All language subtitles for mar.to.war.2025.108

In the chaos of post-World War I

Germany, a fragile democracy
crumbled under the weight

of economic despair, political
infighting, and national humiliation.

From the ashes of the Weimar Republic, a

man emerged, ambitious,
calculating, and ruthless, promising to

restore glory, but leading the
world to the brink of destruction.

The Nazi party kind of growing in the

background, but actually
not very popular during that

period of the sort of
early to mid 1920s.

And the time that the Nazi party really

comes to the fore is in the aftermath

of the Wall Street crash with the impact

of the world depression on Germany too.

The political leadership
of the party will take

the stage and then these
two institutions together

will raise the German
people, and establish, and

carry on their shoulders the
German state, the German Reich.

Adolf Hitler's meteoric
ascent to power, exposing the

manipulative propaganda, the
fervent nationalism, and the eerie

cult of personality that fueled his regime.

The head of state, he's now dead and gone.

It now means that one man can
take on all the top roles for himself.

That man, of course, is Adolf Hitler.

The First World War was
a catastrophe for Germany.

Huge casualties affected morale,
shortages and starvation plagued

the home front.

And on November 9th, 1918, after a series

of mutinies by German
sailors and soldiers, the

Kaiser had abdicated and fled the country.

The following day, a provisional
government was announced,

made up of members of the Social Democratic

Party and the Independent
Social Democratic Party of

Germany, shifting power from the military.

With peace declared and
the Kaiser gone, Germany

needed to establish a
new constitution that would

move the country forward after
accepting responsibility for World War I.

It's effectively gone from
a monarchy with Kaiser

Wilhelm having almost
absolute power to a world

in which the Allies are saying, listen, you

need to have a more liberal form of

government like we
have in France, the United

States, Great Britain,
and what the Allies call

for is for the Germans to adopt
a form of liberal democracy.

This is the start of what's
known as the Weimar Republic.

It is now a Germany without a monarch.

It's a Germany with a president.

It's seen as a new form of stable,
grown-up governance for Germany.

Unfortunately, as we'll
see, it simply doesn't work.

On February 6th, 1919,
the National Assembly met

in the town of Weimar and
formed the Weimar Coalition.

They also elected SDP
leader Friedrich Ebert as

president of the Weimar Republic.

The basic format of the
government was based

around a president, a
chancellor, and a parliament,

known as the Reichstag.

The president was elected by a
popular vote to a seven-year term,

and held real political power,
controlling the military and having

the ability to call for
new Reichstag elections.

New constitutional elements
were added, such as Article

48, which allowed the
president to assume emergency

powers, suspend civil
rights, and operate without the

consent of the Reichstag
for a limited period of time.

The chancellor was responsible
for appointing a cabinet

and running the day-to-day operations of

the government, ideally,
the chancellor was to come

from the majority party
in the Reichstag, or

if no majority existed, from a coalition.

The Reichstag, in turn, was also elected by

a popular vote with its seats
distributed proportionally.

This meant when the
Social Democratic Party won

21.7% of the popular vote in
1920, it was allocated roughly 21.7%

of the 459 seats available.

This system ensured
that Germans had a voice

in government that they
had never had before,

but it also allowed for
a massive proliferation

of parties that could make it difficult to

gain a majority or form
a governing coalition.

The most important issue
facing the government was

the terms of the peace treaty.

Throughout the war, the
German propaganda machine had

stressed to the German
people that Germany was

fighting a just war
against the aggression of

the Entente powers, Russia,
France, and Great Britain.

The transition to
democracy had given hope to

the German people that
their country would be

treated leniently and that
the final peace settlements

after the war would be acceptable.

On June 28th, 1919,
the Treaty of Versailles

was signed, outlining peace
terms between the victorious

Allies and Germany.

The treaty ordered
Germany to reduce its military,

take responsibility for
the World War I, relinquish

some of its territory, and pay
extortionate reparations to the Allies.

It also prevented Germany from
joining the League of Nations at that time.

The First World War had an absolutely
devastating effect on Germany.

Well, the first simple reason
is that she lost the war.

You know, if you lose wars, you never
end up in a particularly happy place.

But actually, the First World
War was particularly punishing.

Why? Because the Allies
gathered together at the Palace

of Versailles to sign what was
known as the Treaty of Versailles.

Now, in that treaty, they
took away a lot from Germany.

It wasn't just going, you lost too bad.

It was actually saying,
you've lost and some.

What we're gonna do is
to take away your colonies.

We're gonna take away
some of your coalfields.

We're gonna make you demilitarized.

So we're gonna strip your
army and navy right down.

You're not allowed an air force.

All these massive punishments
were inflicted on the Germans.

And then to make it even worse, the
Allies said, and you've got to pay for

the war.

This was known as reparations.

