion before I have done any detailed research so in the following essay I am going to show my ideas after detailed research into all the factors and then I am going to make a full detailed conclusion.

Hitler’s contribution to the rise of the Nazis’ is seen by many to be a matter of being in the right place at the right time, these people also say that anybody could have been picked to lead the Nazis’ party and they would have taken the party to the same heights as Hitler. I personally do not agree with this and see that if Hitler had not been such a strong and persuasive speaker the people of Germany would not have backed the Nazis’ with as much force. Hitler had an amazing ability to make the public believe what he wanted them to believe. Hitler told the German people that he was the greatest leader that Germany had ever had and will ever have. The German people took him at his word and supported him and his dictatorship. This is one thing Hitler made the Germans believe, he also made them believe that

The Germans were the master race,
The Germans biggest enemies were the Jews and the Communist parties in the Reichstag,
Germany must become the leading country in Europe once more even if it led to another war.

Hitler was a very powerful public speaker so it did not take him long to persuade the German people of these beliefs. Hitler also had a great ability to realise who in the community was the most important; this is why he concentrated on the young “The young are our future”. By1932 Hitler was trying to make the Nazis’ appeal to as wide a cross section of German society as possible. Their election propaganda included something for everyone except for the Jews who were always made the scapegoat for German misery. Hitler was also very quick to realise that there was only one way in which he was going to reach power and this was lawfully through elections rather than through revolts. In 1923 Hitler lead the Munich Putsch, the second of two revolts, and tried to over rule the Bavarian government. The Munich Putsch took place at the height of the economic crisis. Hitler, who had recently taken over the leadership of the Nazis Party, felt that the Government was ripe for destruction. He and General Ludendorff therefore tried to organize a march from Munich to Berlin. The march was going to end up with Hitler overthrowing the Weimar Republic in Berlin. The Bavarian police broke up the march before it even left Munich and both Hitler and Ludendorff were arrested. This meant that Hitler could yet more publicity at his trial, this made well known. He spent only nine months at Landsberg jail. Whilst Hitler was in jail he wrote Mein Kampf or my struggle, which allowed him to work out his own beliefs. He became like a martyr for the party and Mein Kampf was the parties Bible. The Munich Putsch shows Hitler’s hate for the Weimar Republic. However the Munich Putsch is not all good as the Nazi party was banned and Hitler was not allowed to speak publicly until 1928 in Prussia. The Nazi party fell apart and between 1924 and 1928 the number of seats that the Nazis’ held in the Reichstag slowly began to decline. Many people say that because the Nazis’ were losing popularity this was the reason that Hitler became Chancellor even so it seemed that a major upheaval would be needed to turn the Nazi Party into an election winner. This upheaval came after the economic crisis of the Wall Street Crash. The Wall Street Crash meant that many people became unemployed. This resulted in social misery in all classes and the current Chancellor, Bruning, seemed to be doing nothing to help his country to solve the crisis. People began to realise the Weimar Government was not working so they started to look for a party who had radical solutions to their problems and they decided to rejoin the extreme parties. As more and more people became unemployed the more and more popular that the Nazis came.

After the inflation of 1923 German recovery was brought about largely by American investment, a direct result of the Dawes plan of 1924. However there was a hitch. The investment was in the form of short-term loans that could be recalled at any time with repayment demanded in full. The Germans were quite happy about this and they were on the road to economic recovery when disaster struck. In 1929 the New York Stock Exchange crashed. The values of shares collapsed following a few days of wild speculation. The Americans had no option but to pull out their investment and ...

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After the inflation of 1923 German recovery was brought about largely by American investment, a direct result of the Dawes plan of 1924. However there was a hitch. The investment was in the form of short-term loans that could be recalled at any time with repayment demanded in full. The Germans were quite happy about this and they were on the road to economic recovery when disaster struck. In 1929 the New York Stock Exchange crashed. The values of shares collapsed following a few days of wild speculation. The Americans had no option but to pull out their investment and recall the loan to Germany immediately. This destroyed Germany’s economic recovery. Germany’s overseas market fell because the market for their good suddenly declined as most countries in the world slid into depression. This meant that many people became unemployed and the number of unemployed in Germany increased rapidly, reaching six million by 1932. The result of this is that many peoples lives became misery, many people had to give up their homes. All of this along with the earlier economic crisis of 1919 to 1923 due to reparation payments from the Treaty Of Versailles left many people bitter towards the Government as they soon realised that the Government could no longer help Germany recover as they had promised after the First World War. Again this left them looking for a change, and many people looked to the extreme parties who offered radical solutions to many of Germany’s problems. The Nazis’ were an extreme right wing party that good ideas that people were attracted to.

