Hitler and the Nazis come to power

Narrator: Where we left
off in the last video,

in 1924, Hitler was in jail,

his famous coup d'état in 1923,

his famous Beer Hall Putsched
in Munich had failed.

He's now in jail, he's writing Mein Kampf.

When he gets out of jail, so
this is when he's in jail,

the Nazi party is banned
and a lot of the economic

turmoil that made the
possibility of overthrowing

the government more
likely, that we saw in the

early 20's, that hyperinflation
in Weimar Germany,

this was now under
control by the time Hitler

comes out of jail.

They had issued new currency,
it was far more stable.

To a certain degree the
Nazi's and Hitler were

starting from scratch,
although even at this point

Hitler continues to be an
ever growing influence.

He's a famous speaker,
there are more and more

people who are knowing about him

and who are following him.

Over the next few years
his book does get published

and it sells, actually,
tens of thousands of copies

over the next several
years, but for the most part

he's still a relatively small
actor in German politics.

But then we fast forward
as we get to the late 20s,

the Nazi's are gaining some influence,

but then in 1929,

(writing) in 1929,

you have a global change for the economy

of the world and that's the beginning of

The Great Depression.

In particular, what's often the first sign

that The Great Depression
was at hand is you have

the U.S. stock market
crashes in October of 1929,

famous Black Tuesday.

That was the mark of the beginning of a,

not just American Depression,

but a global depression.

So you have the whole world
going into a depression.

Anytime you have economic
turmoil it tends give more

energy to the more extreme parties,

whether it is the parties like the Nazi's,

who one could consider maybe to be on the

extreme right, or often considered to be

on the extreme right,
or maybe you could say

very nationalistic, or even the extreme

left parties who are obviously against

capitalist systems and whatever else.

So, by the election of 1930,
now we're talking about

Parliamentary elections and the Parliament

in Germany is the Reichstag.

(writing) The Reichstag, and I know

I'm mispronouncing it.

In the Reichstag
elections, the Nazi party,

for the first time is able to
have a significant showing.

It gets 18, it gets
roughly 18% of the vote

and a proportional
representation in the Parliament.

Now all of a sudden, this
kind of marks the beginning

of the Nazi's being significant,

significant players in German politics.

Then we get to 1932 and the economy is not

improving, it is only getting worse.

(writing) 1932.

Adolf Hitler actually
makes a run for President.

The current President at that point

is Paul von Hindenburg,
famous for the Hindenburg

line, later for the Hindenburg,

the Zeppelin, the famous
exploding Zeppelin disaster.

He was, with Ludendorff,
one of the two leaders

of the German military
effort during World War I.

He's President of the
Weimar Republic since 1925

and in 1932 he is able to get re-election,

but Hitler has a fairly good showing.

Hitler is able to get 35% of the vote.

(writing) Hitler gets
35% of the presidential

election votes, (writing) of the vote.

The Weimar Republic had
this strange system.

It wasn't quite a Presidential
system like the U.S.

and it wasn't quite a
pure Parliamentary system

like the current-day Germany.

The President was independently elected

and had some powers,
and then the Parliament

was also independently elected

and then they would
try to build coalitions

to have a ruling government.

Needless to say, 1932
Hitler is now a major actor,

the Nazi's also have a many, many, many

seats in Parliament.

Now, you have several
Parliamentary elections

as well in 1932 and as
we just talked about

two in particular.

In order for a government
to form in Parliament,

in order to find the
Cabinet and the Chancellor,

who essentially is the Prime Minister,

you have an election and
the different parties

get different amounts of votes.

If no party has a majority,
the parties have to form

a coalition that can make a majority.

There's a lot of horsetrading going on

with parties negotiating,
hey why don't we form

a coalition with each other, if we do that

maybe someone from my party can be

Minister of the Interior,
someone of your party

could be the Chancellor
and maybe we can get

a coalition together to
rule over the government.

But you have two Parliamentary elections

and no majority coalition forms.

(writing) So, two, two elections.

So this is Parliamentary.

So this is in the Presidential election,

Hindenburg is still President,

but Hitler has a good
showing and then you have two

Parliamentary elections.

(writing) Parliament elections,

or Reichstag elections
where you have no majority,

no coalition.

(writing) no majority, majority coalition.

The Nazi's continue to
be a major actor here,

they continue to have
more and more of a showing

inside the Reichstag.

Then by 1933 it's a bit of crisis.

So as we get in to early
1933 we have a little

bit of a crisis.

We have no government,
we have no Chancellor,

we have no Cabinet to
essentially be the executive,

the government of the
country because there's been

no major coalitions.

The Weimar Constitution
allowed a strange thing,

it allowed the President
to appoint a government,

appoint a Cabinet, a
Chancellor that might not

even be representative of what's

going on in Parliament.