And in today's money, it
was worth about half a trillion.

And there was one big problem.

Germany had no money.

So you're basically asking a beggar if he

can lend you or give you
back half a trillion dollars.

He doesn't have it.

And Germany certainly didn't have it.

Reactions from the German
people were extremely negative.

There were protests in the
Reichstag and out on the streets.

Along with the loss of land and overseas

colonies, Germany had
to deal with the humiliation

of accepting responsibility
for the war, which the

German public didn't agree with.

The Treaty of Versailles was very much seen

by the Germans as a
diktat, a dictated treaty.

So this sense that the
army perhaps wouldn't

have lost the war had they had
the chance to go on on the battlefield.

One of the other effects of the First

World War on Germany was
it totally polarised political life.

You had a lot of soldiers coming back

from the front feeling that the war had

been going well, and yet
suddenly the government

back home in Berlin had surrendered.

Well, why had it done that?

Why had the Kaiser let them down?

And so you have what arises is
something called the stab in the back myth.

This idea that all those brave soldiers at

the front didn't lose to the Allies, they

actually lost to their
leaders back home who

supposedly stabbed them in the back.

Now, those soldiers come back and they form

lots of very militaristic
units, which are known

as the Free Corps or the Freikorps.

And it's from that kind of groundswell, a

very nationalist, very angry,
very resentful opinion, that

you start seeing these little parties
like the Nazi Party being formed.

The Weimar government
was then associated with failure

in World War I, since it had signed

the Treaty of Versailles,
which had ended the war.

Many nationalists believed the
government had sold Germany

out to its enemies, ending the war too

soon and allowing the
country to be controlled.

Due to the public
unhappiness with the Weimar

Republic, many German
citizens looked towards radical and

extremist parties who were opposing
the political situation in Germany.

What you start to see in the early

1920s is this sort of
development, almost like

a kind of fungus on the ground, of

all these small political
parties from different parts

of the political spectrum.

You know, you've got
Communist Party growing up

on the left, you've got things like the

Nazi Party growing up on the right, and

you've got tonnes of
these little parties, many

of which have extremely vicious agendas.

They didn't like the Kaiser, or some of

them liked the Kaiser, some of them want

democracy, some of them
want communism or fascism.

There is a whole kind of maelstrom, a

mixture of very radical,
very defined, very virulent

type of politics emerging in Germany.

It's a very poisonous cocktail indeed.

One party in particular was
beginning to surface, the Nazi Party.

The National Socialist German
Workers' Party, better known

as the Nazi Party, had been established in

1919, and were promoting radical views.

One theory that the
Nazi Party had developed

was the stab-in-the-back theory, which

regarded the loss of World
War I, and who was to blame.

What any extreme movement needs
is a kind of legend, or a kind of myth, or

a kind of enemy to kick against.

And the Nazis and Hitler created plenty of

enemies, some of which
were actual enemies, like

the Communists, you
could say that they were

genuine enemies of the
Nazis, because they were

at different ends of
the political spectrum.

But also, what Hitler also whipped up, and

what he encouraged, was this idea that the

German soldier who had fought in the First

World War had been stabbed in the back

by his political masters
in Berlin, and that's

why the war was lost, and that's why
Germany faced this shame of defeat.

And so what Hitler's saying is, listen to

those soldiers, those former
soldiers, I can actually reverse this.

I can not only put a rifle or a
spade in your hand and make you

feel proud, but I can also get Germany

back her pride, and her wealth,
and her status in the world.

At the end of the First World War,
there was a lot of social and economic

dislocation and upheaval
in Germany, and there was

a sense, particularly by groups on the far

right, and there were a lot of them,
so the Nazi Party was just one of

dozens, actually.

And there's a sense on the far right

in particular, but in
other groups in society

too, that the army had
been stabbed in the back.

So this whole myth or legend arose called

the Dolchstoss, the stab in the back.

And there was this sense that the
army had been stabbed in the back by this

group, what the Nazis and the others on

the far right called the
November Criminals, who

signed the Treaty of Versailles in
the aftermath of the First World War.

Although many different
variations of this theory existed,

the Nazi Party proclaimed
that Germany was betrayed

by those on the home front, which
led to the loss of the war, rather than

their defeat on the battlefield.

Shifting the blame to what they referred to

as the November
Criminals, Adolf Hitler and the

Nazi Party bought into the myth that Jews

and communists had betrayed
the country and brought

a left-wing government to power
that had wanted to throw in the towel.

Providing the country with
a scapegoat meant more

and more individuals
supported the Nazi Party.

They had established the enemy and had a

full plan for how they were going to

remove them and make Germany great again.

By blaming the Jews for the defeat, Hitler

had created a stereotypical
enemy, someone to point

the blame at and encourage the
party supporters to do the same.

