Rise of Adolf Hilter

Elections

• During the economic depression in 1929, Hitler made an alliance with the Nationalist Alfred Hugen-bergran, a united campaign against the Young Plan.

• After being able to communicate with the considerable national audience through newspaper, he was now able to reach greater numbers of industrial and business magnates.

• Also, Hitler’s drumbeat-ing tactics had won him the attention of the German electorate.

After elections• After acquiring German citizenship through

the state of Braunschweig on February 25, 1932, Hitler decided to test his party’s strength by running for the Presidency.

• There were three other candidates: Theodor Duesterberg , an army officer

• Ernst Thaelmann, the Communist party leader

• Paul von Hindenburg • Hitler staged an energetic campaign for the

presidential elections of March 13, 1932, winning more than 30 percent of the vote and depriving Von Hindenburg of an absolute majority.

The runoff elections of April 10 • (Von Hindenburg, 19,359650; Hitler, 13,418,011;

Thaelmann, 3,706,655)• In the elections of July 1932 the Nazis won 230 seats in

the Reichstag and became the largest political party in Germany.

• The following November Hitler received a slight setback when the number of Nazi deputies dropped to 196, as that of the Communists rose to 100.

• There followed a deadly battle in the streets between the Brownshirts and the Red Front.

• Meanwhile, the political situation was deteriorating rapidly. Chancellor Heinrich Bruening , although liberal and moderate in outlook, felt himself compelled to govern by decree. It was an unfortunate decision that actually prepared the way to dictatorship.

• On May 30, 1932, Von Hindenburg dismissed Bruening from office. There began a bitter political battle behind the scenes between the Junkers in the east, the wealthy industrialists in the west, and Reichswehr officers.

• These three groups took over the Cabinet, first headed by Franz von Papa , a shrewd politician and a master of intrigue, arid then by Gen. Kurt von Schleicher , an army officer who preferred a military dictatorship.

• Von Papen made a political deal with Hitler. The two met secretly on January 4, 1933, and decided to work together for a government in which Hitler would be Chancellor and Von Papen’s associates would hold important ministries. They also agreed to eliminate Social Democrats, Communists, and Jews from political life.

• Hitler promised to renounce the socialist part of his program, while Von Papen pledged that he would obtain further subsidies from the industrialists for Hitler’s use. The final problem was to win the support of the elderly President, who had little use for the crude upstart lance corporal of World War I.

• Both Oskar von Hindenburg , the President’s son, who was worried about the family estate at Neudeck in the east, and a wealthy banker, Kurt Freiherr von Schroeder , urged the President to go along with Von Papen.

• On January 30, 1933, with great reluctance Von Hindenburg named Hitler German Chancellor with a coalition Cabinet but refused him extraordinary powers. It was a great moment for the little man who had been an unwashed tramp on the streets of Vienna. He had achieved his goal without a Putsch, without revolution, in the constitutional way he had promised.

• Once in power, he moved rapidly to establish and consolidate an absolute dictatorship. He obtained Von Hindenburg’s agreement for new elections because a majority could not be obtained in the Reichsrag.

• His first concern was to alert the country to the dangers of the red terror. He would consolidate his own position with the expense of the Communists.

• The Reichstag fire on the night of February 27, 1933, provided him with the excuse he needed to destroy his opponents and set the ground for his system of totalitarianism. The fire was apparently the work of a weak-minded twenty-four year -old Dutch vagabond, Martnus van der Lubbe , who had once belonged to a Communist dub in Holland.

• But some observers concluded that the Nazis themselves had set the fare and blamed it on the Communists. It was charged that a group of Storm Troopers entered the Reichstag by way of a tunnel running from Hermann Goering’s headquarters, prepared the fire by soaking the curtains and rugs with flammable liquids, and then brought in the simpleminded ex-Communist Dutchman to start small fires of his own. The question of responsibility for the fire is still the subject of controversy among historians.Whether or not the Nazis set the Reichstag fire, it served Hitler well. Not only did it make the imposing edifice a blazing inferno, but it also gave Hitler a reason for crushing his opponents.

• In the elections of March 5, 1933, the Nazis increased their representation in the Reichstag from 196 to 288 and their popular vote from 11,737,000 to 17,277,200, or some 44 percent of the total.

• With support from the Nationalists, Hitler now had a 52 percent majority. On March 24, 1933, the Reichstag passed the so-called Enabling Act , the Law to Remove the Distress of People and State (Gesetz zur Erhe-bung der Not von Volk und Reich).

• In five brief paragraphs, it took away from the Reichstag the powers of legislation, including control of the budget, initiation of constitutional amendments, and approval of treaties with foreign nations, and gave them to the Reich Cabinet for a period of four years. Within a few months all other politi-cal parties were banned, Nazi Statthalter (governors) were in control of the German states, trade unions were dis-solved, and all elements of the population were organized into party-controlled units.