How far was Hitler successful in achieving his aims?

Hitler is well-known for his extreme dictatorship and attempted genocide on the Jewish race. Hitler had been successful in many of his political, economic and social aims and also became the Führer of Germany. Although he was successful many times, he never achieved his goals that were most important to him. One of these failures is the loss of World War II which resulted in his suicide. Because of his many failures, Hitler is not seen as a successful dictator. However he had great triumph in pulling the German economy out of depression and quickly climbed up to the titles Fuhrer and Chancellor. In terms of what he succeeded in, Hitler was a successful dictator, although he did not achieve in some of his major goals.

Politically, Hitler was greatly successful but also had failures. He had legally gained power using the democratic system at the time (Weimar Republic) by rising in ranks in the Nazi party resulting in a drastic rise in votes and gained Chancellorship and late became the Führer once the Enabling Act was passed in 1933 by President Hindenburg(1). Once he achieved this, he worked on defying the Treaty of Versailles. His intense nationalism gave birth to the hatred he felt towards the Treaty and, like many German citizens, blamed it for the economic problems they were having at the time resulting in high unemployment rates (over five million by November 1932) (2).Hitler defied the treaty, refusing to pay reparations from 1933. He then went on to re-introduce conscription in 1935 resulting in the army increasing dramatically. In 1936 he opposed the treaty again by re-militarising the Rhineland which was supposed to be a de-militarised buffer zone between France and Germany (4). He had also signed a pact between the USSR called the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939(5).

Although Hitler had quite a few political achievements he also made some pretty major mistakes. One of his mistakes was invading the USSR after they had made a pact. This invasion created a second front and shifted resources from the western front during World War II. Also Hitler created the “Pact of Steel” with Italy. This was a crucial mistake as Germany had to support Italy through the war as they were not strong enough to fend for themselves (6).The biggest failure that Hitler had however, was Germany losing the war and the failure of fascism by the end ...

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Hitler successfully pulled the German economy out of depression and quickly too by ignoring the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Once the Nazi party had taken over Germany, Hitler appointed Dr Hjalmar Schacht, a gifted economist to upturn the economy. Under the command of Schacht, the German Gross National Product grew approximately 102% between 1932 to 1937. With the dramatic increase of rearmament, unemployment decreased from 6 million down to 2 million by 1935. Unemployment dropped so much under Hitler’s rule that by 1939 there was a job shortage (3). By January 1st 1938, aryanization was introduced. This meant that Jews or anyone else that was “non-Aryan” were forbidden to have businesses or trades. This meant that there were more employment opportunities for Aryans (pure Germans) (7).

Again, although Hitler was successful in stabilising the German economy, he made a few mistakes. He wasted a lot of money and resources in excluding the Jews from Germany’s new “empire” in the form of propaganda and other methods to exclude them. Also there was no government group coordinating the economy until after World War II had started when it became a full-time war economy(6).

Socially, Hitler was very successful. He had managed to bring Germany together through his speeches, rallying, propaganda and he gave the citizens hope for a better, nationalistic future. During his rule, Hitler’s Gleischaltung policy was introduced. It was the systematic elimination of non-Nazi organisations such as trade unions or other political parties. Any organisations that could not be got rid of were put under the control of Hanns Kerrl who was the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs (8). The organisations that were under control were instilled with the Nazi ideology. Using this policy, Hitler started up youth groups that were riddled with Nazi policies and values and made them compulsory for youth between the ages 10-18 for both the males and females. Hitler also managed to force all labour unions under the Nazi Labour Front (6). Throughout Hitler’s dictatorship, the rights of Jews were slowly taken away one-by-one. There was little opposition from this as Hitler had made society respectfully submissive to him. Hitler had created fear amongst those who opposed him. He had control of the Sturmabteilung and the Gestapo. In July 1934, the Sturmabteilung and the Gestapo carried out political executions in the Night of Long Knives; however most of the killed people were actually members of the group. The death toll was believed to be in the hundreds and more than a thousand opposers were arrested. These killings were swept away by the courts and went unpunished. This was to show the courts loyalty to Hitler’s new regime. Hitler also had control of the press which is shown in an article relating to the Night of Long Knives. It says that “the German Chancellor has saved his country. Swiftly and with exorable severity, he has delivered Germany from men who had become a danger to the unity of the German people and to the order of the state.” (9)

The social aims that Hitler had hoped to achieve but failed in was the complete extermination of the Jews, creating a “pure race” and increasing the number of Aryan births. Although the number of Jews in Germany decreased dramatically as a result of mass immigration of Jews and the set up of concentration camps, there were still a considerable number of Jews left after the war. He also had not created a “pure race” and the number of Aryan births had stayed the same.

Altogether, Hitler was very successful economically and socially. He had managed to get the majority of German citizens on his side and he used that to exclude the Jews and other undesirable races. The German economy was booming when Hitler came into power because of the policies he had put in place. He was also quite successful politically; however he made a lot of mistakes and contradictions resulting in failures. Apart from failing at his ultimate goal, the attempted genocide of the Jews, he made a lot of successes as a dictator. Though Germany was a more violent place through his rule, he was successful in the respect of what he achieved for his country.

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