Davis- Almost Killed Mervin doing this.

What are we supposed to title these, anyway? /heavysigh.

Basically, my computer died after writing this and I almost cried because I lost everything, but I did ninja cyber roundhouse kicks (whatever those are) and now it's back. Enjoy. :3


Hard economic conditions both in Germany and internationally helped make Hitler's methods for gaining power more effective and thus gave him the edge to climb up the ranks of German Government. From the end of WWI on, the Nazi party platform changed little. The only variable was the German people's willingness to listen. The rise of Hitler was in direct correlation with economic hardships Germany faced. When, for example, the roaring twenties was in full swing, Hitler and Nazi party support dwindled. Only when the people felt slighted did they listen, because Hitler had the foresight to tell them what could be done, but not how it would be achieved. When a person is starving and their family is unemployed, they don't care how you will fix it, so long as you DO. That is one of the genius strokes in his campaign. Because of his strategy (and his propoganda- he campaigned like nobody's business) in two years (1928 to 1930) he went from having 2.6% of the vote to 25%. It is a little odd though, that parties from the other end of the wing, too, did similar things to Hitler yet, obviously didn't come into power. German groups taking leaves directly from Lenin's book also made no promises they couldn't keep, and promised to relieve economic struggle. Yet, they were not as successful as the Nazis by half. Maybe because money is more thoroughly connected to political wins than we are comfortable to admit. While the far left promised relief, they also had a wider platform that dealt with social issues like equality...and maybe this shows how little the people cared about those things. After a roaring twenties, maybe they just wanted to focus on reclaiming that glory after all the crap they had to put up with. Hitler was easy to trust, too, because everything he did he did it legally. Even communists in Germany had this stigma of Lenin's coup d'etat and after all the blood, it's doubtful they wanted more. Someone who worked within the system to fix their problems was more comforting than someone who could rip things apart they had just put together. It was a wonderful method, coupled with all the propoganda and advertising that nearly had the party bankrupt. (Incidentally, did people not wonder how a man who couldn't control a single party's finances could fix a country's economy? People need to research these things more thoroughly. If only they had Google...) And he could be looked at by the German people this way: he did everything legally (He is an honest man, and that is what we need) and was even willing to spend jail time defending what he thought the German ideal was (dedicated- that surely must be good.) It's unfortunate that the grittier details of his jailtime weren't known at that time (How gentle the judge was on him, etc.) or that, maybe from another light, that what he was in jail for organizing...could that foreshadow the limits he was willing to push? Nationalism is good, but surely there comes a point...Regardless, Hitler came to power using clever propoganda and legal (therefore good PR) methods, and the 'good fortune' of economic collapse only helped his cause.