Hitler’s Rise to Power

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Hitler’s Rise to Power


Who was Hitler?

Hitler was born in 1889 in Austria.

He left school at 16 having failed his exams.

At 18 he went to Vienna, Austria’s capital. He lived in a hostel for down-and-outs and scraped a living painting postcards and selling them on the streets.

He left Austria and went to Germany to avoid Austrian military service.

When World War I broke out in 1914, Hitler signed up for the German army. He won six medals for bravery including an Iron Cross First Class, the highest award a German soldier could win.

In 1918 he was temporarily blinded with mustard gas. He cried with despair when he heard of Germany’s surrender.


The birth of the Nazi Party

The Nazi Party began as the German Workers’ Party (DAP). Hitler joined it in 1919 when it had just six members. Before long, Hitler was running the party and holding meetings in halls and beer cellars.

Hitler soon began to attract big audiences. This was due to the fact that he was an interesting and powerful speaker who could get his message across without using a microphone.


In 1920 Hitler renamed the party the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) or Nazi Party. A 25-point programme was launched, including demands for provision to be made for old age, profit-sharing in the big industries and the abolition of the Treaty of Versailles.

Swastika: an ancient religious symbol

The party grew rapidly and had 3,000 members by 1920. The Nazi flag helped attract attention.


Party meetings

As members of opposing parties often came to meetings to boo and heckle, meetings were often rowdy and violent. To deal with this opposition, Hitler set up a ‘Gymnastic and Sports Division’ in 1921. It contained ex-soldiers who liked to fight, especially with Communists. This private army was later renamed the Sturm Abteilung (Storm Troopers) or SA.

“A few angry cries, and a man suddenly leaped on a chair and yelled ‘Liberty!’ In a few seconds the hall was filled with a yelling and howling mob … Chair legs smashed, glasses shivered … My storm troops, as they were called from that day on, attacked. Like wolves they rushed in … on the enemy and began gradually to sweep them out of the hall…” Hitler’s account of a meeting in a beer hall in 1921.

Once Hitler took over, why did the Nazi Party membership increase so rapidly?


Hitler

“A new age was beginning; history was once more setting the mighty wheel in motion and apportioning lots anew. We had come to a turning point in world history … He saw himself as chosen for superhuman tasks, as the prophet of the rebirth of man in a new form…” Hermann Rauschning, 1939.

“The most seductive factor was Hitler’s messianic image. For Germany found itself in an ideological and ethical vacuum. We had lost our Emperor … The majority of the population had no religious faith … for many, National Socialism was a substitute religion which aroused a deep enthusiasm and provided a new source of strength…” Isa Vermehren.


[German people were vulnerable to the collective self-delusion that]” … a man would come, a leader, a Caesar, a Messiah, and perform miracles … put an end to misery, create new people, a glorious new Reich…” Ernst Toller, 1933, when his books were burnt.

What impression do you gain of Hitler from these sources?


Hitler the orator

“The atmosphere of general enthusiasm into which the old city has been plunged is amazing and quite indescribable: the peculiar frenzy which has gripped hundreds of thousands of men and women, the excitement and mystic ecstasy which has overtaken them like a holy rapture…they return home seduced and taken in, ready to save the cause…” by the French Ambassador to Germany, on Hitler at the Nuremberg Rally, 1937.

“Hitler is not a man but a megaphone…” The Observer, 1930.


What skill put Hitler apart from many other politicians?

How do you think this helped the Nazis gain support?

“As time went on he became drunk with his own oratory … and his voice lost its former character through the intervention of microphone … In his early years he had a command of voice, phrase and effect which has never been equalled…” E Hanfstaegl, 1957.


Hitler’s rise – an historian’s view

Read the historians’ opinions on why Hitler came to power. Which do you most agree with and why?

Zevedei Barbu (social psychologist): “Hitler succeeded not because of a conspiracy of the few but because his movements gave high hope to the many of solving the pressing psychological demands of a people living under conditions of acute stress. Defeated by war and broken by inflation, the … insecure Germans were attracted to Nazism because they felt … their personal problems would be solved…”


A J P Taylor (British historian): “The political parties were atomised and ineffective; the political leadership, inexperienced and inept … they could have stopped the ‘Bohemian corporal’ if they had summoned the will to resist. Instead they sought to accommodate him … he did not seize power; it was handed to him.”