Getting rid of the Jews would solve all

of Germany's problems, or so he claimed.

With economic struggles
and no positive way of

life, the German people
liked the policies that

the Nazi Party was outlining
and support continued to grow.

One of the overlooked
successes of the Weimar

government was skillfully
renegotiating and restructuring its debts

and bringing the economy
back under control.

Article 48 was used
frequently by liberal chancellors

to take immediate action
to stabilise the economy.

However, the high reparations
payments and costs of

war had devastating consequences.

The cost of living in Germany rose 12

times between 1914 and 1922,
compared to three in the United States.

The German government
faced the classic dilemma, cut

government spending in
an attempt to balance the

budget or increase it in an
attempt to jumpstart the economy.

When the government sought
to pay reparations simply

by printing more money, the value of German

currency rapidly declined,
leading to hyperinflation.

The early period of the Weimar Republic was

beset with quite a lot of economic,
social and political problems.

So there's inflation,
there's all sorts of economic

difficulties, and they
really rose to a peak

in 1923 with the hyperinflation.

So very common is the image of a

German person in the
street literally carrying a

wheelbarrow full of money to pay for
an everyday item like a loaf of bread.

So just this sense of the devaluation of

the currency and the hyperinflation
brought about in this period.

So there were lots and lots of different

problems in those early
years of the Weimar Republic.

In January 1920, the exchange rate was 64

.8 marks to $1.

In November 1923, it was way over 1

billion marks to $1.

This economic disaster had
social consequences as well.

Since Germany couldn't
keep up with repayments of

the reparations, the French
and Belgian armies invaded

the Ruhr region of Germany,
the main area of industrialism.

The French aimed to
extract the unpaid reparations

and therefore took control of key
industries and natural resources.

The Weimar government
instructed the Ruhr workers to

go on strike instead of helping the French.

The occupation of the Ruhr worsened
the economic crisis in Germany.

One of the things that
particularly sticks in

the craw of Hitler and
other politicians like

him is the fact that the French have

seized the Ruhr, this important
and absolutely vital industrial area.

Now, without the Ruhr, it helps to
cripple Germany's economy still further.

And of course, it benefits the
French economy enormously.

It's just yet another kick in the teeth

for the Germans, who
are thinking, you know,

we've lost the Ruhr,
we've lost the coalfields

of the Tsar, we've had
the Rhineland demilitarised,

we've lost our colonies
in China and Africa,

and we're having to pay lots of war

loans back, which we don't
have any money to do so.

You know, if you look at it, it
seems to be a complete disaster.

Of course, that's what it became.

Many Germans who considered
themselves middle class found

themselves destitute.

Heinrich Brüning, who became
chancellor in 1930, chose

the deeply unpopular option
of an austerity programme,

which cut spending, and those
programmes designed precisely

to help those most in need.

Prices ran out of control, and many people

couldn't afford to live or survive.

Poverty was at an all-time high.

By autumn of 1923, it cost more to

print the money than the
notes themselves were worth.

During the hyperinflation crisis,
workers were often paid twice per day.

Because prices rose
so fast, their wages were

virtually worthless by lunchtime.

Unsurprisingly, the impact of
hyperinflation dissolved a lot

of support for the
government, and people began

looking towards uprisings
and extremist parties to deliver

the answers to their crisis.

As the currency collapsed, so
did the policy of passive resistance.

The Nazi Party continued to
grow support within this time.

Once again, Hitler expressed
his anti-Semitism, declaring

that since Jews ran the banks, they were

responsible for the economic
mess Germany found itself in.

The German economy had
completely crumbled, although this

didn't result in the collapse
of the Weimar Republic.

However, it shook the faith of many Germans

who began looking towards
radical parties to drag

them out of the economic rubble.

The confusion caused by
hyperinflation led Adolf Hitler

to believe that he could take power in

Munich in November 1923,
leading the Beer Hall Putsch.

However, the attempt failed.

In 1923, Hitler thought that he was in

a strong enough position with a lot of

different kinds of patronage
and support from military

circles to stage a coup, so a putsch,
a kind of takeover of power, and he

decided to do this in the city of
Munich, so that it became known as the

Munich Beer Hall Putsch.

However, it was a crisis and a fiasco,

and the Nazi Party
actually fell apart afterwards.

Some of its members wounded, some of them

becoming martyrs too, but
essentially Hitler was placed

into jail at Landsberg,
so he was imprisoned

in Landsberg, and that was
where he wrote Mein Kampf.

Hitler believed that the
government of Germany was

so unpopular that many
Germans would support him.

He was even planning a march on
Berlin after his success in Munich.

Hitler was arrested and
tried for high treason.

He was found guilty and
sentenced to five years in prison.

This seemed like the end for
Hitler and for the Nazi Party.

