People were starting to blame the Weimar government and the centre parties. The Depression weakens the Weimar Republic because there are three main reasons. The unpopular economic policies, presidential rule and the rise of extremist made the people loose its trust towards the Weimar Republic.
Germans had judged their country’s success by its economy and if the economy was failing, the German’s pride had gone down the drains. Germans certainly did not like the situation that its economy was failing so they blamed the Weimar Republic for it. The Weimar leaders seemed did not have the idea of dealing the problems of rising unemployment and growing poverty. Instead of doing what German people wanted them to do, the Chancellor raised taxes, cut wages and reduced unemployment benefit. Those policies hardly won the support from the German people. Also people felt the centre parties had betrayed them because instead of doing something to solve the problem of the economy crisis, the centre parties had those political infighting. All the centre parties’ leaders cared about was being the chancellor. If one of them became chancellor, the others will outvote them and there will be regular election.
The Germany government was using the system of the Simple Majority. Many countries used that system. At first, the president was to elect every seven years by the local German people. Then, after a few years, the president was elected every four years – like the chancellor. The chancellor was chosen by the president and had to be supported by a majority of the Reichstag. President was the figurehead and had little power but his main purpose was to select the chancellor. The German people voted for the Reichstag using the proportional representation and the parties got the same proportion of seat as their proportion of votes. As each party got a few seats and the votes were fragmented with many parties, parties joined with each other – Coalition Government. The centre parties were the biggest and they ruled the government because extremist like the Nazis/ the Nationalist and the Communists would not join with each other.
The other two situations that weakened the Weimar government was that the economic policies made the Social Democrats withdrew from the coalition and Germany was now rule by an 84-year-old war hero who was controlled by business and army leaders. In addition, the rise of the extremist made the Weimar government weaken. Many of the Germans thought that the Weimar government was making a hopeless mess of the situation. People who were not involved in politics, became involved in it more because they knew politics mattered. They heard that extremist parties claimed that they could solve all those problems. The Communists said that the Depression showed that the capitalist system was doomed and that only communists have the answer. The Nazis blamed the Weimar republic, Treaty of Versailles, Marxists and the Jews. They even promised to get rid of the enemy within who were destroying Germany. People found Weimar government could not do anything about the situation so many of them ran to join the extremists’ party.
After Hitler came out from the prison, he made the Nazis to change their tactics. He was trying to attract all kinds of people in Germany to vote for or join the Nazi party. He was trying to attract parents, old people, workers, ex-soldiers, people who hated the Weimar Republic, people who hated Jews etc. to join the Nazi party or to vote for them in the elections. Hitler made many policies to attract all kinds of people-
- Educate gifted children at the state’s expense
- Increase old-age pensions
- Strong central government
- Nationalise important industries
- Conquer Lebensraum
- Rearm Germany
- Abolish the Treaty of Versailles
- Destroy the Weimar Republic
- Destroy Marxism
- Challenge terror or violence with your own terror or violence
- Remove Jews from all positions of leadership in Germany
- No non-Germans to be newspaper editors.
Hitler was an opportunist and he realised that the Depression made the votes for Nazis to increase. Hitler did not change the message of the Nazis but people were ready to hear him when the economy crisis came. He trained Nazi members to become good public speakers and he was trying to shape the young people’s mind because Hitler believed that it was easier to capture a young people’s mind and make them believe the same thing when they are older.
Franz von Papen was one of the rich noblemen and he had been the ex-chancellor. Von Papen made a deal with Hitler that if Hitler was the chancellor, von Papen had to be the vice-chancellor. Hitler agreed because he wanted to be the chancellor for a long time but President Hindenburg did not like Hitler so Hitler could not be the chancellor. Hindenburg did not like Hitler because Hitler was only a corporal and he came from a normal peasant family. President Hindenburg even called Hitler “the little Bohemian corporal”. The rich businessmen such as von Papen and different pressure group pressurized Hindenburg to give the chancellor ship to Hitler. They saw that Hitler had the potential to become a great chancellor and they saw that if Hindenburg elected a leader from a centre party, the other parties would quickly outvote them. So the persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler to become the chancellor of Germany. They could choose the Communist leader as the chancellor of Germany but one of the Communists’ policies was that people have to share things equally among themselves. Rich people did not want that so they chose Hitler instead.
Hitler copied his leadership skills from an Italian army leader, Benito Mussolini. Hitler admired its similarities to the Nazism. Hitler was great at seizing opportunities. Even the Nazi party had four out of thirty seats in the Cabinet which is the decision making group, Hitler made two of his men in a useful position in the Cabinet. One of them was the leader of the Cabinet who could choose whom to speak their opinions and the minister for police who in control of the German’s police force. In Hitler’s leadership, the Nazi grew and Hitler convinced people in his speeches that if people joined his party, they would be out of misery. Some people were convinced by Hitler’s gaze and some even were spellbound or hypnotized by Hitler in the meetings.
Sources – Class notes
Printed matter ~ Germany 1933-1934
Textbook ~ Germany1918 - 1945 by Greg Lacey and Keith Shepard
