Nazi Party

Throughout the 1920s, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party tried to take control of Germany. At first they tried to simply overthrow the government, but the so-called "Beer Hall Putsch" failed and some Nazis were imprisoned (including Hitler); then they tried to take control legally, through elections. But they could never quite gain any traction. Germany's political system works sort of similar to Britain's- the party (or group of allied parties) that holds the most seats in the Reichstag (parliament) normally chooses the Chancellor, who is the person who actually runs the government; if there is no majority, the President (who is a powerful but mostly symbolic leader, similar to the Queen of England) can just choose one.

Between 1930 and 1933, the Nazis started making alliances with other right-wing parties, especially the Catholic Centre Party and the German National People's Party (Deutschnational Volkspartei in German, or DNVP for short). These other parties, mistakenly thinking they could control Hitler as a puppet, were able to convince the President, Paul von Hindenburg, to make Hitler the Chancellor since there was no majority party, and then hold elections. Hindenburg did so at the end of Jan 1933 (even though he personally disliked Hitler), and elections were scheduled for early March 1933.

However, six days before the elections were to be held, the Reichstag building was set on fire; a Dutch man who was a communist was arrested at the scene, so he and the Communist Party were blamed for starting the fire. Hindenburg issued an executive order, the "Reichstag fire decree", to give Hitler the power to arrest communists. However, Hitler used this new power to arrest communists, socialists and other leftists, and harass voters in general to ensure that his coalition would win more votes.

In the subsequent elections on March 5, 1933, the Nazi-DNVP coalition won a slim majority in the Reichstag. The Nazi party's 288 seats was not quite half of the 647 total seats- but add in the DNVP's 52 seats and they had the 50% needed to have a majority. The Catholic Centre Party was then brought in to ensure that the Nazis had a super-majority (66% of the total seats), so they could pass any bill they wanted, including constitutional amendments.

This right-wing coalition passed the so-called "Enabling Act" on March 23. This single law ended democracy in Germany. It was a constitutional amendment that took all government power and gave it to Hitler himself- he could make and pass laws as he saw fit. At this point, Hitler and his Nazi Party were virtually the undisputed masters of Germany, and only President Hindenburg, a World War I general and hero, remained as a check against Hitler's power- but he was very old and generally unwilling to get involved by that point. The ruling Nazis then began a process called Gleichschaltung ("synchronization"), whereby Nazism was further integrated into German society. Hitler would eventually turn on his Centre and DNVP allies and ban them too- only the Nazi Party was allowed to survive.

Nor was the Nazi Party itself immune to persecution. The Party had its own small army, the Sturmabteilung ("Assault Section", sometimes nicknamed "Brownshirts" due to their uniforms), or SA for short, whose leader, Ernst Röhm, had become powerful- which made Hitler worried about a possible coup d'etat. Additionally, there was a leftist faction within the party, led by brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser, which actually believed in socialism and hoped the party would adopt socialist policies. Hitler had both the SA and Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party wiped out in the "Night of the Long Knives" on June 30, 1934. Shortly thereafter, when Hindenburg died in August 1934, Hitler folded the Presidency and the Chancellorship together into the new position of "Führer" ("Leader"), which only he would hold.

The Enabling Act was only supposed to last for four years, but with the Nazi Party eliminating all internal and external opposition, it was very easy for them to keep renewing the Act every four years until their reign finally ended when they lost World War II.

Answer 1

So they could take their money and valuables to pay for their war. They were attempting to take over Europe. Many of the Aryans of Germany and Austria believed that they would be able to manage Europe far better than the mixed races that were running Europe at the time.

By selecting a class of people who were somewhat isolated from normal society, the Aryans were able to provide an excuse for destroying people who were "different" and at the same time create a common prejudice that has continued among the intellectually challenged to this day. Although many today claim to be "Aryan", or "Neo-Nazi", they usually have no idea of what it's about. Most who subscribe to that form of racism are either quite intellectually inferior or are borderline sociopaths.

It's a little remembered fact that "NAZI" is a German acronym for National Socialists Workers Party. NAZI's were attempting to engineer society through socialism and genocide.

Answer 2

Hitler had a whole book called Mein Kampf that explained exactly why he killed people. The really short abridged version is that he felt that these people were a step backwards in evolution, therefore, they had to be killed. Also, he didnt like morality and he claimed that the Jews brought morality into the world, which he felt should be destroyed.

The proof that it wasn't just political stuff, was during the end of the war he diverted valuable resources to killing Jews, even though they were badly needed at the war front. Historians speculate that if he wouldn't have spent so many resources killing Jews then he would have won the war.

Hitler didn't join the Nazis. He joined a very minor party called the German Workers' Party and transformed it into the Nazi Party.

After World War I, Hitler was recruited to collect intelligence on the numerous new political parties that were springing up everywhere in Bavaria. He was also trained and employed as a speaker to address returning demoralised German POWs who had been subjected to Bolshevik propaganda and re-instill in them a sense of national pride. At this time Hitler was starting to develop his political views and it is highly possible that he leant towards socialism - he was a soldier's delegate in the newly proclaimed communist Münchener Räterepublik (Munich Soviet Republic), however this was tempered by his pronounced nationalist views as well as his belief that the Jews were responsible for Germany's woes.

One of the parties Hitler was asked to report on was the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP (German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party), which propagated xenophobic, antisemitic, pseudo-socialist ideas. Hitler first visited a meeting of the DAP on 12 September 1919. He did not get involved in the debate until one of the speakers advocated that Bavaria leave the Reich. Hitler spoke and countered the speaker's arguments so eloquently that he was noticed by one of the party's founders, Anton Drexler, who then pursued Hitler to join the party. On 19 October 1919 Hitler joined the party as its 55th member.

Because of his talents as a public speaker and because of his forceful personality, The party soon began to draw large crowds, especially when Hitler was the main speaker. Hitler was so successful that, upon being discharged from the army, he was able to live comfortably from his speaker's fees alone. Hitler was involved in thrashing out a 25 point program for the party and at his his instigation, the party changed its name to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP)(National Socialist German Worker's Party). In July 1921 Hitler threatened to leave the party unless the party leadership was dismissed and he was elected party leader. The party realising that Hitler had been the only reason it had survived the last two years quickly gave in to his demands.

Brenden Lee

answer #2

those German people and those of Germanic ancestry that the party felt were members of the "Aryan race". They also were practical enough to try to get the local officials and government officials to join the party as a way of controlling the population.