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Some key events and factors can be linked to Hitler’s rise to power and becoming chancellor in January 1933 and how they also contributed to Hitler consolidating his power and becoming the absolute leader of what would be called a totalitarian state by 1934.
In the year of 1923, Hitler and the Nazi party began their path to having power. The Nazi party along with many other figures, would attempt to create a revolution and take over the government of Bavaria and they would all then continue with a march on Berlin. They would use the great inflation and the chaos that came along with it to their advantage. Hitler drew a lot of inspiration from a man called Benito Mussolini, Hitler admired him, and Mussolini had organized a march on Rome in previous years, which is where Hitler got his idea for the Munich Putsch (Cameron, R. Henderson, C and Robertson, C. 2005) However, what seemed like a great opportunity to Hitler soon turned bad because things didn’t go as Hitler planned as Hitler managed to get himself arrested. On the other hand, there can be some positives taken from this event, one of them being that whilst Hitler was serving his jail sentence he wrote his book, known as Mein Kampf, many people of Germany read this book and thus Hitler and the Nazi party gained a lot of attention and support for their ideas. On the other hand, there were some negative effects of the Munich putsch. because of the Munich putsch, Hitler was not allowed to speak to the people of the public until the year of 1927 (bbc.co.uk), this could have been seen as a negative as this could have prevented the Nazi party from getting more support. the negatives of this event were short-lived compared to the successes.
Another reason why Hitler became chancellor would have been the weaknesses and the failing support in the Weimar government and the rising support in Hitler’s election. Unemployment was rising continuously and the government was cutting back on the money that they spent on people’s unemployment benefits, fears of inflation, and many people were now starving. Many of the people of Germany became desperate for help and looked towards other parties that may have been more extreme, such as the Nazis and the communists parties. The Nazis and communists offered solutions to the people’s problems (Cameron, R. Henderson, C and Robertson, C. 2005). Hitler and the Nazi party appealed to all social classes, Hitler promised many things to many different peoples, such as creating job opportunities for workers and those that are unemployed, they also promised farmers more land and they offered fair and equal prices to them for their products that they produce and to the middle-class individuals, they were promised a way out of inflation by destroying the bank Jews, as Hitler blamed them for inflation saying that they didn’t handle trading fairly and ignored their issues. This benefited Hitler and his rise to chancellor in 1933, as many people believed Hitler would truly help them out with their issues and thus, they would show their support for him and vote for him in elections over the people who they wouldn’t think would help them.
Hitler and the Nazi party used propaganda as a factor to help Hitler become the chancellor of Germany. The Nazi propaganda that was used was through radios, newspapers, posters, and many more, the propaganda was used for reasons of censorship, so that the Nazis could reveal what they wanted, when they wanted and to keep certain details out of the public eye. propaganda was also used to brainwash the people of Germany into supporting them and Hitler himself, the propaganda techniques worked well as many people did believe that the Nazi party was the most efficient way for Germany to help solve the problems that the country and its people had been facing (Youman, J. 1939). This was seen in a positive light for the Nazi campaign and Hitler’s path to becoming chancellor because their use of propaganda helped them gain a lot of support from the people as they thought all propaganda was genuine, it also made it harder for opposing political parties to compete against them as the support for the Nazis was strong and was continuing to grow.
When von Papen was chancellor, it was known that he and his government did not have power over the Reichstag and struggled to keep it in control, the elections of 1932 held a lot of violence and terror between the people of Germany. in 1930, the Nazi party only gained 143 seats, which wasn’t expected, in the Reichstag elections. However, in 1932, the Nazi party gained 230 seats which then made them the biggest part of the Reichstag. This was a massive increase in the percentage of votes that they had in previous elections, in the 1920 elections, the Nazi party had 18% of votes and then in the re-elections in 1932, the Nazi party gained 37.7% of votes (Lupton, J. 2020), as a result of this Hitler decided that Von Papen should have been fired and that he should become the new German chancellor seeing as he now led the largest political party in the Reichstag, this was a positive factor in Hitlers rise to power and becoming chancellor as it showed Hitler, the Nazis and everyone else that Hitler was gaining lots of support from the public and that the support was getting stronger and that it wouldn’t be long before Hitler became chancellor just like he wanted to. However, even though Hitler managed to gain so many votes, he declined to become a part of a collation, which in turn caused Hitler and the Nazi party to lose two million of their votes in the last German election of the year (Range, R, P. 2020).
In January 1933, Hitler was finally appointed as the chancellor of Germany, and his power kept on rising and the support for the Nazis was still growing. However, Hitler didn’t want to stop there, he wanted to become the only leader of Germany and create Germany to be the totalitarian state he wished for it to be. There were many different events and ways that Hitler used to help consolidate his power and keep up the support that he was gaining.
