Was There Anything Non-Nazi's Did To Accelerate Hitler's Rise To Power In The Early 1930's?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1e4cccp/was_there_anything_nonnazis_did_to_accelerate/

created by eat_those_lemons on 16/07/2024 at 01:36 UTC

321 upvotes, 6 top-level comments (showing 6)

I am curious if there was anything that Germans could have done differently that would have prevented things like the Enablement Act? However as "what if?" is ahisotorical I'm assuming that there were things prior to the Enablement Act that were miss-steps in the years leading up to 1933?

Comments

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Comment by YourWoodGod at 16/07/2024 at 04:05 UTC*

363 upvotes, 6 direct replies

The answer to this question is most certainly. I'm just going to discuss one facet of the answer to this question because it's what I know most about. There was a clique of conservative politicians in Weimar Germany that basically handed Hitler the keys to the kingdom. Their actions were the definition of fuck around and find out. After the death of Friedrich Ebert, I believe that the emergence of a right wing, authoritarian government in Germany was basically a foregone conclusion. Now, this could have definitely shaped up in a different way, but the Nazis played the game of politics much more cleverly than the other German nationalists.

It is no secret that Paul von Hindenburg absolutely DESPISED Adolf Hitler. He viewed Hitler as nothing more than "that Austrian corporal" and made it clear many times that he would never appoint Hitler as chancellor and give him the chance to form a government. Sadly, there were several powerful German conservative politicians and businessmen who were very keen to use the Nazis to their own advantage. The main instigator of Hitler's rapid rise was a German politician called Franz von Papen (who worked very closely with a far right German newspaper mogul named Alfred Hugenberg). Von Papen actually thought that Hitler was a simple man that would be easy to manipulate, and as a means to an end. Papen wanted to bring the Kaiser back to the throne and go back to the good ole days of the German Empire.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry however, and von Papen sadly was able to finally convince Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Reichskanzler. He convinced Hindenburg that Hitler was harmless, and that by stacking the cabinet with conservatives loyal to von Papen (the Nazis only had three seats in the first Hitler cabinet, they were however given powerful posts that were underestimated by von Papen) they would be able to stymie the KPD (German Communist Party) and the Social Democrats (who were never a favorite of Hindenburg). The Weimar parliament was notoriously awful at getting things done at the time due to factionalism, and sadly it had become normalized for Hindenburg to rule by decree using Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution.

The Reichstag fire allowed Hitler to make his case to Hindenburg for the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended some civil liberties. I am not sure when von Papen and other German conservatives realized just how poisoned the chalice was, but I am certain the death of Hindenburg solidified just how badly they had messed up. Almost before his body was cold, Hitler announced that the offices of Reichskanzler and Reichspräsident would be merged, creating Hitler as *der Führer und Reichskanzler* and cementing the absolute power he now held. Backed up by the Enabling Act, there would never be another serious political threat to Hitler's rule. I am sure there are many other non-Nazi segments of German society that helped the Nazis gain power, but this German conservative clique and especially Franz von Papen did probably more than anyone else besides the Nazis to elevate Hitler into the position where it was easy for him to seize total control.

Comment by crrpit at 16/07/2024 at 06:47 UTC

51 upvotes, 2 direct replies

You've gotten the part of the answer that points to the complicity of mainstream German conservatism, but there's also something that can be said about the ways in which direct opposition to Nazism before 1933 was sometimes counterproductive, as I go into here[1].

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/c9nds3/historical_opposition_to_facism/

Comment by [deleted] at 16/07/2024 at 07:35 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

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Comment by [deleted] at 16/07/2024 at 08:00 UTC

0 upvotes, 1 direct replies

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Comment by [deleted] at 16/07/2024 at 07:03 UTC

-7 upvotes, 1 direct replies

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