Boyle, Conditional Rise

Germany’s condition directly following World War I was unstable. A new government—the Weimar government—had just taken control days before the war ended, and had to move quickly to provide assuredness to the people. For some time, the Weimar government succeeded and even gained 76.2% of votes, early on. It was only after the current government began to fail that the country people paid Hitler and the Nazi enough attention to put them in power. This implies that Adolf Hitler’s rise to power occurred only due to the conditions set forth at the time, rather than Hitler’s ability to campaign.
The Weimar government made a choice, early after the war, to sign the Treaty of Versailles. This was a logical choice for the government, as the threat of invasion was looming over any potentially bad decisions. However, by signing the treaty, Germany was set into a great deal of debt.
The government initially dealt with this conflict well. Gustav Stresemann, the foreign minister of Germany from 1923 to 1929 made many fair compromises with the League of Nations, and enabled Germany to pay reparations over a long period of time in relatively small chunks, rather than one large reparation payment. In 1926, Germany was allowed into the League of Nations until 1933, when issues erupted once more. Therefore, in 1928, the Nazi party gained only 2.6% of the German vote. This was to change rapidly, partially due to the United States involvement in Germany.
Due to the Dawes Plan, the United States was lending money to Germany’s industries and government. With that money, Germany was able to pay reparations and keep its people in good economy. This ended very abruptly when the United States entered the Great Depression, and was therefore unable to lend Germany more money. Unemployment rates soared, and the Nazi party gained votes during this time (in 1932, the Nazi party gained 37% of the vote). During times of unemployment, citizens tend to turn to more extremist views, in the belief that left or right-wing radicals will demonstrate progress better than the moderates will. This worked for Hitler. In 1933, Hitler gained a position of power only because members of the government believed that they would be able to tame him and use his influence to their advantages.
Hitler did have one fair method for gaining power, but it occurred after he had already gained enough power to perform such an action: concentration camps. Initially, concentration camps were simply to detain the opposition, as to gain more support (by taking away the other choices). This, however, was utilized fairly late in Hitler’s initial rise to power, and had little bearing on his ability to seize power. Once one has power, after all, it is quite difficult to lose it simply because there is some sort of political opposition, especially given that Hitler and the Nazi party initially had some backing from higher parties.
The Nazi party, therefore, only had good timing in already terrible conditions (for the current government). One example of Hitler’s failure to rise to power in more stable governmental conditions is the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. This was the very beginning of the Stresemann Era, and therefore was a relatively stable position for the German government. The putsch involved Adolf Hitler personally, as he rose in front of a beer hall and tried to speak against the current government. The fact that the speech was given in a beer hall may have attributed to the general disregard of Hitler’s audience, but it more so appears as though Adolf Hitler was simply not something the German people needed at the time. This even more distinctly implies that the rise of Hitler was a conditional rise, rather than a rise based on good methodology. Therefore, Adolf Hitler only rose to power due to his fantastic timing when it came to Germany’s stability—or lack thereof.