So, Paul von Hindenburg
is convinced that ...

hey look, he was no fan, he
was no fan of Adolf Hitler

but he's convinced that look,

Adolf Hitler was your opponent if you make

Adolf Hitler the head of
an interim Government,

the head of an interim
Cabinet then that might

be a way to create some national unity

and then maybe we could
have some Parliamentary

elections that there can
be a majority coalition

and you could have, I guess you could say,

a more legitimate government take hold.

So, Paul von Hindenburg is convinced

and so he does, even
though the Nazi's are still

a minority party, even
though they weren't part of

any type of a majority coalition,

Paul von Hindenburg who is
not a fan of Adolf Hitler

appoints him as Chancellor.

This is in January.

So in January, Hitler,

(writing) Hitler is appointed Chancellor,

Chancellor, which is
essentially the Prime Minister

of the Reichstag of Germany.

Then we get to February
and events get really,

really, really interesting.

In February of 1933 you have a fire in the

Reichstag building in Berlin.

This is the Reichstag
building right over here

and it is on fire.

They find this gentleman
here on the scene,

Marinus van der Lubbe,
he is a Dutch communist.

It is essentially the blame is placed

as this was some type
of a, the beginning of

some type of a communist revolution.

This is used as a pretext.

Hitler then advises Paul von Hindenburg

to essentially use some
of his emergency powers

as President, which is
another strange thing

that the Weimar Constitution allowed for,

it allowed the President
under emergency conditions

to start to suspend civil rights.

This was an emergency situation

and so Paul von Hindenburg does that.

He essentially issues ...
once you have the Reichstag

fire (writing) Reichstag fire,

and then Hindenburg is
convinced by the Nazi's

to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree.

(writing) Fire decree,
which essentially suspends,

it gives the government emergency powers

and it suspends civil liberties,
which everything up to

this point now is actually legal,

this was actually allowed for in the

Weimar Constitution.

(writing) Suspends, suspends
civil, civil liberties.

And since there's no
coalition, the whole point that

Hitler's Cabinet was going
to be an interim one,

you have another Parliamentary election

coming in March with the hope of maybe

a majority coalition forms, but that March

election, especially with
civil liberties suspended

you could imagine that the Nazi's ...

and they have their paramilitary troopers

started intimidating other parties,

making sure that they had a better showing

at the polls, they started intimidating

other candidates.

The March election start to swing hugely

in the Nazi's favor, so
in the March election

they're able to get 44% of the vote,

which is still not enough, by themselves,

to form a government.

It's still not a majority,
but they're able now ...

they're now the largest
part in the Reichstag,

in the Parliament.

They're able to now form
a majority coalition,

and I guess you could
say more legitimately ...

although this was a
election of intimidation,

they were able to now form a government,

they're able to now form a government

based on a majority coalition

and Hitler remains Chancellor.

But then, this new Parliament passes the

Enabling Act in March.

(writing) Enabling Act, Enabling Act,

which is essentially an amendment

to the Weimar Constitution
which gives the Cabinet,

especially the Chancellor,
effectively the Chancellor

who's the head of the Cabinet,

legislative powers,
unlimited legislative powers

for the next four years.

So, it gives legislative powers

and remember we already have suspended

civil rights.

So, the Reichstag is
essentially giving over the

legislative powers,

(writing) legislative
powers, to the Chancellor

who happens to be, who
happens to be Hitler.

There was some check on
this by the President,

but then we have Hindenburg
dying the next year.

After this, after the
suspension of civil rights

and then the Enabling
Act shortly afterwards,

Hitler is essentially in full control,

Hitler and the Nazi's are
essentially in full control

of the German government.

At this point, Hitler is the dictator,

(writing) the dictator of, he
is the dictator of Germany.

They start to act fast,
they start to intimidate

other parties, they use violence,

they start to imprison
people and by July of 1933

... so they're acting very,
very fast, by July of 1933

Nazi's are the only legal party.

(writing) only legal Pot party

and they essentially have full control.

Now, this is how Hitler came to power

and the question that's probably circling

in your mind is, "Who did this fire?"

This fire was the catalyst,
although Hitler was

already Chancellor and
maybe he would have found

some way to get to power regardless,

but this fire, even
though there was evidence

that it looked like maybe
Marinus van der Lubbe

did it, it was blamed on the communist,

it was the pretext that was used to give

the government even more power,

especially the Nazi's even more power.

This is an open question,
one of those great

open questions, one of
those great open questions

of history.

Some people feel that maybe it was just a

communist plot, maybe it
was Marinus van der Lubbe

acting on his own and maybe
it just happened to fall

into the hands of Hitler and
they were able to use it,

while other historians
think that this was actually

a plot by the Nazi's to
create this emergency state

and Marinus van der Lubbe
was kind of a puppet

in this whole plot.

So, open question of
history, but needless to say

as we go from 1919 to
1933, Hitler goes from

a fairly unknown individual
to full dictator of Germany.