How was hitler elected as supreme ruler?

Answer 1

He wasn't technically elected to any position. There's a little history involved.

Germany's system worked (and still works) in a manner similar to countries like Britain- the party (or group of parties, which is called a "coalition") that has the most seats in the Reichstag (their version of the UK House of Commons, or the US House of Representatives) is the party that decides who gets to be the Chancellor (their version of Prime Minister). In order to be able to reliably run things, the party (or coalition) must have a majority (over 50%) of the seats.

In January 1933, there was no party with a majority, so Hitler's Nazi Party allied itself with two other right-wing parties, the German National People's Party (usually abbreviated DNVP) and the Centre Party. The coalition convinced the President to appoint Hitler as the new temporary Chancellor after the last one had resigned; the President reluctantly did so. A new election was scheduled for the beginning of March. The Centre and DNVP leaders thought that they could easily control Hitler, so they helped him come to power.

A few days before the election, the Reichstag building was set on fire. A Dutch Communist was arrested and blamed for the arson; Hitler and the government insisted that this was the start of a Communist revolt and needed to be stopped. The President issued the "Reichstag Fire Decree" which gave Hitler power to stop the "revolt", by rescinding civil right and giving broader power to arrest people. Hitler used the Decree to not just arrest Communists, but also Socialists and other leftists. He also used it in general to intimidate voters into voting for his coalition.

About a week later, the election was held. Hitler's coalition was able to not just gain a majority in the Reichstag, but gained a supermajority (over 66% of the seats). With a supermajority, the coalition could pass any law they wanted, even constitutional amendments. At the end of March 1933, the coalition did just that.

The Nazi-DNVP-Centre coalition passed a constitutional amendment which is often called the Enabling Act. This law basically took all of the Reichstag's legislative power and handed it to Hitler himself. At this point, Hitler was virtual dictator of Germany; over the next year and a half or so, the Nazis changed the entire government to fit their views; this process is termed "Gleichschaltung", or "synchronization". They also banned all other political parties, even the Centre and DNVP.

In summer 1934, the Nazis eliminated all potential internal threats to their rule in the "Night of the Long Knives". The Nazi Party's private army, the Sturmabteilung (or SA for short) and the left-leaning Strasserites, as well as other ex-government officials who had resisted the Nazi takeover, were all arrested, and many were murdered without trial. In August 1934, the President died of old age, and Hitler absorbed the Presidency into the Chancellorship, creating the new position of Führer.

At this point, he was the absolute ruler of Germany, and had never technically been elected to anything.