On the 27th of February in the year 1933, a fire was set alight in the debating chambers of the Reichstag building in Germany. A young man called Marinus Van Der Lubbe was found amid it and was accused and arrested for starting the fire, Marinus was also known to be a communist. Marinus was taken by the secret police, also known as the Gestapo, and tortured. Where he then confessed that he was the one who started the fire but continued to deny that he had anything to do with the communist conspiracy. Despite this, Goering didn’t believe his words and claimed that the fire was a terrorist act and a reason for rebellions to break out (Mage, J. and Tigar, E, M. 2009) and that because of this he then decided to demand that all leaders of the German communist party should be arrested and tried. Hitler spoke out about this and said that all the leaders should be hung, although President Hindenburg didn’t agree with that, he did however agree that Hitler should be allowed to take on some more powers. These powers allowed Hitler to arrest whatever political opponent he wanted to. This stopped the communist party from taking part in the elections as most of their party was arrested. an advantage of this being a part of Hitler’s consolidation to his power was that the Nazi party used the fire to their advantage to tell the people that they were in danger as the communists were causing trouble and terror, this caused many people to turn to the Nazi party and vote for them.
On the 23rd of March 1933, Hitler suggested that the Enabling Law should be introduced to the Reichstag. This would mean that Hitler would have the political power to create new laws and not have to pass them through the Reichstag and the German president. The enabling law was passed due to the fears of the people after the Reichstag fire. The law was put to a vote and was a success with 444 votes for the law compared to the 94 votes that were against the new law being created (Wiener Holocaust Library. 2020). Due to this being passed, Hitler banned any other opposing political parties from taking part in elections and he also prevented any new political parties from being created, this meant that the Nazi party was the only political party in Germany this was an advantage for Hitler consolidating his power as he was one step closer to having complete and utter control over Germany. A disadvantage of this, however, would be that the enabling act protected the president’s position in the government, so Hitler stepped closer to getting what he wanted but he still had some hurdles to overcome to become the sole leader of Germany (Trueman, C, N. 2015).
From the 30th of June 1934 till the 2nd of July of the same year was known as The Night of Long Knives. During this period the SS and the Gestapo were responsible for the death of 150 individuals and the arrest of even more hundreds of individuals. In August of the year of 1932, the SA had around about 445,000 members but a couple of years later this number had risen by a lot to 3,000,000 members. The SA usually got away with a lot and were deemed aggressive, and they could not be kept under control (Wiener Holocaust Library. 2020). Because of their reputation, Hitler was worried that the SA and the SA leader, Ernst Rohm, would give Hitler and the Nazis a bad reputation, and this in turn would affect his leadership as there were rumors of Ernst Rohm staging a coup. Tensions were beginning to rise between the SA and The Nazis, however, on the 30th of June Hitler ordered that Rohm and the SA leaders were placed under arrest and killed not only were members of the SA killed and arrested so were people that were thought to be opponents of Hitler and the Nazi party (Britannica. 2021). This helped Hitler Consolidate his power in Germany by getting rid of any opposing political parties so that no one could run against the Nazi party in the elections.
On the 5th of March in 1933, the SA started to campaign for Hitler by using violent methods to force people into voting for Hitler in the elections. Many people only voted out of fear that they may be killed or punished if they didn’t vote for Hitler and the Nazi party. However, when the elections finally ran, there was a turnout of 89 percent and the Nazi party gained 43.9% of the votes in the election. This was an improvement in the Nazi parties’ results from the previous elections that were held (Wiener Holocaust Library. 2020). an advantage of this and a sole reason as to why Hitler managed to consolidate his power was that by the middle of the year 1933, most if not all political parties and any opposition to Hitler and the Nazi party had been destroyed (Gellately, R. 1991). On the other hand, a disadvantage to this would be that the elections that took place weren’t fair or free as people were terrorized into voting for the Nazis or they would fear punishment.
By 1934, President Hindenburg had died, and Hitler had merged the position of chancellor and president into one, Hitler was now known as the Fuhrer. Hitler had finally achieved his goal of being the only leader of Germany and Germany was now officially a totalitarian state, where Hitler had all control over himself. Hitler used many different events over the years such as the Munich Putsch, The Night of Long Knives, and The Reichstag Fire to help consolidate his powers to become the Fuhrer by creating fear of speaking out, terror, and an unbreakable loyalty and obedience by any means possible within the individuals of Germany, there was no stopping Hitler on getting what he wanted
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