Hitler's Rise to Power

Long-term bitterness, anger about the loss of the war and the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles instigated Hitler’s rise to power. Hitler was a clear nationalist and the loss of the war showed him that Germany was weak, incompetent. The Treaty of Versailles was hated among all Germans, including Hitler. They detested the Treaty and found it was unfair, especially Clause 231. This clause stated that Germany would be blamed for the war, this clause stood to diminish any national pride left. “All the problems which are causing such unrest today lie in the deficiencies of the Treaty of Peace which did not succeed in solving in a clear and reasonable way the questions of the most decisive importance for the future,” Hitler said in his speech to the Reichstag on the 17th of May 1933. This was said during Germany’s depression, when people started blaming this disastrous event on the Treaty itself. When they saw the second demand of the Nazi Party Programme (24 February 1924), which listed “The abolition of the Treaty of Versailles”. This was an extremely intriguing idea in the eyes of the German population. The idea of abolishing the Treaty was appealing due to the fact that all of the humiliation that Germany had suffered from because of the signing of the Treaty would disappear. Therefore, the people supported Hitler and his ideas. This played a role in his rise to power because with the public’s support and mainly their votes, Hitler would be elected to power easily. Other than his bitterness, his personal qualities eased many votes.

Being a brilliant speaker, organized politician, and having a presence, which was almost God like, Hitler’s personal traits played as an important factor in his rise to power. Hitler was a captivating man, who was extremely driven. He could change people’s opinions to his own through his massive self-belief upon the topic. His self-confidence, speeches, drive was very intriguing to the public. “But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought
to its end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from
now. I think you will find but few images of God, unless you want to
profane the Almighty,” Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10. This quote stands to prove that even through writing one can feel the motivation and genius behind this man. Even though his ideas were quite rational, they were delivered and explained in such a way that a person would be easily convinced. An example of how Hitler used his personality to his advantage is shown in the increase in the number of supporters of the Nazi Party between May 1928 and September 1930. In May 1928 the Nazi party had a total of 12 supporters. Then almost two years later, September 1930, the total number of supporters was 107. How did the supporters rise by 95 people in approximately 2 years? There was a sudden increase due to the fact that Hitler was allowed to resume giving public speeches in 1928. Obviously, his personal traits, and his brilliant speaking methods managed to persuade the public. Hitler having the ability to persuade a large number of people to support his party caused them to vote for him. Therefore, his personal qualities facilitated his rise to power. When Hitler couldn’t reach every person in the country, another technique was used, propaganda.

Propaganda was an effective techniques used by Hitler to rise to power. Hitler used propaganda to convince everyone that a root cause of their problems. The Nazi Party used propaganda through various medias (radio, posters, films etc.) and exploited the German population to believe that Hitler was some kind of God that could save them from the Jews. Not only did the Nazis use media as a method of Propaganda, they also used Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf. Within this book, there were many techniques and ideas upon propaganda and how it should be used. “No amount of genius spent on the creation of propaganda will lead to success if a fundamental principle is not forever kept in mind. Propaganda must confine itself to very few points, and repeat them endlessly. Here, as with so many things in this world, persistence is the first and foremost condition of success,” this statement extracted from Mein Kampf Chapter 6, War Propaganda, declares that propaganda should be easy and quick to understand and repeated constantly. This is seen in the figures below, the ideas of demolishing the Jews, and abolishing them from Europe is constantly repeated. These ideas triggered Hitler’s rise to power because the repetition of the abolishment of the Jewish community caused the public to believe that the Jews were the reason they were living in the terrible conditions they were and that Hitler was the only one who could protect them, their “only hope”. Therefore, propaganda was used to influence the German population to be manipulated to support the Nazi Party, which led to Hitler’s rise. But how was Hitler funded to produce all of this propaganda?

The funding of Hitler’s propaganda schemes played a major role in his rise. Without the funding, Hitler and the Nazi party wouldn’t have the ability to produce the various forms of media resulting in the failure of the Nazi Party. According to the book, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, written by Professor Anthony Sutton, the Nazi Party was funded by many major American companies, such as Ford. But Professor Anthony Sutton wrote that "General Motors, Ford, General Electric, DuPont," and other "U.S. companies intimately involved with the development of Nazi Germany were ... controlled by the Wall Street elite," such as "the J.P. Morgan firm, the Rockefeller Chase Bank and to a lesser extent the Warburg Manhattan bank." This proves that Wall Street funded the propaganda produced by the Nazi Party, and helped Hitler come to power. With all that money, Hitler had the ability to produce end less quantities of media. Therefore, money played a minor role in Hitler’s escalation to power because the money funded the propaganda, which convinced people to stand behind Hitler and his ideas, which then won him votes and elected him to power.

“He is guilty for the war!”
Person pointing at a Jewish man.
“He is guilty for the war!”
Person pointing at a Jewish man.
The Jew: The inciter of war, the prolonger of war.
The Jew: The inciter of war, the prolonger of war.