Hitler's Appointment as Chancellor in 1933

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Hitler's Appointment as Chancellor in 1933

A combination of factors led to Hitler being given the position of

Chancellor (the second-highest post of the then current German

government) on the 30th of January 1933. The final, direct reasons for

his selection were political, but Hitler was only able to reach that

point through appealing to the German public. It was not too hard for

Hitler to impress the average German: He was by far the most

promising. His promises were not aimed at being better than the other

parties; instead he told the people he would give them what they

wanted.

For one thing, he promised to create jobs, which was quite attractive

to the Six million unemployed Germans at the time. The Depression had

hit Germany harder than most countries because it was only able to

function economically because of the massive loans from the U.S.A.,

and when Wall Street crashed the U.S. demanded immediate reimbursement

to help get its own economy back on its feet. This was devastating for

the German economy, however. He pledged that he would give jobs to

everyone left jobless by the disaster – a hugely significant

percentage of the voting population, roughly 34% of the work force (a

little more than 9% of the total population). This gave him an edge

over the competition, who were to busy arguing amongst one another to

worry about trivial details[1] such as voter support.

This leads to another important reason why the Nazis were able to gain

support and Hitler’s eventual Chancellorship: the opposing parties

weaknesses. The raising unemployment caused the people to blame the

Weimar parties (the majority at the time) for failing to prevent

Germanys’ economic decline, and supported the Nazis instead[2]. This

was ideal for the Nazis, because it weakened their main rival and

strengthened themselves. Also, Germans citizens’ fear of communism was

increasing (on average). The Nazis’ propaganda chiefs noticed this and

immediately increased advertisement of the Nazi party’s long-standing

public opposition to communism. It worked, and again their popularity

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