I believe that the main reason why Nazis gained votes was because of the depression, many people where left vulnerable and needed someone to support them financially; which Hitler was promising, Hitler was seen as a superman who was a strong decisive leader.
Question 2
The Nazis was successful but they weren’t popular they hadn’t gotten more than 50 seats in the Reichstag election; in July 1932 they proceeded to peak, then they decreased in November.
Although the Nazis didn’t have as much people voting for them, than against them, they did have one third of all the votes’ cats in 1932. In July 1932 elections the Nazi won 37.3 per cent of the vote (230 seats), so they where now the largest party. So Hitler demanded to be appointed chancellor, however the president at the time, Hinderberg despised Hitler, but he thought he could use the Nazi for his own ends. Instead Hindenburg appointed Franz Von Papen, but Hindenburg reluctantly Hindenburg then gives power to Schleicher chancellor, but Von Papen sees that von schleicher is having difficulty keeping a Reichstag majority, so he sees his chance to win back power, he privately works with Hitler, which they agree that Hitler will be chancellor and Von Papen will be in cabinet, so Von Papen asks Hindenburg to make Hitler chancellor, but Hindenburg refuses. But since von Schleicher finally has to admit defeat, so he resigns. Hindenburg now wants Von Papen back, but since he was unpopular that might trigger a movement against Hindenburg. So eventually von Papen persuades Hindenburg that the most extreme Nazi polices could be resisted even with Hitler as chancellor, so Hindenburg appoints Hitler as chancellor and Von Papen as vice chancellor. Hitler got two-thirds of the majority by saying there was an emergency and the communists must not take their seats this cut out 81 MPs. Then Hitler gained support of the centre party by promising them that he would look after the Catholic Church in Germany.
The other party’s that were in competition with Hitler was the centre party who had moderate policies, which appealed to many Catholics. There was the communist who Hitler viewed as enemies, there was the social democrats that were supported by working class people who may not have liked Hitler’s attacks on trade unions. The middle class also supported the democrats and the people’s party. The upper classes and some of the middle classes supported the nationalists party. So therefore because in 1924 they were not gaining enough votes they decided to reorganises the party. Also by winning over the working classes, they ran many public meetings and tried harder to win the support of the working classes. They realised that it was there anti-Jewish message which had most appeal among the working classes and they increased their anti-Jewish propaganda. They had to win over the middle classes by focusing parts of their message that would appeal to this section of society. They also had public meetings.
On 27th February the Reichstag building had been set on fire. They had found a Dutch communist in the building the police raided, van der lubbe, was arrested and charged with the fire. Hitler then preceded to uses this as evidence that the communists were plotting against his government. That night Goering’s Prussian police arrested and imprisoned 4000 communist leaders. The next day he persuaded president Hinderburg to pass an emergency decree suspending all the articles in the constitution which guaranteed personal liberty, freedom of speech, and other freedom gadget’s that could be used, through this it gave the police authority to search houses, confiscate property and hold people in prison without a trail, it made it possible to dictate the death penalty for a varied range of crimes, the police also was able to ban meetings , take political opponents and take them to their impetuously organised concentration camps and detention centres and this emergency decree remained to stay like this twelve years, throughout the Nazi rule, this also helped to terrorize their opponents in Germany. So in the end the fire seemed like a bonus to the Nazis to control the opposition.
There have been many suspicions on who was to blame for the Reichstag fire, one theory is that Van Der Lubbe was acting as part of a communist plot, the Nazis had claimed that had found evidence in homes of many communists homes that they were targeting public buildings, another theory was that it was in fact the Nazis who started it themselves as part of a terror tactic and was able to uses Van Der Lube in order to blame the communist, Or of course that Van Der Lube was acting alone, not as part of a communist plot, throughout his trail he claimed this was the case, so Van Der Lubbe was found guilty and executed, but although he proceeded to claim he was guilty and acting alone, you cant believe his statement because he was very frail, gullible and had a poor intellect. Man who could have been pressured easily into given this statement. There are sources that suggest that the Nazi had planned it, like from a source from a chief of the German general staff, speaking at the Nuremberg war crimes trail, 1945, where he says the he heard with his own ears goerings say ‘the only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire, Another person who had given evidence suggesting the same thing and was killed in Hitler’s purge of the SA a year after the fire.
The enabling act was important because the Nazi terror tactics reached a peak in the days after the Reichstag fire, which allowed thousands of political opponents were arrested, only the Nazis were aloud to campaign for the forthcoming election, a flood a propaganda was unleashed. They also taped telephones and executes without trail,
People were still voting for communist, so this stops Hitler from getting majority vote and stops him getting an enabling act, so he proceeds to make deals with Catholics, he deceives them, frightens them and even makes deals with them to vote for the enabling act.
The Nazi intimidated votes by watching over them as they crossed their ballot papers, this gave way for their best results in the election on 5th March.
In 1934 a power struggle had developed in the Nazi leadership, so Hitler had to make a choice between the SA and the army. Hitler needed the SA to put his policies into action, the SA had fought with Hitler in the 1923 Munich putsch and in later fights against the communists, they also had helped him come to power, they were committed to the Nazi. The reason for not supporting the SA was because they were beginning to get unruly, it was interfering in the running of the country and the law courts. It disapproved of some of the Nazi leaders, also Hitler had used the SA to control the army, then he would have to go along with their other demands, Hitler also didn’t agree with their anti-capitalist policies and working class aims. Another thing was the Rohm the SA leader was a potential rival to Hitler.
