Before the onset of the Great Low in Frg in 1929–1930, the National Socialist German Workers' Party (or Nazi Party for short) was a small-scale political party on the radical right of the German political spectrum. In the Reichstag (parliament) elections of May two, 1928, the Nazis received only 2.vi percent of the national vote, a proportionate decline from 1924, when the Nazis received 3 per centum of the vote. As a outcome of the election, a "Grand Coalition" of Germany's Social Democratic, Catholic Eye, High german Autonomous, and German People's parties governed Weimar Federal republic of germany into the outset half dozen months of the economic downturn.

During 1930–1933, the mood in Germany was grim. The worldwide economic depression had hit the state hard, and millions of people were out of work. The unemployed were joined by millions of others who linked the Depression to Germany's national humiliation after defeat in World State of war i. Many Germans perceived the parliamentary government coalition as weak and unable to convalesce the economical crisis. Widespread economic misery, fear, and perception of worse times to come, equally well equally anger and impatience with the apparent failure of the government to manage the crisis, offered fertile ground for the ascension of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party.

Hitler rehearsing his speech makingHitler was a powerful and spellbinding orator who, past tapping into the anger and helplessness felt by a large number of voters, attracted a wide post-obit of Germans desperate for change. Nazi electoral propaganda promised to pull Germany out of the Low. The Nazis pledged to restore German cultural values, reverse the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, turn back the perceived threat of a Communist uprising, put the High german people dorsum to work, and restore Germany to its "rightful position" equally a world ability. Hitler and other Nazi propagandists were highly successful in directing the population's anger and fear against the Jews; confronting the Marxists (Communists and Social Democrats); and against those the Nazis held responsible for signing both the armistice of November 1918 and the Versailles treaty, and for establishing the parliamentary republic. Hitler and the Nazis ofttimes referred to the latter as "November criminals."

Hitler and other Nazi speakers advisedly tailored their speeches to each audience. For example, when speaking to businessmen, the Nazis downplayed antisemitism and instead emphasized anti-communism and the return of German colonies lost through the Treaty of Versailles. When addressed to soldiers, veterans, or other nationalist involvement groups, Nazi propaganda emphasized military buildup and return of other territories lost after Versailles. Nazi speakers assured farmers in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein that a Nazi government would prop up falling agricultural prices. Pensioners all over Federal republic of germany were told that both the amounts and the buying ability of their monthly checks would remain stable.

Using a deadlock among the partners in the "Grand Coalition" equally an excuse, Eye political party politician and Reich Chancellor Heinrich Bruening induced the aging Reich President, World War I Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, to dissolve the parliament in July 1930 and schedule new elections for September 1930. To dissolve the parliament, the president used Article 48 of the German constitution. This Article permitted the High german regime to govern without parliamentary consent and was to be practical only in cases of direct national emergency.

Bruening miscalculated the mood of the nation after six months of economical depression. The Nazis won eighteen.3 percent of the vote and became the 2d largest political party in the country.

For two years, repeatedly resorting to Commodity 48 to issue presidential decrees, the Bruening government sought and failed to build a parliamentary majority that would exclude Social Democrats, Communists, and Nazis. In 1932, Hindenburg dismissed Bruening and appointed Franz von Papen, a erstwhile diplomat and Centre party politico, every bit chancellor. Papen dissolved the Reichstag once more, only the July 1932 elections brought the Nazi party 37.3 per centum of the popular vote, making it the largest political political party in Germany. The Communists (taking votes from the Social Democrats in the increasingly desperate economic climate) received 14.3 per centum of the vote. Equally a consequence, more than half the deputies in the 1932 Reichstag had publicly committed themselves to catastrophe parliamentary democracy.

Adolf Hitler on the day he was appointed German chancellorWhen Papen was unable to obtain a parliamentary bulk to govern, his opponents amid President Hindenburg'south directorate forced him to resign. His successor, General Kurt von Schleicher, dissolved the Reichstag over again. In the ensuing elections in November 1932, the Nazis lost ground, winning 33.i pct of the vote. The Communists, however gained votes, winning 16.9 percent. Every bit a issue, the small circle around President Hindenburg came to believe, by the end of 1932, that the Nazi party was Germany'southward only hope to forestall political chaos ending in a Communist takeover. Nazi negotiators and propagandists did much to enhance this impression.

On January 30, 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany. Hitler was not appointed chancellor every bit the result of an electoral victory with a popular mandate, but instead as the upshot of a constitutionally questionable deal among a small group of bourgeois German politicians who had given upwards on parliamentary rule. They hoped to utilise Hitler'due south popularity with the masses to buttress a return to conservative disciplinarian rule, peradventure even a monarchy. Within two years, still, Hitler and the Nazis outmaneuvered Federal republic of germany'southward conservative politicians to consolidate a radical Nazi dictatorship completely subordinate to Hitler's personal will.

Writer(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC