For one thing, he promised to create jobs, which was quite attractive to the Six million unemployed Germans at the time. The Depression had hit Germany harder than most countries because it was only able to function economically because of the massive loans from the U.S.A., and when Wall Street crashed the U.S. demanded immediate reimbursement to help get its own economy back on its feet. This was devastating for the German economy, however. He pledged that he would give jobs to everyone left jobless by the disaster – a hugely significant percentage of the voting population, roughly 34% of the work force (a little more than 9% of the total population). This gave him an edge over the competition, who were to busy arguing amongst one another to worry about trivial details such as voter support.
This leads to another important reason why the Nazis were able to gain support and Hitler’s eventual Chancellorship: the opposing parties weaknesses. The raising unemployment caused the people to blame the Weimar parties (the majority at the time) for failing to prevent Germanys’ economic decline, and supported the Nazis instead. This was ideal for the Nazis, because it weakened their main rival and strengthened themselves. Also, Germans citizens’ fear of communism was increasing (on average). The Nazis’ propaganda chiefs noticed this and immediately increased advertisement of the Nazi party’s long-standing public opposition to communism. It worked, and again their popularity rose. Hitler also ‘joined forces’ with the Nationalist party, who held most of the important industrialist votes. This gave the Nazis a few more seats in the Reichstag.
Though the combination of all of these factors was essential to Hitler and the Nazis’ rise to power, the most important reason for Hitler’s selection as Chancellor is arguably Hitler himself. President Hindenburg did not like Hitler, a fact that would have prevented most other candidates getting any further, as only the President could appoint the Chancellor. However, Hitler was the favourite of the German people by such a wide margin that no one could keep him out of the Chancellor’s office and hope to stay in their own office for long. In the end, Hitler’s predecessor, Chancellor Von Papen, persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor and install Von Papen as Vice-Chancellor. Von Papen saw that while his own dismal popularity prevented him from remaining chancellor, he could still hope to control Hitler from the Vice-Chancellor station. Needless to say he was wrong.
