Hitler And His Nazi Party example essay topic

How did Hitler rise to power in Germany in 1933? In 1933, Adolf Hitler, the leader of the right wing extreme Fascist political party, National Socialists (or Nazis as they were later known) became chancellor of Germany. I believe that he became Chancellor for several reasons. The main one's are his timing and pure luck.

The early 1900's were very depressing time for the German public. They were left broke from the First World War, and the Treaty of Versailles practically stopped them from getting any more money to help counter the bankruptcy. Hitler used this crisis to his advantage. He used it to shame the current government (The Weimar Republic) and democracy on the whole. At the time this was just what Germany needed to hear, and Hitler played realised this, and capitalised on it. The Nazis were a very aggressive and extreme group before 1924, and for this they were never seen as a real party who could ever stand a chance in any elections.

They believed that power should be taken not passed over or given. Hitler soon realised that this strategy wasn't working and that the Nazi party was vastly loosing votes and getting less chance of any sort of victory at future elections. While Hitler was in prison he took the time to reorganise the Nazi party, both its leaders and its policies and tactics. Hitler reorganized the Nazis so that it looked a lot more attractive and friendlier to the German public. He changed the Nazis a into a much more of a political party, instead of a terrorist cult. The Nazi party now looked much more smart, professional and in control, which is a long way from what they used to be.

The Nazis strategic were changed also. The Nazi party used a lot more Propaganda, newspapers were used to broadcast the Nazi messages and beliefs. The Nazis also put themselves forward as a party of discipline and order. They almost had there own army (The S.A. and the S.S. ), who were all well dressed and disciplined men. The Nazis also used children as propaganda, introducing programmes such as the "Hitler Youth" which encouraged and educated the next generation to follow the Nazi ideas as well as used the children to influence families to follow the Nazis. Hitler's was also a very persuasive and believable person, and when he spoke, people believed what he said.

His speaking skills were spectacular. He started off quietly and worked himself into a fury. No party could match his ability to speak and lost many votes due to it. Hitler's was portrayed as a strong leader who was loyal to the old Kaiser style government, something which many Germans preferred to the democratic, Republic government that was in place at the time.

The Nazi party was also a very flexible party, if one idea was catching on with the public more than another one, they would drop the lesser one and improved the one in favour. Hitler was clever with the way he told different social classes different messages depending on what they wanted to hear. For example, to a rich middle class businessman, who would be wrecked by communism because if it was elected, it would take over his business and he would loose everything, Hitler would promote his 'anti communism' views. Where as with a working class man he would promote his 'Anti Democracy' views as most working class people still liked the Kaiser style government.

The Nazis attempted to appeal to every German group of society. The Nazis were very flexible with ideas, if one wasn't popular, they would change it or get rid of it - which made them look unstable to other political parties, but willing to listen to the people from a citizens point of view. Regardless of all these changes made by the Nazis themselves, there were still many factors which contributed towards Hitler becoming chancellor. The "depression" in Germany was one of the main ones.

In 1924 'The Dawes Plan' was set up by America to help Germany boost its industrial production and pay the reparation payments. For a while it worked out well for Germany, but then in 1929 'Wall Street Crash' happened in America. It happened because to many products were being made, and not enough people were buying them, so almost all of the big companies went bankrupt, and as a result of this, so did lots of small businesses. This had a disastrous effect on Germany who were totally dependant on foreign loans, America wanted all of the money it lent to Germany back, and fast. Germany couldn't do this and so they also went bankrupt, this meant that many large businesses and factories had to shut down, so there was a huge unemployment number and noting was being produced so nothing could be sold. The Weimar government only made this worse by increasing taxes and abolishing unemployment benefit, which left almost all of Germany's lower classes homeless and with no means of getting any wealth back.

This series of events was known as the Depression. Although the Depression left millions of German people homeless and poverty stricken, it was a wave of luck for the Nazis. The Nazi's used the depression to show the current government up as incompetent and that everything that he said was right. President Hindenburg enforced the "Presidential Law" to Germany, which allowed him to make new laws without having to get the Reichstag to vote on it first. This was very similar to the Kaiser style government that the most Germans liked.

The Nazis showed how efficient this style of government was to the people and because this was what the Nazis would be like if they were in power, they gained more votes. The German people were in a desperate state, so many Germans voted for Hitler and his Nazi party, as they looked like the most logical thing to do in the crisis. In the May 1928 elections the Nazis gained only 2.6% of the votes whereas in July 1932 the votes jumped to 37.4%. The success of the Nazis led Hitler to stand for President in 1932, although he lost to von Hindenburg, who was re-elected by 19 million votes to Hitler's 13 million. Hitler eventually became chancellor, by appointment by President Hindenburg, after a lot of persuasion by Franz von Papen, one of his closest friends and advisors. He thought that Hitler had lost his chance, but if he was chancellor he would be quiet, von Papen also thought that he would be able to control Hitler as his puppet.

So on 30th January Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Hitler had no intention of letting von Papen control him, and he called another General Election for 5th March 1933 so that he would no longer have to be part of a coalition government. Six days before the General Election, the Reichstag building was burnt down. This was just what Hitler needed; a Dutch Communist named Van Lub be was found in the building and was accused of starting the fire. Hitler used this to his advantage, shaming all the Communists as terrorists, loosing them, which benefited him because he had to get a percentage of the votes, and if less people voted that percentage was easier to reach. Hitler then used the "Enabling Act", which allowed him rule the government without consulting the Reichstag on his decisions first.

The General Election took place in an Opera house, filled with Hitler's S.A. and S.S. to intimidate the voters to vote for the Nazis. Hitler then won the General election and had become the Dictator of Germany legally..