What was the most important factor in Hitlers rise to power as Chancellor in January 1933?

This failure of the Weimar Republic was another factor in Hitler’s rise to power. In the peaceful years of the 1920s, the Weimar government seemed to be doing well and had many achievements, mainly due to the work of the then Chancellor, Gustav Stresemann. Stresemann introduced the Dawes plan in 1924, which spread out the payment or reparations and secured American investments which were used to build new factories and stabilised the German economy. He was also responsible for Germany joining the League of Nations in 1926 and signing the Locarno agreement in 1925 which again ensured peace within Europe. This gave the impression that German society was settling down but it hid the underlying problems with Weimar. The idea behind the Weimar Republic was an attempt to create a perfect democracy; however, as it turned out, the instrumental factors in creating this perfect democracy were, in fact, the very things that ensured the Republic’s failure. Article 48 was a key weakness in the Weimar Constitution. It said that, in an emergency, the president did not need the agreement of the Reichstag, but could rule by decree. The problem with this was that it did not define an emergency, and Hitler used this power to do exactly what he wanted when he finally got into power. Also it vastly decreased the power of the Reichstag as the president could circumvent it in order to do what he wanted. Despite this, the vast problem with the Weimar Republic was that it was unfairly associated with the Treaty of Versailles, as both the signing of the treaty and the formation of the Weimar Constitution coincided in 1919. Hitler played on the hatred of the Treaty of Versailles to make Weimar less popular and so the failure of Weimar is directly linked to the Treaty of Versailles.

Another major weakness of the Weimar Constitution was that the voting system was one of Proportional Representation, arguably a fairer system where all of the votes which are cast count towards electing a leader. This was, in practice, a disaster that resulted in dozens of tiny parties, with no one party strong enough to get a majority, and, therefore, no government could get its laws passed in the Reichstag. This resulted in coalition governments which were often weak and could therefore easily collapse and so gave disproportionate power to any party whose support was needed to create a majority. The combination of proportional representation and the hostile political spectrum meant that in the November 1932 election, the Socialists could have prevented Hitler from coming to power by forming a coalition with the Communists and therefore gaining a majority, but they were unable to due to political differences. This hostile political spectrum had been partly created by the Treaty of Versailles and the loss of World War One as the Kaiser had been fairly popular in Germany, and so, after the Kaiser had fled, the political differences between parties were amplified because of the debate over how Germany should now be led.

Another reason why Hitler was able to come to power was that the Weimar government was overly-dependent on loans from America to prop-up its economy. The Dawes plan, which was implemented by Stresemann, was very effective in the short-term in stabilising the German economy, but it proved fatal when America went into an economic depression and called in its loans to Germany. After the Wall Street Crash in 1929, the Germans had to pay back the money they owed to America but this pressure was too much for both the German people and its fragile economy to bear. The Weimar government failed to do anything to stimulate domestic demand as they did not want to risk hyperinflation and also the structure of the Weimar government (and its propensity for coalitions) meant that it was impossible to pass any preventative measures to try to save their economy. The Great Depression in Germany caused the number of unemployed to grow and many people starved on the streets. In this crisis, people wanted someone to blame, and looked to extreme solutions in desperation. Hitler offered them both, and Nazi success in elections grew. The number of Nazi seats in the Reichstag rose from 12 in 1928, to 230 in July 1932. Weimar relied on being successful enough to stop people voting for extremism but, after two economic crises in quick succession, the German people had lost all confidence in Weimar and thought that it was not working. The effect of the economic depression was made worse due to the poor state that the German economy was in, as a result of the harsh economic sanctions invoked by the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler’s theory on “Stab in the Back”, which rose out of the Treaty of Versailles, was also responsible for this rise in votes for the Nazi Party.

