Hitler and the Nazis used the democratic system, which tolerated them to destroy German democracy

“Hitler and the Nazis used the democratic system, which tolerated them to destroy German democracy.”

Examine the truth of this statement with reference to the years 1928 and 1934.

1.  Background:

The democratic system was new and quite weak in Germany, the people did not fully believe in it and some were against it. The republic was based on the Reichstag, which was filled with a varying number (500-600) of representatives, elected by the people. These representatives would in turn elect the chancellor. The democracy tried to give minorities a fair representation in the Reichstag, which lead to splintering of parties and basically made it impossible to establish a majority. Consequentially it led to instability and frequent changes in the government. Another flaw in the democracy was Article 48 of the constitution, which allowed the president dictatorial powers in case of an emergency. When it started to look like the democracy might survive the depression came. After the Beer Hall Putsch 1923, an attempted coup d'état Hitler had decided that the best way to get in to power was the legal way. A big crisis was exactly what the radical Nazis needed in order to gain popularity.

2.  German Democracy and the Nazis in 1928

Germany was starting to recover from the World War I, and the future of the democracy was starting to look brighter. The Dawes plan was relieving the German economy a bit and the economy was stabilising. Gustav Stresemann, the German foreign minister sought to end the German isolation; Germany was a member of the League of Nations, France was withdrawing from the Ruhr and Rhineland and Germany had signed a Pact of Friendship with the Soviet Union. The German president Paul von Hindenburg was a non-party independent old war hero, but when he was elected he was regarded as the more conservative candidate. Even though he was starting to get old, he did his job well and took his oath to the Weimar Constitution seriously

On the other hand the German middle class was quite small and the unemployment was more than 8%. Nevertheless Germany was more stable than in a while. Consequentially radical parties as the Nazis were losing popularity. In the elections in May 1928 the Nazis only received less than 3% of the votes and got therefore 12 seats. The bad result was partially also due to Hitler wanting to concentrate to strengthen his leadership within the party rather than his electability.

After the elections in 1928 there were 15 parties in the Reichstag; of which SDP had most seats but nowhere close to the majority. So with Müller as chancellor another coalition government with members form the SDP and three other parties was formed. The government was plagued by internal division right from the start, where the each party was more concerned about their interests than the government’s interests.

Most parties had their own militia, as a result of the German revolution (1918-1919). They were tolerated by the republic, but caused turbulence. The Nazi party’s militia, the SA (Storm Troopers/Brownshirts), were not only trained physically, but also mentally to be completely convinced about the Nationalist Socialist ideology. The Nazi party even went out in the streets on weekends to fight communists, to create fear, show their muscle and attract young people. The Nazis did not only have their own militia, but in 1928 Hitler started to create “Nazi Professional Bodies”. These included jurists, doctors and teachers as well as students. This was part of his plan to strengthen the Nazi party. Hitler and the Nazis also gained popularity among the people who did not want to pay the war reparations of World War I by voting against the Young Plan. The Young Plan was a settlement between Germany and the victor states of World War I, which reduced the German reparation debts and made it easier to pay them back.

In summary the German democracy was still fragile in 1928 and had many problems, but it was becoming more stable in many ways, it was slowly gaining trust and it seemed like the German democracy actually had a chance to survive. As a relatively small party Nazis were not very threatening in 1928. They were mostly trying to organise the party as well as possible, gain support, spread their ideology and through that get votes.

3.  Nazi Germany in 1934

In 1934 the German democracy had disappeared and the Nazis had banned all other parties. The German president Hindenburg was dying and therefore the Nazis and Hitler, who had become Reich chancellor, were allowed to make plans and rule quite freely. The Nazis were passing racist laws and in March the whole German police was under Hitler’s command.

The German economy was very bad as Hitler came to power in 1933, so the Nazis started to improve it. Unemployment was very high, but it decreased as the Nazis started different public work programs building e. g. highways. On the other hand the Nazis stopped counting women in the unemployment calculations and one was expected to take the work offered, which most people did out of fear. Nevertheless the Nazis created jobs and many felt that they were at least trying to protect the workers, in contrast to the Weimar republic.

