Rise and Rule of Hitler Paper 2

Analyze the methods and conditions which helped in the rise to power of one ruler of a single-party state.

There were many factors that contributed to Hitlers rise to power in Germany. The most important of these were the unpleasant conditions facing Germany and the ways in which Hitler was able to use them to his advantage, becoming the ruler of a single-party state. The conditions mentioned include the large scale economic disaster and raised political tensions that followed the First World War. These issues had an overwhelmingly negative effect on the nation's stability, but Hitler managed to use this fact to convince the people that helping him gain power would be the only way to improve the situation.

Germany was struggling to deal with several economic problems in the 1920's and 1930's, when Hitler was starting to become a powerful political figure. The Treaty of Versailles, which had been signed at the end of World War I, was in many ways responsible for this. The treaty had caused Germany to lose much of its territory both inside and outside of Europe. Among the losses were valuable industrial areas, such as Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland, which were vital parts of Germany's economy. At the same time, France and Britain were forcing Germany to pay an incredible sum of money to them as reparations for the damages caused by the war, having blamed Germany for starting the entire conflict in the War Guilt Clause. As a result of suffering both of these punishments simultaneously, Germans were in a large amount of debt and had almost no way to pay it all off. The situation was worsened by the failure of America's banks. Germany was relying on loans taken out from American banks to pay off as much of its debt as it could, so when the economy of the United States fell apart Germany's economic disaster was worse than ever.

Hitler, recognizing that many people credited the Treaty of Versailles as the common cause of these economic issues, was able to use the treaty as a reason to blame certain groups of people for Germany's problems. He claimed that his country had been "stabbed in the back" by these groups, which included Jews, communists, and democrats, and that this was the reason that Germany lost World War I and was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles. By establishing a widespread hatred of these groups throughout Germany, Hitler had effectively created a strong sense of nationalism, with the people being united by the popular belief that they had been wronged and that they deserved justice. Hitler promised that he would carry out that justice, ridding Germany of the people who had supposedly betrayed it.

Germany was also facing an increasing amount of political instability at the time. The settlement of the First World War had dismantled the nation's autocratic government and replaced it with a new, more democratic government, called the Weimar Republic. Unfortunately, Germany had never had any experience in running this type of democratic system, so it was not very successful in this attempt. There were too many political parties involved in the government, and each of these was to be represented proportionally, making it difficult to get anything done. In addition to this, Germany was forbidden from having an army of its own after losing the war. Instead of having a single national military force, individual political parties built up their own private armies, leading to increased political tensions and occasionally violent conflict.

Hitler found ways to use the weaknesses of the Weimar Republic to his advantage as well.* While the Weimar Republic was viewed by the people as being weak and unwilling to take action towards solving Germany's problems, the plan for Nazi Germany proposed by Hitler promised a powerful and active government, a contrast that appealed to many German voters. Hitler was also able to play on the fears people had about the other political parties. For example, he pointed out the communist revolution that Russia had experienced earlier and the problems it had caused there, stating that the same thing could easily happen to Germany if people supported the KPD. Finally, the Nazi party was a particularly militaristic group, having built up a strong private army. This aspect appealed to people who were seeking employment or were of the opinion that Germany needed to have an army.

It would be possible to argue that Hitler's rise to power was caused simply by either Germany's unstable condition or Nazi propaganda messages alone. However, it was how Hitler intertwined these two things that made him successful. He realized that people were unhappy with the state of their country, and he used propaganda that took advantage of this unhappiness to make people believe that he knew how to return Germany to its former glory.

*Stopped here in class