In April 1925, former war veteran Paul von

Hindenburg was elected
as president of the Weimar.

Hindenburg was instinctively
conservative and anti-socialist.

It's hard to imagine a more kind of

old-school, aristocratic,
Prussian-stroke German figure than

old Hindenburg.

You know, he looks the model of this

kind of bewhiskered
president, and he regards Hitler

as what Hitler was in the First World

War, a little corporal, and that taught a

lot of people from
Hindenburg's Junker class, as

it was called, referred to Hitler as.

So as Hitler starts climbing the ladders of

power, as he gets nearer and nearer to

the top, and indeed, when it comes to

the stage in which Hitler is gonna actually

take the chancellorship,
Hindenburg still thinks, this man's

a little corporal.

This man is someone we grandees can still

control, but what they don't know is that

they basically let the
most dangerous animal into

their zoo imaginable,
and Hitler is just gonna

basically eat everyone
alive, even Hindenburg.

They have no defense
once they've let Hitler in.

From the very beginning of
his presidency, Hindenburg

used his presidential
powers and therefore had a

far greater influence
than Ebert ever had on

the membership of coalition governments.

He made it very clear that he did

not wish for any constraints
on his presidential power.

A new foreign minister, Gustav
Stresemann, brought new

life to the Weimar Republic,
bringing economic stabilization.

After 1923 into 1924, things
seemed to settle down a little bit.

So the period from 1924 to 1928 of the
Weimar years were very much a period

of progress that the
Weimar government had a

chance to put into place
a recovery of Germany.

So in terms of both her position at

home, but also how Germany was regarded in

Europe kind of as a
European nation as well.

So that sense of what
Germany's international reputation

was like changed as well during
the course of the mid 1920s.

So then it's a period of more stability.

We've got a situation in
Germany where there's

quite a lot of progressive life going on.

So women have got the vote for the
first time since 1919 and they can be

elected to parliament.

Lots of progressive,
different kinds of policies in

education, but also lots of progress in the

arts and in cultural life, the Bauhaus
movement in architecture as well.

So those kinds of things, we see quite

a lot of progress in German
society in the 1920s and a lot of hope.

But at the same time, and I think

this is quite interesting,
at the same time,

we've got the Nazi party developing kind of

in a sense, almost in the background.

So not at the forefront
of anyone's attention

during these years, because
the popular attention's kind

of enjoying the 1920s, the kind of swinging

1920s, you know, with
the cabaret lifestyle and

the women now taking jobs in the cities

as typists and in office jobs and these

kind of new glamorous jobs that
hadn't been open to them before.

And at the same time, we kind of

got this sort of
conservative and right-wing

backlash against that kind of
progress that typified Weimar society.

So it's kind of quite an interesting time.

And then the Nazis, in a sense, they're

sort of in the background in this way,

but very, very busy building
themselves, building up

the party and building up
its propaganda and its profile.

Payments of reparations
continued and the Ruhr was

no longer controlled by the French.

A new currency, the Rentenmark,
was established, which

brought worth back to the currency.

Industry began moving again and
unemployment decreased slightly.

Stressormen borrowed
money from the US to help

pay back war reparations, a
scheme known as the Doors Plan.

He also managed to get Germany
a place in the League of Nations.

Morale in Germany was looking up.

Resistance was decreasing
and more people were moving

on with their lives peacefully.

However, in 1929, the Wall Street crash in

the US came to affect the German economy

once again, sparking the
beginning of the Great Depression,

The global
economic downturn created by the

Great Depression in America
had devastating repercussions for

the Weimar Republic.

As the panic hit Wall Street, the US

government pressed its
former allies, Britain and France,

to repay their war debts.

Not having the money,
Britain and France pressed

Germany for more reparations
payments, causing an economic depression.

If you ask someone with no money to

pay you lots of money, they're
really not going to be able to do it.

And in order to do it, they're then

going to have to borrow money
off someone else to pay you back.

Now, that's what Germany does.

America offers Germany
loans to pay back the

war reparations to America
and to Britain and to France.

So what you have is this sort of

circle of income going
across the Atlantic to

Germany and then some of which ends up

trickling back to France and
Britain and the United States.

Now, that might work fine if
the world's economy is OK.

But what happens in 1929?

You have Black Thursday,
you have the depression,

the slump, the Wall
Street index go crashing

through the floor in
almost a matter of hours.

And you have one of
the greatest depressions

the world's economy has ever seen.

Now, of course, what does that mean?

The Americans are going to go, ah, well,

we're no longer going to loan Germany any

money and actually any money we want back.

And the Germans are going, but if we

don't have this money, we
can't keep our industry going.

And then Britain and
France and other countries

around the world are going, we
need these markets to sell things to.

That's collapsing, that's collapsing.

Everything's starting to collapse.

Now, of course, that's going to have a

devastating effect on
even the most stable form

of political system, as you have,
say, in Britain or the United States.

But even in those countries, you had a

lot of political instability as a result of

the depression, this worldwide slump.

But in Germany, it's
far, far worse, because,

of course, what you're
mixing there is basically

bankruptcy with political extremism.

And that is a very poisonous brew indeed.

And this is what gives rise to more

and more votes going to extremist parties.

Why?

Because they're saying, Weimar has
failed and we can offer the solutions.

We've got something definite that
these old men simply don't have.

A crucial factor in the rise of Nazism

was the ability of the party to expand

and provide a political
home for those discontented

with the state of the Weimar.

Two months after Adolf
Hitler was released from

prison, the Nazi party
was re-established and

growing in numbers once again.

The roots of Adolf Hitler's rise to power

lie in the disaster of the economic crash

on 1929 and the subsequent depression.

The Wall Street crash and the rise in

unemployment had the important
effect of further dividing German politics.

During the Weimar
years, the Nazis very much

in the background, but
very much building their

profile and their propaganda
and their organisation.

But it's really after 1929, with the impact

of the Wall Street crash and the Great

Depression on Germany,
that the Nazi party really

came into its own and really, from that

point, managed to attract
very, very large numbers

of voters and supporters.

And the reason for this is that in
that period, so with the height of the

depression in Germany,
a lot of economic distress,

really despair, accompanied
really too also by political chaos.

So the succession of
short governments, one after

another, including a grand
coalition government, unable really

to deal with the economic crisis.

Article 48, which was the
presidential decree, was

called into place and used quite
a number of times in this period.

So it's kind of a sense that the

normal workings of
governments just weren't working.

And then the use of
presidential decree, this

kind of emergency
use, being called into use

more and more often
is signifying these very

difficult political and
economic circumstances.

On March 29th, 1930,
the finance expert Heinrich

Brüning had been appointed
the successor of Chancellor

Müller by Paul von
Hindenburg, after months of

political lobbying by General
Kurt von Schleicher on

behalf of the military.

The new government was expected to lead a

political shift towards conservatism
based on the emergency

powers granted to the
president by the constitution,

since it had no majority
support in the Reichstag.

The economic downturn
lasted until the second half

of 1932, when there were
first indications of a rebound.

By this time though,
the Weimar Republic had

lost all credibility with
the majority of Germans.

The bulk of German capitalists
and landowners originally

gave support to the
conservative experiment, not from

any personal liking for
Brüning, but believing the

conservatives would
best serve their interests.

As the mass of the working class and

also of the middle classes
turned against Brüning,

more of the great capitalists
and landowners declared

themselves in favor of his
opponents, in particular, Adolf Hitler.

After Hitler came out of prison, he picked

up the pieces of his party that was

in disarray and really
forged his position once

again as the leader of the party and

indeed developing from that
to be the leader of the nation.

So this kind of whole cult of the

Führer, cult of the leader
surrounding him from

this point during the mid 1920s, that once

he comes to power, that cult of the

leader just expands to the whole nation.

So certainly at this point in the mid

1920s, he's sort of
rebuilding the party now,

very much trying to make sure
that it was very well organized.

So he organized the
party into the different

regions, so the different
Gau, each region with

its own regional leader or Gauleiter.

And then he also organized the
party very cleverly, horizontally as well.

This idea that there were
Nazi organizations right

across different sectors of the
economy or of profession or occupation.

So for example, there was the Nazi Teachers

Association, the Nazi Jurists
Association, the Nazi Doctors

Association, as well as students
associations, women's groups

and youth groups as well.

So there's this kind of buildup, this kind

of groundswell of
buildup of support for the

party through the mid 1920s, that once the

depression hits, that
in that period from 1929

up until he comes to power in 1933,

he's really able to
manipulate that basis of

support that's already been established.

The Reichstag general elections
on September 14th, 1930,

resulted in an enormous political shift.

18.3% of the vote went to the Nazis,
five times the percentage compared to

1928.

This had devastating
consequences for the Republic.

The other thing that's
really important is the

extent of the economic despair.

So we've got to remember that there's 5

million unemployed in
Germany by the winter of

1930 to 31, and that goes up
another million to 6 million by 1932.

So that's a very, very huge
unemployment statistic.

And of course, Hitler's
really putting himself forward

as a leader who will get Germany out

of these very, very dire
economic circumstances, who

will make Germany great again.

There was no longer a majority in the

Reichstag, even for a great
coalition of moderate parties.

And it encouraged the
supporters of the Nazis

to bring out their claim to power
with increasing violence and terror.

After 1930, the Republic slid more and more

into a state of potential civil war.

By late 1931, conservatism
as a movement was

dead, and the time was
coming when Hindenburg

would drop bruning and
come to terms with Hitler.

