He was also under threat from other groups especially the Communist Party. After the Wall Street Crash ( October 1929) many people looked to extremist groups such as the Nazi and Communist Parties. People blamed the Social Democrats who were linked to the Weimar Republic for the economic failure and this is why popularity grew for the Nazi Party. It was essential to gain a two thirds majority in the Reichstag if Hitler hoped to pass any laws of his own. So one of the first things Hitler did after becoming Chancellor was to dissolve the Reichstag and call for a fresh election on the 5th March 1933.
Hitler used propaganda, elimination of the opposition, and a cult of personality to gain the support and trust of the German people in a time of economic crisis to his benefit and the rest of the world's loss. Single party states arise from a crisis, and Germany was suffering from a very large one at that time. The end of World War I in 1918 had left the economic state in shambles, and the loss struck the German people hard. Furthermore, the Treaty of Versailles the following year resulted in the demilitarisation and many cuts from German land and territory. Hitler criticized the carving up of Europe by the "Big Four" (the US, UK, France and Italy), stating that the Germans were the "master race".
But Germans blamed it for signing the Versailles treaty and for hunger and unemployment. Hitler set up a fascist style party called the Nazi party. Hitler wanted to tear up the Versailles treaty and unite all Germans so they could form a great German empire. He blamed the Jews and the communists for Germany’s troubles and wanted to destroy them. When the Great Depression 1929 forced many factories to close, desperate Germans voted for the Nazi party.
In these winter months there were signs of the country’s morale and unity breaking, it was not helped when Germany was hit with an influenza epidemic, wiping out 20-40 million, the resistance to the disease was lowered due to decline in living conditions. Inflation was also a problem facing Germany after the war, the people were forced to work longer hours, but wages still fell below the inflation rate. As a result of these effects social discontent grew, and anger was expressed at sharks of the industry who appeared to be making money from the war. The
World War 1 caused the death of nearly nine million people and cost huge sums of money. Therefore most countries were anxious to avoid another war. The appeasement policy was the efforts by Britain from 1936 to 1939 to allow Nazi Germany to have pretty much everything Germany wanted in the hopes that eventually Hitler would be appeased and stop his aggressive policies. Chamberlain believed in appeasement. Chamberlain let Hitler build up the German armed force although that was contravention of Treaty of Versailles.
Therefore Liberals wanted constitutional reform and more power to be given to the Reichstag. Whereas socialists demanded social reform and power to the workers and trade unions. However conservatives, such as Bismarck wanted to conserve to the Junkers – the elite class. To do this he proposed the Anti-Socialist Law in 1879 and also passed the Tariff Law, which appeased the liberals. The years leading up to the war the German people were dreading it, there were protests in Berlin in July 1914.
The Depression which began in 1929 was a great mean for Hitler to come to his power. During the Depression (1929-33), the Weimar Republic was seriously undermined by the social and economic conditions, which were also exploited by the Nazi Party. The Nazi ideologies appealed to those people who had seen no hope on the Republic. The Party promised people jobs, money, and homes, plus, they also wanted to abolish the Treaty of Versailles so there wouldn’t be huge reparations. That’s what German people want; they liked to be reminded of the humiliation caused by the War, and they wanted to get it back from the Republic.
When the Wall Street Crash happened in America in the October of 1929, the German economy heavily reliant on the USA was hit hard, and was one of the reasons why support for the central migrated to either left or right wing parties, however a number of different factors also have to be to blame for the arrival of Hitler becoming Chancellor. The American loans from the Young and Dawes plan were recalled, and American bank investment dried out, causing businesses to shut down, and therefore the number of unemployed and homeless rising, and so trade slumped, and the German people relied on charity. The inadequacy of the government was highlighted at the time because of the economic downfall; the government, headed by Hindenburg, decided to: raise taxes, reduce the wages of public officials, and reduced the unemployment benefits, and although for the long term these were good moves, the German people were not happy. The Germans were interested in having a strong leader, Stresemann after the abolishion of the monarchy fitted that role, however after his death in 1929, the people were not satisfied by who Hindenburg’s choices of Chancellors. Hindenburg first appointed Karl von Papen as Chancellor, but then replaced him with Schleicher, the two Chancellors had relative short stays, and did not have a lot of support from the people.
This essay explains these factors in turns… Starting from the main aspect, a major problem for the L.O.N (League of Nations) was the Wall Street Crash in 1929. The Crash mainly affected the USA. USA was in short of money and couldn’t lend money to other nations or buy goods from other countries. This caused massive unemployment around the world. This made countries care about themselves (self- interest).
Was the Great Depression the main reason why the Nazi party grew between 1929 and 1932? The Great Depression occurred in 1929 and affected Germany because America took all their loans from Germany so business’ close and the standard of living in Germany decreased. After the Great Depression, the public went to the extremist parties, the NSPD and the Communists. This was because the German government didn’t have a reasonable plan for amending the crisis – the Chancellor Bruning believed that decreasing government spending and increasing the taxes would get Germany out of their economic crisis. This angered the German public as they thought that the government’s plan would just make living harder if they did increase the taxes.