The Nazi party was Germanys first mass political party, they offered hope to all sections of the German community. Promises to restore German greatness, to rip up Versailles struck a cord with most Germans. Workers were promised jobs through a variety of public works programmes and a greater share of national wealth, the party played on the somewhat dubious socialist element that Nazism supposedly stood for and as a result gained a large working class following. Business leaders, industrialists and bankers also supported the party en-mass. Obviously attracted by Hitler’s anti-Communist rhetoric and the promise to curb the trade union movement, the party received funding through the Hapsburg Front. The party first obtained a foothold in the rural areas where they made promises to assist farmers from foreign competition and also to provide them with subsidies. More importantly rural voters were impressed with the promise to rid the farmers of the “greedy Jewish bankers” who had caused them so much misery. With Hitler and Goebbels at the forefront of the party their message certainly got across. Hitler captivated his audiences at mass rallies such as Nuremberg with mesmerising speeches and hypnotic oratory. Goebbels use of propaganda was very effective a, he used the big lie technique and made excellent use of TV and radio to sell the party.
From the outset the Republic faced immense problems, they had to contend with the accusations of betraying the German people and stabbing the army in the back after the armistice in 1918. Despite the fact that it was the elite’s who had dumped power onto the civilians in order to escape responsibility for the war. At the same time the Government also became associated with the hated Versailles treaty signed in 1919. This forced the Germans to accept the war guilt clause, pay reparations and it also split the country into two displacing millions of German citizens. It has been said that Hitler was born out of Versailles and it gave Weimar’s enemies and especially the Nazi party a stick with which to beat the republic.
Clearly the Nazi Party were very effective but they were able to exploit the underlying weaknesses that were clearly inherent in the Weimar constitution. Historians argue that the constitution itself was far too democratic. As one Historian states the “Germans were peasants in a palace” The system of PR gave far to much power to small parties and led to the formation of weak coalition governments. In fact the Communists even worked with Nazi party to cause problems for the Government! Between 1928 and 1933 there were over 6 different elections held. This indecision also led to the use of Article 48 otherwise known as the suicide clause, this allowed Brunning to bypass the Reichstag request Hindenburg the President to pass the relevant legislation using emergency decree, in other words democracy was slowly being eroded even before Hitler’s meteoric rise to power. Incidentally article 48 was used to appoint Hitler as chancellor.
Another important aspect that inevitably aided the Nazi’s was that the republic also had many enemies both on the left and right. The Spartacus uprising in 1919 was brutally repressed using the Freikorps as a result Ebert was indebted to the army. This resulted in the Communists and Socialists never working together against their real enemy, the Nazi’s. On the Right wing the Kapp-Putsh in 1920 and the Munich Putsch in 1923 not only demonstrated that the army had sympathy with the right-wingers, but that the bureaucracy tended to favour them also. Kapp was never taken to trial and Hitler was given a lenient sentence of 9 months in prison. This right wing bias by the judges can be highlighted by the fact that on average left wing activists received a sentence of 15 years whereas the right-wingers received only 4 weeks. Only on the surface had things changed, at the foundations the old guard remained the same.
Clearly many important factors led to the rise of the Nazi party. The economic crisis is of prime importance, as without the depression and the misery that this caused Hitler would never have had the opportunity to gain power. Yet at the same time the constitutional problems cannot be dismissed because it was this that led to small parties like the Nazi’s party being elected in the first place. In the end the Nazi party ruthlessly exploited the economic situation for their own political advantage. And so it can be argued that the economic depression was the most important cause of the Nazi rise to power.
NOTE
- THIS ESSAY HAS FOCUSSED ON THE ECONOMIC FACTORS FIRST BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THE QUESTION REFERERRED TO.
- If your question refers to Weimar then you would write about the Problems facing Weimar then the Economic Issues and then the Nazi Party.
Stab in the Back
Impact of Versailles
Constitutional Problems
Coalition Government
Putsch/ revolution – right v left
Economy 1923 1929
Nazi Manifesto
Between February 1919 and January 1933, Germany had twelve Chancellors and twenty-one governments. This led to political instability and inefficient government.
In times of emergency, the German President had too much power. He could suspend the Constitution and use the armed forces to suppress his political opponents. In the 1930's when Hitler became President, he made use of these presidential powers to destroy the Republic.
The government moved from Weimar to the capital, Berlin, in 1920. As the constitution of the Republic was made in Weimar, it was called the Weimar Republic since then.