Hindenburg himself
was no less a supporter of

an anti-democratic counter-revolution
represented by Hitler.

On May 30th, 1932,
Bruning resigned after no

longer having Hindenburg's support.

Five weeks earlier, Hindenburg
had been reelected as

president with Bruning's active
support running against Hitler.

Hindenburg then appointed Franz
von Papen as the new chancellor.

Von Papen lifted the ban on the SA

imposed after the street
riots in an unsuccessful

attempt to secure the backing
of Hitler and the Nazi party.

Papen was closely associated
with the industrialist and

land-owning classes and
pursued an extreme conservative

policy along Hindenburg's lines.

This government was
to be expected to assure

itself of the cooperation of Hitler.

Since the Republicans
and socialists were not yet

ready to take action
and the conservatives had

shot their political bolt,
Hitler and Hindenburg were

certain to achieve power.

Majorities and even
coalitions in the Reichstag were

difficult to form among
an increasing large number

of extremist parties, left and right.

Elections were held
more and more frequently.

Since most parties opposed
the new government, von

Papen had the Reichstag
dissolved and called for new elections.

The general elections
on July 31st, 1932 showed

major gains for the Nazis who won 37

.2% of the vote, overtaking the Social

Democrats as the largest
party in the Reichstag.

In the July 1932 elections, that was when

the Nazi party reached the
height of its electoral success.

Actually, by November 1932,
they'd lost 2 million votes.

So it was kind of those last months
were kind of a difficult moment for the

party, but it kind of all sort of

fell into place with the
political manoeuvrings and

the machinations just in time, really, in a

way, because I think maybe some of the

popular support for the Nazi party
was declining by the end of 1932.

July 1932 resulted in the question as to

now what part the immense Nazi party would

play in the government of the country.

The Nazi party owed its huge increase to

an influx of workers, unemployed,
despairing peasants, and

middle-class people.

They wanted a renewed Germany and
a new organization of German society.

Therefore, Hitler refused ministry
under Papen and demanded

the chancellorship for
himself, but was rejected by

Hindenburg on August 13th, 1932.

There was still no majority in
the Reichstag for any government.

As a result, the Reichstag
was dissolved and

elections took place once more in the hope

that a stable majority would result.

A combination of political and
economic dissatisfaction, some

of it dating back to the founding of

the republic, helped create the
conditions for Hitler's rise to power.

By drawing together the
fringe nationalist parties into

his Nazi party, Hitler was able to gain

a sufficient number of
seats in the Reichstag

to make him a political player.

I would strongly suggest
that the vast, overwhelming

majority of people who
voted for Adolf Hitler,

who looked at Adolf Hitler in the late

1920s, early 1930s,
suspected that the person they

were electing would
end up committing one of

the worst genocides
the world has ever seen.

Yes, of course they knew he was
anti -Semitic, but then a lot of people in

Europe and America and
elsewhere were anti-Semitic.

It was a pretty standard prejudice.

It's not acceptable, of course, but it was

out there and it was
just almost part of life.

You have something called
drawing of anti-Semitism

in which people were even in the
politest society were anti-Semitic.

The anti-Semitic nature of the Nazi party

wasn't hidden, but I think there was never

a sense that it would unleash the kinds

of policies that came
about during the 1930s

and indeed, of course, during the war with

the eventual genocide or attempt
to genocide of European Jews.

If Hitler was anti-Semitic, that
wasn't necessarily a problem.

And of course, just
because someone's a racist

doesn't necessarily mean they actually
want to go around murdering people.

So I think that, you know, Hitler, yes,

was unpalatable in an
enormous number of ways,

but your average voter
in Germany before the

Nazis came to power, he looked
like someone who had some solutions.

He looked like someone
who had vigour, relative

youth, strength, will,
this important word, will.

Hitler refers to the
triumph of the will often.

And so you think, well, actually,
Weimar's not doing much.

You know, you've got all these sort of

crusty old useless Democrats
not doing very much.

Why not make Germany great again?

Eventually, conservatives
hoping to control him and capitalise

on his popularity brought
him into the government.

However, Hitler used the
weaknesses written into the

Weimar constitution,
like Article 48, to subvert it

and assume dictatorial power.

In 1932, the Nazi party became the
largest political party in parliament.

It's the 1932 election when the Nazis take

230 seats in the parliament
that actually makes

everybody turn around and
realise this isn't just a kind of rabble.

This isn't just some kind of bloke who's

good at making speeches and,
you know, foam flecked oratory.

This is something more than that, that this

party has got an appeal
right across the board.

It's seen first as a bulwark, as
a barrier against communism.

Many Germans have seen
what's happened in Russia

and becoming the Soviet Union,
and they fear for that greatly.