The reason for supporting the army was that it was well trained, organised and disciplined; it was the only organisation which had the power to remove Hitler. It also had support of big business and conservatives. Hitler also needed an efficient army that could retake land lost in the treaty of Versailles. The reason against Hitler supporting the army was that the army was small; it had only 100,000 men, how loyal the army would be was unknown. Some of the generals disliked Hitler and the Nazis.
Hitler’s arch rival Rohm was a
A tough soldier who had thought both in the German army in first world war and in the freikrops after it, he was one of Hitler’s earliest supporters, he had helped create the SA as a private army, Rohm had an unruly temper, he was on bad terms with some of the other Nazi leaders , by 1930 Hitler had trouble controlling the SA, most of them were purely thugs so he asked Rohm to take control of them, Rohm made them more disciplined but still wanted them to become the most powerful force in Germany. However Rohm was devoted to Hitler and was a very efficient organiser. So eventually Hitler stood by the army and realized he had to get rid of the SA members, so on 30th June Hitler used the SS to kill Rohm and many other SA leaders, this also included people who were opponents to Hitler who were not part of the SA like for example chancellor von Schleicher. The night became know as the night of long knives. So on 2 august 1934, weeks after the night of long knives, President Hindenburg died. Within hours Hitler had declared himself president. He was chancellor, head of state and commander of army, so every soldier swore an oath of personality to Hitler.
Nazis evolved from a coalition govt to a one-party state, Hitler was the leader of the party and a dictatorship of Germany, he was furhrer, so, I believe if it wasn’t for the Reichstag fire, Hitler and the Nazis would not have mange to get a majority vote, would not have been able to use the enabling act and Hitler wouldn’t of been able to dictate over such a long period of time.
Question 3
In 1934-39 Hitler and the Nazis party planned to get complete control over Germany and to create racial Germany, Hitler used tactics and one of theses was propaganda. Hitler would achieve a strong Germany by being forceful and decisive in being a leader, the Nazis wanted to make German industries as powerful as it was before. To create a racial Germany they would get rid of Jews, by removing them from positions of power, removing them from the country or simple just isolating them from Aryans. They would also convince women to only date Aryan men so they would have racially pure children. To create a Germans people community; organisations such as churches, political parties etc which brought people together ,which might divert people’s attention would be disperse or taken over by Nazis. There would be no room for freedom of speech, because the Nazis wanted to ensure that ideas opposed to Nazism were banished. They would make Nazis Germany a dictatorship. The Nazis did not believe in democracy, the would have a one-party state , a police state , if there was opposition, the SS and the police would have absolute power to arrest, punish and if necessary to execute the enemies of the state who did not follow the dictator or submit to his demands for total loyalty. The Nazis believed that of they controlled what people in Germany heard, saw and read then they would be able to win their hearts and minds.
Propaganda played an important role to Nazi control over Germany. However over factories were important as well, such as the Nazis gained economic success and reduced unemployment. The Nazis gave people food, benefits and houses. To get more power Hitler got rid of competition for example communists socialist elimination, so he could create a one party state with nobody left to protest, also Hitler used terror and intimidation to stop anyone from protesting, those who proceed to protest: least that would have happened is they would get arrested, or in extreme cases sent to concentration camps, tortured, beaten, punished, or even to just made to disappear like in the dictatorship of Argentina in the years 2976-1983.
Propaganda is to be able to control what a person will think of a situation by telling half-truths, so they will only be able to get what the person wants them to get, basically controlling that particular person’s mentality. Propaganda was I believe, Hitler’s lethal weapon. Propaganda attempts to force a doctrine on the whole people. The ministry of propaganda and enlightenment which was headed by Joseph Goeblels was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through art, music, films, books etc. Films played an important role in disseminating racial anti-Semitism, portraying Jews as anti-human creatures trying to terminate the Aryan race. Geobles task was to coordinate every aspect of German life. This came to a point where it was un-heard of German people to outside information about the current situation in Germany.
Geobles way for power was to only have Nazis journalist to write their newspapers, they told them what to print, and if they didn’t obey they got fired. One of the things that helped Nazis to control Germany was by radio, they made radio’s affordable to everybody, so everyone was able to get access to one, but the only stations they could listen to were German stations, which basically taught them what to do and say and control them like robots. Another way of control was film, they banned non-Nazi films, and they made special Nazi film.
Geobles also used over forms of propaganda such as marches, rallies and to festivals to keep the people loyal, to make people feel important and part of the new Germany. They needed to be impressive. Also in culture Geobles stopped musician’s, actors, writer’s or artist from working, because many were thought to be unsuitable so they were banned, also music had to consist of German : folk songs, marching music and classical music artist such as Mozart, they did accept some popular music, but never jazz which was ‘black’ music and therefore racially inferior. They also made theatre’s to only concentrate on German history and political drama, cheap theatre tickets were provided, but you could not choose which plays you wanted to see or when. Goebbels drew up a list of banned books which where removed by Gestapo from bookshops and libraries. In May 1933 the Nazis encouraged students to burn the books they believed were un-German and Jewish. Goebbels wanted books about race, war and the Nazi movement.
