Why Was Hitler Accepted?

About six years ago, I had a different account on Writing.com (before it fell into disuse whilst I was at university and was deleted) and wrote a small article on what little knowledge I had at the time on how and why Hitler ended up coming to power in Germany (i.e. Chancellor in 1933) and eventually dictator (1934). Since then I've since gone on to study History at university and am now a History teacher in an 11 - 16 school in the UK, and teach a GCSE (the standard exam level taken by 16 year olds) in which one module is about Germany 1918 - 1945.

When I wrote that article I received some interesting feedback and replies, and one in particular has stuck in my memory. Somebody, who was kind in their comments on the piece, wrote that I had forgotten something - that "Hitler was pure evil." I'll take this opportunity to point out that I do not disagree with this, but thinking about it recently two things occurred to me. Firstly, somebody being "pure evil" doesn't really explain how they got into power. Secondly, it is surely contrary to human nature to allow a person so obviously 'evil' into a position of power - especially given that Hitler and the Nazis gained a strong foothold in the German political arena through being voted in, due to the desperation that ensued following the Great Depression (Germany being the hardest hit nation in Europe, having borrowed billions from America over the previous decade).

Even despite the desperation of millions in Germany in the early 1930s, is it possible for people to set aside their moral values and clear definitions of right and wrong to allow a man into power who promises "Work and Bread", alongside a series of promises to rid Germany of Jews and force women out of the workplace and back into domesticity?

It is at this stage that I wish to argue that Hitler did not come to power in Germany because of an evil nature nor some form of evil genius, and that people did not accept him because he was a despicable yet overwhelming force. Instead I wish to demonstrate that Hitler came to power as a result mainly of fortune, but was accepted because his views were not entirely radical at the time - not only in Germany, but also across Europe.

Unlike modern day politics both here in the UK and across the Atlantic in the USA, Hitler did not have any form of political manifesto on which he based the Nazi election campaigns. Quite the contrary - he made a big deal out of the fact that he had very few solid policies. He was open about the need to reverse the Treaty of Versailles that had been imposed upon Germany at the end of World War One, about rearming Germany, about dragging Germany out of the economic mess it found itself in following the Great Depression, and about ridding Germany of the Jews, whom he had labelled as the cause of the loss of the Great War and the driving force behind the economic situation.

The Treaty of Versailles had been humiliating for Germany. £6.6 billion in reparations was to be paid to the victors, Germany's army could be no more than 100,000 men, she had land stripped from her and perhaps most insultingly to the German citizens, she had to take full responsibility for the war. So repulsed by the terms was the German press that most newspapers refused to report it. The Treaty of Versailles remained a sore point in Germany throughout the 1920s, even during the 'Golden Years' of economic recovery after hyperinflation hit in 1923, following a failure to keep up with reparations payments which had resulted in French occupation of industrial areas. Hitler's promises to reverse the treaty and rearm Germany were not the ravings of an out-of-touch fanatic that fell on deaf ears, they were statements that appealed to a large cross section of German society.

The aforementioned 'Golden Years' were largely funded by American loans. The Dawes and Young plans had made reparation payments smaller, but to encourage a growth in business Germany had borrowed huge sums of money. The Wall Street Crash of 1929, leading to the Great Depression in the early 1930s, hit Germany like a train. Demands from America, who herself was suffering, to pay back the money almost crippled Germany. An anarchic voting system meant that Germany at this point had no strong governments who could make decisions and get them through parliament, rather a series of weak coalitions that collapsed when faced with tough economic questions. This is where Hitler was fortunate. Having been sidelined from mainstream politics for so long during the mid 1920s, people were prepared to listen to his promises of work and food should a Nazi government be in power. As a side note, Hitler delivered on this promise to a certain extent - public work schemes such as the autobahn building program got people back into work (the schemes were, however, on an inflationary basis that would lead to serious problems in the future).

Today it might seem absurd that Hitler's outspoken hatred of the Jews shouldn't prevent him from assuming a position of power through being voted in. However, it is beneficial to look at Germany and Europe at the time to gain a better understanding of this. In Britain, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosely, gave a speech to over 40,000 British supporters in the early 1930s. The fascist leaders Mussolini and Franco assumed power in Italy and Spain respectively during the same decade. In fact, Jews had a history of persecution in Europe, ranging from being expelled from England in 1290 to being blamed for poisoning the wells during the plague. The fact is that many people had been brought up among anti-Semitic views. It is no different to being told your entire life that 2 + 2 = 5, or that you should accelerate at traffic lights when they hit red. If you are taught something all your life, you have no reason to disbelieve it and see it as not normal. Interviews with many German World War Two survivors suggest that anti-Semitism was rife at the time. The Great Depression only accentuated this attitude; 1% of the German population were Jews, 16% of lawyers in Germany were Jews - statistics exploited by the Nazis when attempting to justify their anti-Semitism.

Incredibly brief as this is, I hope it has got my point across. Although it is clear to us today that Hitler was indeed "pure evil", at the time in Germany he was a man that many thought they needed to save their nation, and indeed his views may not have been all that more radical than certain sections of the German nation. I am, of course, aware that much is missing here, and indeed a historian can take up almost any view point on Germany in the 1930s and 1940s and argue it to effect. My view point, therefore is that instead of Hitler's evil nature being a reason for his success, I hope that I have demonstrated how Germany was in many ways a victim of her own circumstances.