But another thing that
Hitler also appeals to

is not just kind of the man
in the street, if you like.

What he's also done is had a lot

of very, very secret and important
meetings with German industrialists.

And he said to the captains of industry,

you know, he said to various financiers,
you know, I'm not a threat to you.

You know, I am not someone who
wants to sort of rip apart factories.

You know, I want to
work with you guys.

You know, I need your industrial might.

We all need your industrial might.

And so what he's doing is he's
appealing to both rich and poor.

So you see a lot of the kind of
Junker old school class have quite a

lot of respect for the Nazi
party and happily vote for him.

Franz von Papen stepped
down and was succeeded

by General von Schleicher as
Chancellor on December 3rd.

Schleicher's bold and
unsuccessful plan was to build

a majority in the Reichstag by uniting the

trade unionist left wings
in the various parties,

including that of the Nazis
led by Gregor Strasser.

This did not prove successful either.

Adolf Hitler learned
from von Papen that the

general had no authority
to abolish the Reichstag

parliament, whereas
any majority of seats did.

The cabinet, under a
previous interpretation of Article

48, ruled without a sitting
Reichstag, which could

vote only for its own dissolution.

Hitler also learned that
all past crippling Nazi

debts were to be relieved
by German big business.

Outmaneuvered by von
Papen and Hitler on plans

for the new cabinet and
having lost Hindenburg's

confidence, Schleicher
asked for new elections.

On January 28th, von
Papen described Hitler to

Paul von Hindenburg as only a minority part

of an alternative von
Papen-arranged government.

On January 30th, 1933,
Hindenburg accepted the new

Papen-nationalist Hitler
coalition with the Nazis holding

only three of 11 cabinet seats.

So Hindenburg himself
was not fond of Hitler.

He sort of very much regarded him as

this upstart, didn't
particularly like or trust him.

But I think what's important in this period

in the early 1930s is that Hitler's got

this entree to Berlin
high society, to those

people who have
influence with the president.

And they're, if not
exactly bending his ear,

they're kind of making
Hitler's path to leadership

a little bit easier in that way.

So that by the time that January 1933

comes and that Hindenburg
offers Hitler the chancellorship,

because not much earlier on he'd
rejected the vice chancellorship.

So Hitler wasn't having
the second position.

He wanted the top position.

So by the time that January 1933 came

and Hindenburg offered
him that position of chancellor,

he'd sort of accepted that this was going

to be the case because he wanted to

use the popular support
that the Nazi party had.

And again, I think the other thing about

Hindenburg and some of the other sort of

more conservative and
the kind of military elites

in German society, I
think they thought that

they would be able to keep
Hitler in control somehow.

So it was kind of almost wanting their

cake and eating it, but
of course they couldn't.

So they kind of thought they could use

Hitler's massive support
in this great electoral wave,

the kind of popular support of
the German people for this party.

So they kind of wanted to harness
and use that, but at the same time to

harness in the more violent side of the

party or the kind of ugliest sides of
the party and somehow to tame Hitler.

There's this idea that they'd be able to

assimilate him into what they wanted
him to be and to tame him out of the

worst excesses of the party.

Hindenburg, despite his
misgivings about the Nazis' goals

and about Hitler as a
person, reluctantly agreed

to Papen's theory that
with Nazi popular support

on the wane, Hitler could
now be controlled as chancellor.

After a brief struggle
for power, Hitler was

named chancellor in January 1933.

This would be the end
of the Weimar Republic.

When Hitler's appointed
chancellor in January 33, it's

very tempting to suppose that's it,
he's in power, he's totally in control.

You've got to remember that for the first

few years of the Nazis being in power,

they never really felt as in power
as we may today think them to be.

Of course, by the time the war broke

out, they had absolute control of
Germany and indeed other places too.

But actually, you only have to look at

the diaries of people like
Goebbels, the propaganda

minister, Albert Schwer,
who ended up becoming the

armaments minister,
people like that to realise they

were very worried and Hitler was very, very

worried about public opinion
because he was worried

that if public opinion
turned against him, he

would lose power like
any conventional politician.

So even though he had passed things like

the Enabling Act, which
had given him absolute

power and made him head of state and

had given him enormous powers to do what

he liked, he still worried that the German

people, if he put a foot wrong, would
turn against him and boot him out.

The Reichstag fire on
February 27th, 1933 was

blamed by Hitler's government
on the communists and

Hitler used the emergency
to obtain President von

Hindenburg's assent to the
Reichstag fire decree the following day.

The Reichstag fire is still
somewhat shrouded in mystery.

Who burned it down?

It doesn't really matter in the end because

what happens is that Nazis use the burning

down of the Reichstag in order to say,

there's a national emergency,
we need more powers

to deal with these sort of, you know,

Reds and communists and all these sort of

very dangerous figures
who are burning down the

Reichstag and things like this.