In 1919 the Weimar Republic signed the Treaty of Versailles. This stated that Germany was to be held guilty of causing the First World War and all the damage resulting from it. Hence, the German nation was expected to provide compensation. This also led to the economic crisis, because the compensation payments or reparations were extremely large and Germany could not afford them, and many other problems. The German people were very angry that their government had signed the treaty and in doing so taken the blame for something that they had not done. Yet again this made the German people want change in leadership to help them out of their problems, so once more the people turned to the extreme parties who seemed to have radical solutions. This was the first of many problems for the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic was set up in a time of defeat, which made it unpopular right from the start. The Depression hit Germany hard, and by 1929 membership of the Nazi party had risen to nearly 200,00. This was because people thought that the Weimar Government couldn’t sort out Germany’s problems.

As I have said many times in this essay the German people started to look for radical parties. The two major radical parties were the Nazis and the Communists. The communists believe that everyone should be exactly the same and they wanted Germany to be more like Russia. As the economic crisis deepened, Communist support was rising too. The Nazis turned this to their advantage. 'Fear of Communism' was another shared negative. The Communist Red Fighting League broke up opposition party meetings, just like the SA. They fought street battles with police. So, out on the streets, the Nazi SA storm troopers met Communist violence with their own violence.

Many middle class business owners had read about how the Communists in the USSR had discriminated against people like them. The owners of the big industries feared the Communists because of their plans to introduce state control on businesses. The industrialists were also concerned about the growing strength of Germany's trade unions. They felt the Nazis would combat these threats and some began to put money into Nazi campaign funds. Communists alarmed all farmers. They had read about Communist farming policies in the USSR where the Soviet government had taken over all of the land. Millions of peasants had been killed or imprisoned in the process. In contrast, the Nazis promised to help Germany's desperately struggling small farmers.

The last factor that affected the Nazis’ rise to power was the help of individuals, such as Franz Von Papen and Hindenburg. In May 1923, Hindenburg dismissed Bruning as Chancellor and Von Papen became Chancellor. Following this Von Papen was dismissed in 1932; this was partly on Schleicher’s advice. Schleicher was then appointed Chancellor. Von Papen was angry at the way he had been treated by Schleicher and like many other men in positions of influence Von Papen wanted to see the Weimar Government changed. With his large popularity Hitler seemed like the perfect choice. Von Papen thought of a scheme where Hitler would be Chancellor and he would be Vice-Chancellor. He thought that Hitler would act as the front man and would be able to convince workers that any reforms were right. Von Papen thought that Hitler would be easily controlled because he had never held office before. Von Papen also realised that there were twelve ministers in the coalition government and only three were Nazis. Von Papen, and now Hindenburg thought that Hitler could be controlled and drowned out by non-Nazis, but yet again the Government made a mistake. As soon as Hitler was made Chancellor he began to change things from the inside and he disregarded most other peoples views.

The depression created perfect conditions for Hitler’s rise to power. The depression meant that Hitler could appeal to people’s fears and hates. But Hitler’s own remarkable talents were crucial to his success. Hitler used the dark acts of propaganda to turn the Nazis into a party of the masses. Then with his ruthless determination to succeed at all costs, he outmanoeuvred the politicians and the President. The Nazis had made it clear that they would destroy democracy and all who stood in their way. Under the system of proportional representation when it was hard for one party to gain a full majority of seats in the Reichstag, no two parties could join together to stop Hitler. However if the Communists and the Socialists joined forces they could have probably been strong enough to block the Nazis but as the Communists saw the Socialists as their enemy not the Nazis this could not happen.

In conclusion I think that the depression and the Wall Street Crash were the most important factors in the Nazis rise to power then the fact that Hitler was leader. The depression meant that everyone was looking for change. The people wanted a party that could help bring Germany out of the crisis. They needed an extreme party so it had to be the Communist party or the Nazis. Many of the important voters where businessmen so they did not want to be ruled by the communists, so they voted for the Nazis’. I personally think that Hitler was only a contributing factor to the Nazis’ rise to power. Although he was a strong speaker and h made the Nazis well known I think that maybe the Nazi Party could have reached similar heights without him. They may not have done it so quickly but I do think that they would have done it. From what I said at the beginning of this essay: that the Treaty of Versailles was the most important factor, I have changed my mind. There are many reasons for this is that although the Treaty of Versailles affected the depression I do not think that they signing of the treaty was actually that important. I do however think that the things that individuals and other parties did was fairly important. This is because Von Papen and Hindenburg both together put Hitler into a position were he had control. The Communists and the socialist also misjudged the Nazis power and they both saw each other as their enemies rather than the Nazis. I do think though that if one factor was removed from the period of 1919 to 1933 the whole situation would have been different. In a final concluding sentence: All the factors mentioned all had a place in the rise of the Nazis but some were more so than others.

Bibliography

My notes
Class videos
GCSE Modern World History- Ben Walsh
Weimar and Nazi Germany- Stephen Lee
GCSE Modern World History, The Revision Guide- Coordination Group Publications.

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