Tuesday, October 29, 1929

• Wall Street Stock Market Crash • Depression: foreign loans dry up, exports drop, factory production levels fall, workers are fired, savings spent, banks fail, inflation sets in.

• By mid-1930, amid the economic pressures of the Great Depression, the German democratic government was beginning to unravel. • The middle class standard of living was ruined by events outside of Germany.

• Squabbling and inaction in a hopelessly divided Reichstag

Hitler’s New Strategy

• Not a putsch this time, but a legal power play.

• He gains support from German industrialists and upper middle class socialites not only working class toughs.

• He crafts a clear message to the German Public: telling them what they wanted to hear.

Article 48 Invoked

• To break the bitter stalemate in the Reichstag, Chancellor Bruenig went to President Hindenburg and asked the old general to invoke Article 48 of the German constitution which gave emergency powers to the president to rule by decree.

• Huge Protest from Left • New Elections Set for September of 1930

Nazi Election Campaign

• a modern whirlwind campaign: – Hitler traveled the country delivering dozens of major speeches, attending meetings, shaking hands.

– Goebbels brilliantly organized thousands of meetings, torchlight parades, plastered posters everywhere and printed millions of copies of special editions of Nazi newspapers.

– Hitler Speaks to the Youth of Germany (video) • Hitler’s message: something for everybody: sound-bytes: promises of a return to ancient German greatness in a glorious future.

Nazis Achieve Respectability

• September 14, 1930, the Nazis received 6,371,000 votes, over 18% of the total, 107 seats in the Reichstag • Money was flowing in from German industrialists who saw the Nazis as the wave of the future and from the Army General Staff who believed Hitler would repudiate the Versailles treaty • In the midst of the depression, the people got nothing but indecision from their elected leaders. In ever growing numbers they turned to the decisive man, Adolf Hitler, and his promises for a better future.

1932 Presidential Election

• Hindenburg vs. Hitler • "Freedom and Bread," furious Nazi propaganda campaign: rallies, posters, leaflets, films. Hitler criss-crosses Germany in an airplane • With six million unemployed, chaos in Berlin, starvation and ruin, the threat of Marxism, and a very uncertain future – the German People turned to Hitler by the millions.

• Hitler 13,418,547 or 36%; Hindenburg 19,359,983 or 53%

Support for Chancellor Bruening Wanes

• Over 400,000 storm troopers, under the leadership of SA Chief Ernst Röhm, march. Street violence against Communists.

• April of 1932, Chancellor Bruening invokes Article 48 of the constitution and issues a decree banning the SA and SS all across Germany • Bruening also invokes Article 48 of the German constitution several times to break the political stalemate in Berlin. • Bruening also proposes that the huge estates of bankrupt aristocrats be divided up and given to peasants, sounding like a Marxist.

Weimar’s Death Throes

• Schleicher, then von Papen become Chancellor • Ban on SS and SA is lifted • Street Rioting continues between SA Brown Shirts and Communists • July elections campaigns: Hitler is now speaking to adoring German audiences of up to 100,000 at a time. • On July 31, the people vote and give the Nazis 13,745,000 votes, 37% of the total, granting them 230 seats in the Reichstag. The Nazi party is now the largest and most powerful in Germany.

Weimar Death Throes

• On November 17, Papen informs Hindenburg that he is unable to form a working coalition.

• On November 21, Hitler reads a prepared statement claiming that parliamentary government has failed and only the Nazis can stop the spread of Communism.

Weimar Death Throes

• The big bankers and industrialists who had petitioned Hindenburg on behalf of Hitler still like the idea of Hitler in power • Around noon on January 30, 1933, a new chapter in German history began as a teary-eyed Adolf Hitler emerged from the presidential palace as Chancellor of the German Nation.

• "We've done it! We've done it!" - a jubilant Adolf Hitler exclaimed.