Hitler’s Rise to Power p.3
Hindenburg and Hitler’s Appointment as Chancellor
The Great Depression worked excellently for Hitler and the Nazi Party. Germans tended to be fairly ambivalent about politics, which allowed for centrism to be the primary ideology of the country with the Centre Party in government. While extremist challenges were always of reasonable prominence, they didn’t become a genuine threat until the country began to seriously suffer.
Roughly a year after the Wall Street Crash, Germany held elections in which the Centre Party went from being a majority party to operating in a minority. The Nazis won 18% of the vote, a massive gain on their previous presence in government, but that wasn’t the most remarkable thing about this election: Hindenburg and Bruning, the President and the leader of the cabinet respectively, had to go from passing laws through the usual democratic process to issuing decrees, which paved the way for a more autocratic form of governance. It eased the German public onto the slippery slope towards dictatorship.
The Centre Party — and moderate politics in general — fell out of favour with the German population fairly quickly: little improvement came from the issued decrees and the instituted austerity policies were unpopular. Hitler, on the other hand, the talented orator that he was, managed to target his messages towards the disadvantaged groups in society, constantly gathering more supporters from all walks of life (he famously had a lot of support in the Army Corps even well before a Nazi-led country looked likely).
Hitler ran against Hindenburg in 1932, campaigning across the country with the slogan ‘Hitler over Germany’ and he gained a lot of publicity and public favour, something that was diminishing for the centrists. He was a populist, and populism by definition appeals to the masses. He lost the election but it helped to establish Hitler as a household name, a force to be reckoned with in politics.
Government was not effective at this point in time, so two prominent politicians of the era petitioned Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor. He finally agreed after two further parliamentary elections in 1932 which failed to establish a majority government. There was a wide belief amongst moderates that keeping Hitler close meant keeping him under control: they felt that by giving him a leadership role that they could closely monitor would satiate his need for power while not threatening their own all that much. Two other government positions went to Nazis; the minister of the interior and minister of the interior for Prussia. Ministerial positions like these meant Hitler had a lot of influence over the German police force, who would become instrumental in his upcoming power grabs.
Centrist endeavours to keep Hitler on a tight leash, of course, were not successful, and we will explore why in greater detail in Part 4, so keep an eye out.
