Why a Dictatorship Emerged in Germany in 1933 and Not Before

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Why a Dictatorship Emerged in Germany in 1933 and Not Before

The Weimar Republic was bound to fail sooner or later given its

weakness at birth and the values it was associated with however as to

why Hitler was able to take power in 1933 and not before is an

interesting question that requires much thought and attention. It has

being proven throughout history that for extreme parties such as the

NSDAP or the Communist party to gain mass support there has to be an

economic crisis. The Nazi party was the one which eventually turned

out ahead of the others, partly because of their leader, Adolf Hitler

and partly because of their wider appeal and superior organisation.

After it was proven that to rise to power through revolutions and

coups (Spartacist revolt, Munich Beer Cellar putsch) was not

practicable, economic crises offered these groups their only means to

rise to power. There were economic crises in 1923 and during the 1929

- 1933 period, the earlier period was simply too early in the extreme

parties histories for them to gain any serious support however the

later one provided these parties with real opportunities to gain

popularity. Statiscally, Hitler was most popular in 1932, yet it was

in 1933 that he became chancellor, to explain this one must look at

the political context of the time which suggests that Hitler rose to

power not because he was destined to as the Nazi propaganda suggest

but because he was greatly aided by circumstances and other people’s

errors.

The only secure way to power is legal and for a normal political party

to rise to power it must either get a majority in the Reishtag thus

establishing it’s own government and leader or set up an alliance with

other parties so that between them they have a majority; extreme

groups failed to do this in the years preceding 1933 and that is why

no dictatorship emerged in those years. It is a fact that extreme

parties need an economic recession to do well during an election, in

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