What will happen next?

We need more powers.

The Fuhrer, the leader, Adolf
Hitler, he needs more powers too.

And so what you have as a result

is the Enabling Act,
which ultimately gives the

Nazi party and Hitler absolute power.

But even then, they're still worried
about what people think about them.

You know, this is not a government that

actually wants to do everything
in defiance of the people.

It wants to do things for the majority
of the people, but it wants to do

it in a very Nazi way.

The decree invoked Article 48 of the Weimar

Constitution and suspended a
number of constitutional protections

of civil liberties, allowing
the Nazi government to

take swift and harsh action
against political meetings,

arresting, or in some cases, murdering
members of the communist party.

Within weeks, Hitler
invoked Article 48 of the

Weimar Constitution to
squash many civil rights and

suppress members of the communist party.

In March 1933, Hitler
introduced the Enabling Act

to allow him to pass laws without the

approval of Germany's
parliament or president.

This act would and did bring Hitler and

the Nazi party unfettered
dictatorial powers.

This bill, which receives
the necessary two-thirds

majority with the aid of the center party,

grants full legislative
powers to the cabinet without

requiring the assent of the Reichstag.

It is the formal basis of Hitler's power

for the remainder of the Third Reich.

To make sure the Enabling Act was passed,

Hitler forcibly prevented communist
parliament members from voting.

Once it became law, Hitler was free to

legislate as he saw fit and establish his

dictatorship without any
checks and balances.

Once Hitler has come to power, he
consolidates his rule extremely quickly.

And again, it's sort of
very unexpected from

the idea that they were going
to be able to tame this politician.

So it's a sort of sense of underestimation,

both of Hitler and of the Nazi party
as well, as something that was new and

that had a widespread appeal.

What Hitler did very quickly after he came

to power was to consolidate his control.

And he did this in
a number of ways.

First of all, by what
they call coordination

or the streamlining of society.

So again, it was, if anyone wanted
to belong to a youth group, it had to

be an Nazi youth group.

So all of the others were
destroyed or banned.

Destruction of the trade unions
as well, astonishingly quickly.

And that was the strongest and
biggest trade union movement in Europe.

And that's replaced by
the German Labour Front.

So this kind of process of
coordination, streamlining

society, trying to get people on side, and

then the other really important
developments through 1934

was, first of all, that the army had

to swear an oath of personal
loyalty to Hitler himself.

So it's not to the state anymore, but

a personal oath of
loyalty to Hitler himself.

And then of course, when
President Hindenburg died

in August 1934, it's kind of the last

sort of element of restraint or
possible control has now disappeared.

Hindenburg's death
is kind of the final nail

in the coffin of any semblance of sort

of the Weimar Republic or
any hope of liberal democracy.

He represents a kind of a
hangover from the Weimar period.

He was still the head of state.

He's now dead and gone.

So after all of the things that have

been put into place, like the Enabling Act

and other policies in those first
months, the Nazis came to power.

So now after Hindenburg's death,
Hitler's position is unchallenged.

He's the Führer, he's
Chancellor, and President all

rolled into one, as it were.

So he is the ultimate power
and the ultimate authority.

It now means that one man can
take on all the top roles for himself.

That man, of course, is Adolf Hitler.

The change in political
tactics and organization in

the mid-1920s allowed Adolf Hitler and the

Nazi Party to take
advantage of legislation and

gain the support of the German public.

The collapse of democracy
and the circumstances under

which Hitler was made
Chancellor in 1933 paved

the way for a dictatorship in Germany, and

the Nazi Party would
consolidate their power, leading

to a totalitarian state.

If you want to be a dictator and
your party wants to be the only party

in charge, what are you going to do?

Well, you've got to ban
every other political party.

So that's what Hitler does.

What else represents a
bigger threat to Nazism?

Well, communism and also
the trade union movement,

which is obviously
traditionally quite leftist.

So what does Hitler do?

He bans that as well.

So that's basically got rid of two massive

power blocks that can threaten him.

Now, what he does is he replaces things

like the unions with his own kind of

Nazi form of unionism, and you have all

these kind of labour fronts and various of

these sort of Nazi bodies
and functionaries who

run them who are all obedient to Adolf

Hitler rather than
potentially rivals to him.

Or they don't even represent
any other form of political thinking.

Everybody has got to feel
and think in the same way.

This is called coming together.

This is called Gleichschaltung.

And this is a really important part
of the kind of Nazi dream, if you like.

Everybody's marching in the same
direction, doing the same thing together.

This is not a place in which
individualism is to be encouraged.

With Adolf Hitler considered
the saviour that Germany

needed, the support and
political backing he obtained

allowed him to take over an entire country

with its people unaware of the
horrors that were about to unfold.