Hitler's Rise To Power

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Born in Austria in 1889, Adolph Hitler lived an unremarkable life for years. He saw himself as a great artist but failed the exams to get into art school. In 1913, he left Austria and enlisted in a Bavarian regiment to fight on the Western Front. After the war, he ended up in low-level political intelligence work for the army (Boyes and Lebor, 2001). How did someone with such a humble background become a world figure? Adolph Hitler became a political force because of his ability to seize opportunities and make wise connections.

Hitler was one of the most gifted speakers of the 20th century. He could captivate audiences or turn them into a frenzy. He quickly became the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, better known as the Nazi Party. He led it through disaster in 1923 to a national political breakthrough in 1930, and finally to the top of Germany in 1933 (Carr 1979).

Still, in 1929, Hitler was little known outside Bavaria. He seemed to be doomed to spend the rest of his career there on the fringes of political life. Many in Germany, particularly the middle class, feared the Nazi Party was out to destroy capitalism. Their tactics were decidedly anti-capitalist in an attempt to win over the working-class. Not only did they fail to gain the working-class, but also they alienated potential middle-class voters. They felt their jobs were being threatened by socialism and the Weimar Republic. The Nazi Party saw this and began to campaign to them. Hitler weeded out the socialist leaders in the party in an attempt to lose the socialist aspect of the National Socialist Party. He also abandoned his urban policy in favor of reaching out to rural areas. Finally his opportunity arose to prove to these people that there wa...

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...sts or Social Democrats they could find on the streets. He made great promises to turn Germany into a prosperous nation in four years, and once again, he seduced the greater population. He threw aside those who he had used to get to the top as they were no longer of use to him (Carr, 1979). So, you see how he made the most of his opportunities. He may have been a sick man, but he was brilliant.

Works Cited

Boyes, R., & Lebor, A. (2001). Seduced By Hitler. The Choices of a Nation and the Ethics of Survival. Naperville: Sourcebooks.

Carr, W. (1979). Hitler: A Study in Personality and Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Evans, R. J. (2004). The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin Press HC, The.

History Place. (1996). Rise of Hitler: The Republic Collapses. The History Place. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2

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