Franz Neumann (economist): Neumann believed that economics was the main cause. The industrialists and Junker landlords (aristocrats) feared popular government, and so conspired with the Nazis to prevent genuine social democracy so they could continue making vast profits.


William L Shirer: Shirer concludes that the Nazis came to power because the movement was “...a logical continuation of German history.” For centuries, leading German intellectuals had proclaimed the mystique of racism, endorsed the Leadership principle, glorified the power of the State, scoffed at democracy and quashed individuality. Many historians in this school use the following as examples of this view: Luther in religion, Hegel and Nietzsche in philosophy, Spengler in history and Wagner in music. Basically, all humane and liberal tendencies had been stifled out by ruthless efficiency and military dominance.It was the importance of German militarism and the long history of anti-Semitism which led to the success of Hitler.


The Beer Hall Putsch

In November 1923, with hyperinflation at its worst, Hitler decided that the Nazis were strong enough to overthrow the government. Stresemann had also just given in to the French and ended the passive resistance campaign in the Ruhr. Hitler felt sure that when he marched to Berlin, people would flock to join him.

On 8th November, Hitler, backed up by 600 SA, broke into a meeting being held by three leaders of the Bavarian government in a Munich beer hall. Holding a gun to one of the leaders’ heads, he forced him to tell the audience they would help him with his plan. Then General Ludendorff, a great German war hero, entered the hall and promised his support. The audience were convinced.


The next day, however, the three Bavarian leaders went back on their word and ordered the army to attack the SA. In the centre of Munich the two sides met. 16 Nazis were killed, and Hitler escaped with a dislocated shoulder. He and Ludendorff were arrested and charged with high treason.

The Putsch had failed, was this the end for Hitler?


Hitler imprisoned

Hitler’s trial lasted 24 days, and catapulted him onto the front page of every German newspaper. Everything Hitler said was reported in the paper. Finally, he was speaking to a national audience.

Hitler’s eloquence in his defence so impressed the judges that they set Ludendorff free and sentenced Hitler to five years imprisonment, with the chance of parole after six months. The other Nazis in the dock got off with equally light sentences.


Most of Hitler’s time in prison was spent writing Mein Kampf (my struggle), in which he described his ideas on history, politics, race and Germany’s future.

After serving only nine months of his sentence, Hitler was set free. A police report said: “The moment he is set free, Hitler will … become the driving force of new and serious public riots…”

The punishment for high treason should be life imprisonment. Why did Hitler get such a light sentence?


Why were ordinary Germans swayed?

Things had become so bad for the ordinary German, that the hope offered in Hitler’s powerful speeches was bound to sway them toward Nazism.

As a Social Democrat in the Ruhr mining community put it: “They had four, five, even six years of unemployment behind them – they would have hired on with Satan himself…”

Workers were promised the prospect of mass consumerism. They were to have what the people of the West had.

Working-class girls and boys liked the freedom of the Nazi Youth organizations.


Unemployment and the growth of Nazism

0

1,000,000

2,000,000

3,000,000

4,000,000

5,000,000

6,000,000

7,000,000

8,000,000

1926

1928

1929

1930

1931

1932

Number ofUnemployed

Membershipof the Party

What link do you notice between unemployment and membership of the Nazi Party? Give reasons for the

pattern.


Why did the Nazis come to power?

Read the reasons given below and put them in order of importance.

The Great Depression – world trade has collapsed.

Nazis are the largest party in the Reichstag.

Beer Hall Putsch.

Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf” while in prison.

France seizes German coalfields.

Unemployment worsens.

Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany.

The Nazis used the Jews as scapegoats for Germany’s problems.

The Reichstag agreed to the “Enabling Law”.

The Reichstag Fire.

Germany finished paying reparations to France.

Kaiser Wilhelm flees Germany.

Reichstag dominated by power struggles, with many small political groups vying for power.

Nazi Party grows.


The main points of the Nazi programme

1. The union of all Germans to form a Great Germany.2. Equality of rights for the German people in its dealings

with other nations, and the abolition of the peace treaties of Versailles and St Germain.

3. Extension of Germany’s territory for the nourishment of the population.

4. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of Germany. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the nation.

5. Anyone who is not a citizen may live in Germany as a guest, and is subject to the Alien laws.

…continued…


6. The right of voting for leadership is to be enjoyed by the citizens of the state alone.

7. The state shall make its first duty to promote industry.8. All further non-German immigration must be

prevented.9. All citizens of the state shall possess equal rights and

duties.10.All citizens must work for the state.

Hitler’s Rise to Power

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