Another reason why Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933 was that the Nazi party had completely changed its structure and tactics. In 1919 there was a Spartacist coup, organised by Hitler in an attempt to take power by force. This coup was unsuccessful but it just showed how unstable the government was at that time. The Munich Putsch was a complete failure and gave the Nazis the appearance of being violent revolutionaries and law-breakers. In this Putsch, Hitler did not achieve his goal of overthrowing the Bavarian government, however, during his trial Hitler was given the platform to preach his ideas to a national audience. In this persuasive and influential speech Hitler gained notoriety and the party also gained some much needed publicity and support. Hitler realised that it would no longer be possible to take power by force. This meant that he would have to change the direction of the party in order to take power legally by the ballot box and necessitated a complete overhaul of the structure of the Nazi party. Before 1923 the Nazi party was a paramilitary party but Hitler realised that this would have to change and stated that “we will need to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag”. Hitler’s plan was to gain power through democracy and use the powers given to him through democracy to destroy it. By 1926, Hitler has won the party round to democratic methods, although this alienated some of the original member in his party. For instance, he replaced the Nazi regional bosses with Gauleiters and set up the Hitler Youth which was to supply the party with members. Hitler also weakened the SA, the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi party, who had to undertake more mundane roles which created unrest in the party. However, this factor is not as important as the Treaty of Versailles. This is proven by the fact that even after these dramatic restructurings, the Nazi Party was still struggling. It was only when the failures of the Weimar Constitution became apparent, during the depression, and the Nazi party started to receive votes that its structural changes were important.

Hitler’s oratory and personality were highly effective in gaining votes for the Nazi Party. Hitler was an unpredictable, influential and mesmerising speaker. He used his talent to manipulate people into thinking that he would “save Germany from decline”. Albert Speer (the Minister of Weapons) once said that Hitler spoke "urgently with hypnotic persuasiveness." Hitler also had the ability to change the way he acted for different groups of people to try to appeal to them more. Although most of the Working Class voted for the Socialists and Communists, Hitler personally appealed to them because he promised to tackle unemployment and poor working conditions. The Nazis were popular with Middle Classes because the Nazi’s Brownshirts, made up of around three million members, were the only force preventing a Communist revolution. At that time there was a huge fear of Communism because everybody was worse off. This shows the interconnectedness of factors because the massive decline of German wealth was caused by the Wall Street Crash and Hitler played on the fears of this. This specific appeal of the Nazis was an important factor in Hitler’s rise to power.

The final event that directly resulted in Hitler being appointed as Chancellor was Hindenburg giving in. Present Hindenburg, hated and distrusted Hitler and so did not want to appoint him as Chancellor. Consequently, he appointed von Papen instead. Hindenburg was religious and had many Jewish friends and Hitler’s anti-Semitism did not appeal to him. Also Hindenburg wanted the return of the Kaiser and Hitler wanted to have his own dictatorship. However, Von Papen was ineffective and was unable to pass any laws as the Nazis always vetoed them as they had the majority in the Reichstag. Hindenburg wanted to take power with the army but realised that it was impossible because there were only 100,000 men in the army. Hindenburg still did not want to give Hitler Chancellorship but he relented because no one that he had appointed was able to govern effectively and Germany was on the point of civil war and the people were supporting Hitler for Chancellor. Von Papen thought that they would be able to control Hitler and said that, “We will have pushed Hitler so far in the corner that he’ll squeak”. He along with many others consistently underestimated the Nazis and this was one of the reasons why Hitler was able to come to power. It is interesting that Hitler came to power after the Nazi’s had just suffered a drop in the number of seats (they received 34 fewer seats) in the Reichstag. However, Hindenburg was desperate and they had some similarities, such as they were both right-wing and hated Weimar and democracy. He appointed Hitler just at the point when his appeal was dropping as he had been overexposed and people were starting to see through his policies. Nevertheless, Hitler would never have been considered for the role of Chancellor had he not received the popular vote and the main reason why Hitler was popular was because of his extremist views on the Treaty of Versailles.

It is very hard to decide on the most important factor in Hitler’s rise to power as Chancellor as the factors are deeply interlinked and dependent on each other. For instance if Germany had not lost the war and had to pay vast reparations, the effects of the Wall Street Crash wouldn't have been as disastrous. Conversely, had the Wall Street Crash not occurred, Germany would have most likely been able to continue paying reparations. However in my opinion the most important factor was the detrimental effects of the Treaty of Versailles because it put Germany in a position, both politically and economically, where extremism could thrive and provided Hitler with the framework for his policies that ultimately gave him the votes he needed to be appointed Chancellor. However, the most important cause that the Treaty of Versailles brought about was the connection between Weimar and the “Stab in the Back” myth because once Weimar had stopped working, it was only a matter of time before Hitler would come to power.

What was the most important factor in Hitler’s rise to power as Chancellor in January 1933?