Burdette--Conditions Assisted Methods

Something drastic happened between 1928 and 1932. In that span of four years, votes for the Nazi party rose from 2.6% to 37% (video). And it was not that Hitler was changing his methods or ideology. Instead, worsening conditions in Germany made Hitler's methods more effective and led to his rise to power.

At the end of WWI, the Weimar government was just an infant democracy. They faced with countless problems: hyperinflation, debt, increasing unemployment, closing banks (notes). The Treaty of Versailles left them in an even more precarious situation. Germany lost territory crucial to industry and production such as the Rhineland (notes). This meant she was producing less and bringing in less money. Because of this, it was extremely difficult to pay war reparations. The conditions only worsened from there. By the end of the 1920s, 5.5 million people were out of work, the 5 major banks in Germany closed, 200,00+ German businesses closed (video). People were starving and unhappy. Their money was worth less every single day. The Weimar government had made them empty promises and this meant hope was deteriorating. People lost faith and blamed the government for their problems. They wanted a different answer because the way they saw it, democracy was not working. The Nazi Party however was offering a dictatorship. They offered a charismatic, passionate leader who gave a voice to the hate in the hearts of the Germans: hate for the abrupt end of the war, hate for all the death, hate for the current government which seemed so much to blame. Adolf Hitler was an extremist, but when moderate solutions were not working (the infant democracy of the Weimar government), extreme was what people wanted. As the conditions under the Weimar government worsened, people looked for another leader, giving Hitler the rise to power he had been working towards for years.Something drastic happened between 1928 and 1932. In that span of four years, votes for the Nazi party rose from 2.6% to 37% (video). And it was not that Hitler was changing his methods or ideology. Instead, worsening conditions in Germany made Hitler's methods more effective and led to his rise to power.

In 1929, the Great Depression demolished American economy. While this event might seem too distant to affect Germany, it completely devastated the economy there, more so even than the effect on the United States where the stock market crash sparking the depression occurred. Previous to the Great Depression, America was assisting Germany's crushed economy by loaning them money with reasonable amounts of time to pay them back through the Dawes and Young Plans (notes). These loans allowed Germany to pay war reparations to Great Britain and France who in turn put the money back into America's economy (notes). This and other factors caused a boom of glamour and wealth in both Germany and America. But then the economy in America crashed, preventing her from loaning any more money to Germany and also causing her to ask for the return of loans much sooner and more quickly than expected. Germany could not pay (thanks to the precarious production situation the Treaty of Versailles left her in) and the American economy only got worse. The glamour of the Stressemann Era abruptly halted, people lost what little faith they had in the Weimar government. They began searching for something new, something extreme, something drastic. And even in cities where there was no Nazi party center or any campaigning, people chose the option on the ballot that WASN'T the Weimar government...the Nazis. This new sense of desperation where even the middle class lost jobs and were as starving as the lower class was caused by the Great Depression in America. This condition in Germany made Germans much readier for Hitler's ideology, beliefs, and methods.

As made clear above, the Weimar government made empty promises to the German people; Hitler did not make this mistake. One of his methods was simply to not make any promises (notes). The Germans were sick of unkept promises so Hitler offered them something better: no promises whatsoever, his extreme ideology, and very importantly, his charisma and passion. By not making promises, it seemed that the people wouldn't be able to turn Hitler's own words on him. His lack of promises was alluring to the German people who were probably sickened at the mention of the word "promises" by that point because of the way the Weimar government had treated them. This method was used all along by Hitler but as the conditions in Germany deteriorated, German people began looking for new and different. And they found it in a man named Adolf Hitler who offered no false promises.

One of Hitler's best known methods is his passion for wiping out opposition. This is crucial for extremists like far left wing or right wing groups (Nazis were fascist--as far right wing as it gets). Moderates try to please all; it was never like that for Hitler. When he was appointed chancellorship in an attempt to "tame" him, Hitler began sending opposition to concentration camps (notes, video). The first to go were Communists and Social Democrats. They threatened his rise to power so with his new little title (Chancellor Hitler), he sent them packing. Hitler's original concentration camps were not death camps like the later ones (Auschwitz being the worst) that "housed" Jews, gypsys, homosexuals, etc. They just removed those who proved to be political opposition for Hitler. This kept him in power. With no opposition to attempt an overthrow, Hitler believed he could gain and maintain power. This method only worked because President Hindenburg appointed him chancellor. It relied on not only this condition, but also the cry for extremes in Germany. Without this new power and readiness, Hitler would have probably not come into power.

Hitler's methods did not change over time; conditions in Germany did, though. Desperation, deterioration, and disaster led to a country looking for a way out. Some, not a majority, looked to the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler. And when conditions gave Hitler a little power, he ran with it. Conditions worsened and Hitler's methods, unchanged from the beginning, suddenly brought a rise to power.