The Rise of Hitler Essay

During the 1930’s Germany was at an all time low as the worldwide economic depression hit Germany hard. The confidence in Germany from the people was lacking due to the fresh memory of their defeat in World War I. This caused great need of a new leader, someone who could give the people change, and Adolf Hitler knew he could do just that. His rapid rise to power began when he started to promise things that intrigued the German people. He promised the hopeless and needy a better life, and promised opportunities that were exactly what the people needed. This caught the attention of so many young unemployed and middle class people. His party, known as the Nazi Party, won 33 percent of the votes in the 1932 elections. And by January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor, which was the head of the German government. Germany started to feel like they might've found the leader they'd been so desperate for.

After the loss of World War 1, Germany was crippled and severely punished. During the 1920’s, Adolf Hitler (WW1 veteran) started spouting about these bizarre ideas. Germany was desperate; he seemed like their only hope to get out of this mess. People took to Hitler because Hitler assured them he would get them out of debt, which he successfully did. The Nazi party was then formed and gained a mass amount of popularity amongst the German population. The Nazi party at first received only 3% of the vote at the Reichstag in 1924, and in the 1932 elections; Hitler received 33%, more than anyone else and was the new Chancellor of Germany. The German people were cheerful; they believed Hitler their savior (“Hitler Comes to Power. Ushmm.org”).

Adolf Hitler was a very powerful and repetitive person who attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change. During the early 1930’s, the Nazi party and Hitler’s rise to power was extremely rapid. The depression is what got them popular because they appealed especially to the unemployed, young people, and members of the lower middle class. He also promised a better life for the German country. In the 1924 elections they only won 3 percent of the votes to the German Parliament so they needed to become more engaging.

Germany was in a problem filled state and people were turning to find alterities to help themselves. In 1925, the Weimar republic was under fire for signing the Treaty of Versailles, who are a part of the November Criminals who stabbed the nation in the back. Also around that time the Nazi party had officially started with only 27,000 members. Hitler is starting to get a following and preach his ideas and plans for Germany. The Nazi party was growing with 108,000 members in 1929. In addition to the year of 1929, it was the start of the end of democracy in Germany. With Hitler moving up the power ranks; becoming chancellor on January 30th, 1933 and to be later called the Reichsfuhrer later on April 2nd, 1934 (when Hindenburg had just died).

The worldwide economic depression was at its max point which helped Hitler gain power throughout germany. Germans lacked confidence in their weak government, know as the Weimar Republic. All this conditions helped out hitler gain power because the germans were now looking for a strong leader that could lead in the right way and get them out of this harsh conditions. Hitler was a strong figure and a very good speaker who attracted a very large number of followers. He promised the people of germany a better life and to make germen great agian.By June 1932 six millones germen where now found unemployed. This economic distress contribute to a meteoric rise in the support of the Nazi party lead by Hitler.

Following their dramatic loss in the First World War, the people of Germany were suffering greatly, both emotionally and physically during the period of the 1920s and into the 1930s. The harsh stipulations of the Treaty of Paris forced the German government into a fragile and fragmented institution which was ripe for the abuse of power-hungry would-be tyrants. The people, eager for a strong figure to look up to, would have accepted almost anyone with perhaps any political agenda so long as the person said the right things and gave the people hope. Enter onto the world stage one Adolph Hitler. Between 1932 and 1933, Adolph Hitler was able to rise from the position of relative insubordinate in the government, to fuehrer and leader of the entire country of Germany. The only way that one man could have achieved such political success in so quick a time has to be because of the support he received from the populous for his rhetoric and aggrandizement of Germany. Seeing how well the people received Hitler, other members of the political elite were pressured into giving him further support, lest they go out of favor with the people themselves. Hitler's rise to power was not a final strike of brilliant political strategy, but rather a series of events spearheaded by a charismatic speaker with the voice of the majority behind him and a more educated political faction who were unwilling to take strides against the popular voice.

Hitler's Rise To Power The reason I have chosen is The Treaty of Versailles. I have chosen this reason because I feel that it played a major part in Hitler's rise to power. I feel there are a number of factors why this helped Hitler's rise to power.

On the morning of June 22, 1941, three German army groups, consisting of over three million soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks, attacked across the frontier into Soviet territory. The front covered nearly two thousand miles and took the Red Army almost entirely by surprise. Adolf Hitler titled the invasion “Operation Barbarossa”, and it was the critical turning point of the Second World War. The goal of Hitler’s Directive Number 21 was to destroy the Red Army’s fighting capabilities in the West, create a buffer that denied the Russian Airforce the ability to attack territory of the German Reich, establish a general line along the Volga River to Archangel, and ultimately destroy the Soviet Union. For many people it’s not surprising that Operation Barbarossa failed and forced Germany to fight a two front war against a coalition possessing superior resources, leading to the eventual defeat and destruction of Hitler’s “Third Reich”.

Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany began in September 1919 when he made the decision to join the political party known as the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - DAP (German Workers' Party). The name was changed in 1920 to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei -NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party, more widely known now as the Nazi Party). This political party was anti-Marxist, anti-Semitic and opposed to the democratic post-war government of the Weimar Republic and the Treaty of Versailles although at first, the Nazis claimed to be both nationalist and socialist. Hitler rose to a place of status in the early years of the party and he was by far one of the best speakers. Because of this he gave other party members an ultimatum:

Before the rise of Adolf Hitler to power there was the devastating Great Depression that affected a large amount of families across Germany. Like most hard times the struggles of the depression caused the people to want change a new form of leadership that would lift the nation out of the hard times. Written in J.S Conway’s personal journal “ It was these economic causes rather than the inapplicability of their ideas which liberals believed was the basic cause of the seduction of Germans away from democracy.” The German people were sick of the Weimar Republic and

The Antichrist is…a man with white skin, in everyday clothes, dangerously contemporary, and a mighty demagogue…The great Russian philosopher Soloviev described him. The Antichrist ‘does not look like he is,’ and therein precisely lies the danger. He is a young man with a strong personality and seductive power of speech and writing…He will win fame first by book…then, in Berlin, he will be come ruler of the ‘United States of Europe;’ he will conquer Asia; America will submit to him voluntarily. He is an absolute genius, and he may, says Soloviev, wear a small mustache.1

From the rise of the Hitler in the early 1930s until Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the Hollywood film industry bended to the increasingly strict film laws for their international European market. Since this audience gave them huge profits, Hollywood films needed to remain neutral in regards to the intense political issues in Europe during this time period. This meant any reference to Judaism and the plight of the Jews in Europe was absolutely taboo. In order to have their films shown in Germany and in the annexed regions, there could not be Jewish characters, actors, or filmmakers anywhere in the film. Whether their names were removed from the credits, or not included from the start, Judaism was systematically erased from cinema as it was from Europe.

The Great Depression of 1929 impacted Germany tremendously. Already gone through the Hyperinflation of 1923, the struggling Germany economy was facing another challenge. Many Germans encountered unemployment along with German farmers facing the threat of price declines of commodities and also the declining of markets. With many Germans facing unemployment this meant they were not able to earn money so it was difficult to get food or other necessities. This economic hardship gave Hitler the opportunity to reach out to the people of Germany who were outraged and worried about their future. So, this economic tragedy brought new supporters, voters, activists to the Nazi Party, which led them to gain more popularity. With more support and popularity, the Nazi Party kept on growing and becoming more powerful.

Shortly after the First World War, the poverty-stricken Germans were in need of hope. After suffering a humiliating defeat to The Allies which left them famished, fragmented, and vulnerable. Out from the military came Adolf Hitler, who preached to the masses about his animosity towards democracy while also informing them of their Aryan status which elevates them to the top of the social ladder. Everything Hitler addressed in his speeches was in the hearts of many of its listeners, even if they did not know it at the time. Specifically, the idea that Aryans were superior to everyone else gave way to the discrimination of alternate races. All of this pride blinded the German citizens to what was actually going on: the genocide of over eleven million people. Hitler’s followers looked up to him as if he were their savior, so anything he would do, whether right or wrong, they would praise him. Hitler was able to sustain power in Germany for twelve years due to his charismatic authority, which is power not from any formal position or tradition, but from an individual’s notable qualities that catalyzes their followers into complete obedience. Charismatic leaders only appear when there is a crisis for a society or group, and they become not only their leader, but their hero. For Post-World War 1 Germany, that hero was Adolf Hitler. As for South Boston, that hero was convicted felon, Whitey Bulger.

Adolf Hitler was born in the Austrian town of Braunau on April 20, 1889, Adolf was the fourth child of Alois Schickelgruber and Klara Hitler. Adolf had an incomplete education and was mostly self-taught. In Viena (1907-13) Adolf could not secure his place at art academy, he lived like a vagrant and aged seeing his racist prejudices grow in front of the spectacle of a cosmopolitan city, whose intellectual and multicultural vitality was completely incomprehensible to him. From that time dates his conversion to a Germanic nationalism and anti-Semitism.