Question

What are the most important facts of the rise of Hitler?

Answer 1

Hitler rose to power because of a few main reasons. 1, Germany was depressed and didn't believe in themselves after they lost in WW1. 2, Hitler was a very convincing, strong person. 3, Hitler appealed to Germany's dignity and made them feel like they were superior to everyone. Because of these reasons, Hitler rose to power - Germany was desperate and had a low self esteem, so they chose him.

Answer 2

An additional and very important reason was the fear of communism. Keep in mind communism had recently (1922) triumphed in the USSR, and had just plunged Spain into civil war. There was a great deal of communist agitation (no doubt some of which was encouraged by the Soviets) in Germany, particularly in the east, and in the capital. (This is why people were quite ready to believe Hitler's lie that the communists had set fire to the Reichstag -- parlaiment building -- in 1933.)

At the same time, the "people oriented" aspects of communism and socialism generally were very attractive to Germans, who were thoroughly disgusted with the monarchy after it had led them to humilitation and destruction in the First World War, and who had a long history of "enlightened" socially-concerned thought, in the late 19th century. (It's worth remembering Karl Marx was German.) German philosophy and religious tradition strongly pushed the German people towards some kind of "socially conscious" form of society.

Hitler's solution, "national socialism," which is what "Nazi" is short for, in German, seemed an ideal compromise. It promised to reject the monarchy and the aristocracy, the old money and the Catholic Church, and govern in the name of and for the benefit of the people. To be socialist, in other words. But on the other hand, it also rejected international communism and the idea of throwing out private property entirely, and most importantly rejected the idea of taking orders from Moscow. It was NATIONAL socialism -- GERMAN socialism, by and for Germans. That was the crux of its appeal.

It was also appealing because post-war German governments had been weak and vacillating, unable to decide things, unable to get things done, unable to prevent foreign interests from pushing Germany and Germans around. Hitler promised a proud, strong, and united Germany. There was a powerful wish to have a "strong man" who would "do something" about the problems facing the Germans at the time: high unemployment, a lack of social services, crumbling infrastructure (roads and bridges), a disparity in the wealth of the rich and the poor, bickering and corruption in government. (Sound familiar? The themes are eternal.)

And, indeed, Hitler's accession to power was at first very promising, and widely hailed. He made sense of German monetary policy. He reduced unemployment, steadied the economy. Great public works projects were started, like the autobahn system, improved rail and air transport, the "Volkswagen" ("People's Car"), a small affordable car for everyone, support from the state for families and the poor, and so on. Germany also spoke louder on the world stage, and was treated with greater respect by the Allies. Even in the West -- in Great Britain and the United States, there was at first a fair amount of admiration for what Hitler did for Germany.

But then, of course, it went weird and evil. There were the Jews. A low-level hostility towards Jews had run through Germany like it had through the rest of Europe for decades, if not centuries. But suddenly it broke out in this appalling and systematic viciousness. Then there was the increased and absurd bluster about master races and destiny, which, while not entirely uncommon at the time (President Woodrow Wilson, for example, was a racist who believed blacks genetically inferior) was taken to new and much more crazy heights. Then, finally, there was the obsession with martial valor which led ineluctably to wars of conquest and the final awful tragedy.

All of this was latent in Hitler and Nazism, we can say in hindsight. But the problem is that Nazism isn't a completely bizarre and weird philosophy that came utterly out of the blue, wreaked havoc on the world, and then vanished into the ether again. It is, in fact, a set of appealling and in some ways very reasonable ideas that are overblown, over-extended, and enlarged well past the point of sanity. It's sort of like the way various kinds of mental illness are often exaggerations of healthy behaviour: paranoia is an exaggeration of healthy caution, depression an exaggeration of healthy skepticism, megalomania an exaggeration of healthy pride in self, and so forth. Nazism is an exaggeration of healthy socialist and patriotic ideas.

That sad part is that it's hard to identify someone as crazy when you just start to get to know them. You start off thinking someone is just a little cautious, and only after a while realize he's paranoid. You start off thinking someone is just a little skeptical, and only after a while realize he's a gloomy gus, depressed. In the same way, the Germans started off thinking Hitler was a sensible compromise between socialism and patriotic conservativsm, and only after a while realized he was a Nazi, a crazy.