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Fertile ground
One of the important elements was the fertile
ground in the post-war Germany which was caused by the fallowing
factors. Germany was in desparete shape after WW1. The harsh
conditions imposed by France, Great Britian and, eventually,
United States in 1919, Treaty of Versailles, made Germany
humilitated and impoverished. Debilitating reparation payments
to the victors made the economy exacerbate. More than that, the
American Great Depression in 1929-1933, caused the stock markets
to crush, banks to fail and factories to close. The paucity of
economic background for ordinay people, in a way, caused that
the Hitler‘s radical nationalist ideology gained support and
ceased success.
National Socialists
The party of Nazis (short for
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) was formend
short after the war in 1920, at that time called German Worker’s
party. It did not take them very long to consolidate themselves
and organize a putsch in 1923. However, it ended up as a
complete failure with the exception to the fact that it prepared
a platform for Hitler to put forward his ideas. During the
upcoming years, the party greatly englarged up to the number of
100, 000 members, which helped them to make their voice heard.
In the year 1928, the party had 12 seats in the Reichstag
(Parliament building in Berlin as well as the parliament itself)
and within four years it became the largest party in parliament.
Having such a strong background, Hitler had the perfect platform
for presenting his radical ideology.
The election of Hitler
Based on the problems within the country, the
party focused its campaign on promising better times for the
citizens. They were not ashamed of excluding Jews from the
society and blaming them for the crisis. They promised to stop
paying reparation payments and bring more job opportunities to
Germany, more then that, they presented a strong nationalist
idea uniting numbers of Germans together. In the presidential
election the strategen was proved worthy. Adolf Hitler received
37%, which presented 13 million votes. The then President of
Germany, Paul von Hindenburg, was aware of the fact that Nazis
had enough power to paralyze Germany democratic government and
in January 30th he appointed Hitler Chancellor, the head of
coalition government. Hindenburg was hoping to satisfy Nazis and
maintain the government behind the scenes however, his intention
caused that the most ruthless dictator of 20th century came to
power. Within 18 months, Hitler took over the the country by
destroying Weimar constitution, enabling himself to rule without
consulting Reichstag, making the law against formation of new
parties and creating “monopoly“ for his party. In 1934, when
Paul von Hindenburg died, Hitler became a new president and
called himself the Fuhrer, absolute leader. As an excellent
speaker he proved himself worthy to ignite the nationalist
ideology in his fellow citizens and to make them fallow him, as
the only dictator. Being aware of the cruelty that followed,
Hitler finally kept his word when he said, “No power on Earth
will get me out of here alive“. His death signified the end of
one dictator leaving a big question behind. Is there still some
room for another “Fuhrer“ to come? If yes, is there any way
how to prevent it? |
