At the end of World War I, Hitler joined the obscure German
Workers’ Party, one of a number of right-wing nationalist
parties in Munich. By the summer of 1921, he
had assumed total control over the party, which he renamed
the National Socialist German Workers’ Party
(NSDAP), or Nazi for short. Hitler worked assiduously to
develop the party into a mass political movement with
flags, party badges, uniforms, its own newspaper, and its
own police force or party militia known as the SA—the
Sturmabteilung, or Storm Troops. The SA added an element
of force and terror to the growing Nazi movement.
Hitler’s own oratorical skills were largely responsible for
attracting an increasing number of followers.
In November 1923, Hitler staged an armed uprising
against the government in Munich, but the so-called
Beer Hall Putsch was quickly crushed, and Hitler was sentenced
to prison. During his brief stay in jail, he wrote
Mein Kampf (My Struggle), an autobiographical account
of his movement and its underlying ideology. Virulent
German nationalism, anti-Semitism, and anticommunism
were linked together by a social Darwinian theory of
struggle that stressed the right of superior nations to
Lebensraum (“living space”) through expansion and the
right of superior individuals to secure authoritarian leadership
over the masses.
After his release from prison, Hitler worked assiduously
to reorganize the Nazi Party on a regional basis and
expand it to all parts of Germany, growing in size from
27,000 members in 1925 to 178,000 by the end of 1929.
Especially noticeable was the youthfulness of the regional,
district, and branch leaders of the Nazi organization.
Many young Germans were fiercely committed to
Hitler because he gave them the promise of a new life.
By 1932, the Nazi Party had 800,000 members and had
become the largest party in the Reichstag. No doubt,
Germany’s economic difficulties were a crucial factor in
the Nazi rise to power. Unemployment rose dramatically,
from 4.35 million in 1931 to 6 million by the winter of
1932. The economic and psychological impact of the
Great Depression made extremist parties more attractive.
But Hitler claimed to stand above politics and promised
to create a new Germany free of class differences and
party infighting. His appeal to national pride, national
honor, and traditional militarism struck chords of emotion
in his listeners.
Increasingly, the right-wing elites of Germany—the
industrial magnates, landed aristocrats, military establishment,
and higher bureaucrats—came to see Hitler
as the man who had the mass support to establish a
right-wing, authoritarian regime that would save Germany
from a Communist takeover. Under pressure, President
Paul von Hindenburg agreed to allow Hitler to become
chancellor on January 30, 1933, and form a new
government.
Within two months, Hitler had laid the foundations
for the Nazis’ complete control over Germany. On February
27, he convinced Hindenburg to issue a decree suspending
all basic rights for the full duration of the emergency,
thus enabling the Nazis to arrest and imprison
anyone without redress. The crowning step in Hitler’s
“legal” seizure of power came on March 23, when the
Reichstag passed the Enabling Act by a two-thirds vote.
This legislation, which empowered the government to
dispense with constitutional forms for four years while it
issued laws that dealt with the country’s problems, provided
the legal basis for Hitler’s subsequent acts. In effect,
Hitler became a dictator appointed by the parliamentary
body itself.
With their new source of power, the Nazis acted
quickly to consolidate their control. The civil service was
purged of Jews and democratic elements, concentration
camps were established for opponents of the new regime,
trade unions were dissolved, and all political parties except
the Nazis were abolished. When Hindenburg died
on August 2, 1934, the office of Reich president was abolished,
and Hitler became sole ruler of Germany. Public
officials and soldiers were all required to take a personal
oath of loyalty to Hitler as the “Fьhrer (leader) of the
German Reich and people.”
World History