In order to secure a settled Eastern border Hitler made the German-Polish Non-aggression pact, which allowed Germany more time to rearmament. At that time Germany had already left the League of Nations due to differences in opinion about German rearming.

Between the 30th of June and 2nd of July the Nazis carried out many political murders and arrests, this time came to be called the Night of the Long Knives. Most of the killings were done by SS (the Protection squadron) members or the Gestapo, the regimes secret police and many of those who were killed were SA members. Hitler turned his back against his own (i. e. the SA), due to the independence the SA sought from Hitler and the complaints from the people in, to stabilise his position. After that the threat posed by the SA to the army ended and the SA became bound more tightly to the Nazi regime.

Hindenburg died in august 1934. The referendum merging the posts of the chancellor and the president was held a few weeks later, though Hitler assumed these powers immediately after Hindenburg’s death. The very positive results of the referendum allowed Hitler to claim public support for his acts as the Fuhrer, even though the law emerging the posts basically was illegal. After this Hitler made every individual in the whole German army swear an oath of loyalty to him personally, not the state. Hitler had got into absolute power.

The Nazis established Treachery Act in December 1934; it was a law, which restricted the freedom of speech and established penalties for abusing the Nazi government or Nazi Party.

In other words the Nazis had taken power over Germany and in six years an almost working democracy had turned into a dictatorial power. In 1934 the democratic system was no longer followed and Hitler and the Nazis did almost anything to ensure them staying in power.

4.  Conclusion

The Nazis did not destroy the German democracy alone. Most of their early actions were legal and did not oppose the democracy, since Hitler had noticed that that was the best way to get into power. The democracy was weak and had flawed fundaments. The Nazis would not have been able to seize power without the crises after 1928. Since the Nazis were a radical party their popularity was falling as the republic was growing stronger until 1928.

After the Wall Street crash (1929) the German economy met a great depression. This was an opportunity for the Nazis as the people would want to listen to their radical ideas and them blaming the government. At that time very few understood the threat coming from the Nazis, so nothing was done about it. Hitler was open about his ideas, including the ones about getting rid of democracy, and he had written almost everything in Mein Kampf. Additionally fascist parties were gaining popularity in other countries as well during this period.

The fundamental flaws of the democracy; Article 48, the splintering of parties in the Reichstag, the parties in the government looking after their own interests and not the governments, and tolerance of the parties’ own militias were also important factors for Hitler to get into power. Hitler used them to destroy democracy, but they also destroyed the democracy themselves without any help from the Nazis.

Hitler and the Nazis also used illegal ways to destroy the democracy, these undemocratic methods increased as they got more power. So they did not only use democratic system. In 1934, when Germany was upside down it was easy for Hitler to establish his own law and become Fuhrer.

The Nazis did use democracy to some extent to be able to destroy democracy and get into power, but the collapse of the Weimar republic also depended a lot on other factors. Many opposed the Nazis, but as the crises came it was easy to turn against the government and start listening to the radical ideas of the Nazis, some did not react to the ideology on time and many were scared. In 1934 when Hindenburg died and Hitler became Fuhrer he and the Nazis did not have any real opponents left. The destruction of the democracy was to some extent tolerated, but the democracy never work completely in the first place. In other words there was not a working democracy to start destroying in 1928; the Nazis were mainly in the right place at the right time.

Refernces:

http://hem. se/~u13115096/Ideologierna/Filosofer/hitler. html

http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Young_Plan

http://www. zum. de/whkmla/region/germany/wr19241928.html

http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/German_federal_election,_1928

http://www. /timelines/51767

http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg

http://www. /worldwar2/timeline/becomes. htm

http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/German-Polish_Non-Aggression_Pact

http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Treachery_Act_of_1934

http://www. /worldwar2/timeline/becomes. htm