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9489 A Level HistoryRevision guide · Paper 4 · Hitler’s Germany, 1929–41

Hitler’s Germany, 1929–41 · 3.1

How did Hitler gain control of Germany?

3.1.1

At a glance

  1. Germany was a working democracy in 1929; by 1934 Hitler was head of state with the army sworn to him personally.
  2. The Wall Street Crash hit Germany as a credit problem, because the recovery had been paid for with short-term American loans.
  3. Majority government ended in March 1930 — nearly three years before Hitler took office, and conservative politicians ended it.
  4. The Germans who suffered most in the Depression voted left. The Nazi vote grew among farmers, shopkeepers and salaried officials instead.
  5. Nazi support peaked at 37.3% in July 1932 and fell to 33.1% in November, before Hitler was appointed.
  6. He was appointed, not elected, by men who expected to control him.
  7. Every step of the 1933–34 takeover was made to look lawful, and the threat was real underneath. Looking lawful is why officials, judges and soldiers went on obeying.
  8. The crisis of 1929–33 was deflation — prices and wages falling. It was not the hyperinflation of 1923, which is the easiest thing here to get wrong.

3.1.1Problems facing Weimar governments

How it happened

  1. was real, and it was borrowedGermany took 25.5 billion marks from the United States, most of it short-term
  2. October 1929: the Wall Street CrashAmerican banks recalled the loans; it reached Germany as a credit problem
  3. March 1930: the last majority government fallsMüller’s coalition of 301 of 491 seats split over unemployment insurance
  4. July 1930: Brüning dissolves the ReichstagHe did not have to; the election took the Nazis from 12 seats to 107
  5. 1930–32: government by 98 laws and 5 decrees in 1930 became 5 laws and over 60 decrees in 1932
  6. July 1931: the banking collapseThe failed on 13 July and Germany stayed on gold
  7. 1932: over 6 million out of workThe Reichstag sat for 13 days in the whole year

The explanations, and what is wrong with each

Argue

The economy is the only thing that changed on a large scale between 1928 and 1930, and it reached Germany as a credit problem before it became a jobs problem.

The recovery was paid for with American loans

Everything that looked solid in 1929 depended on money that could be taken back at short notice. When it was, German firms had nothing to fall back on.

The evidence
  • Germany borrowed 25.5 billion marks from the United States between 1924 and 1930, most of it short-term
  • Industrial production and national income each fell by about 40%
  • Unemployment still averaged 1.9 million in 1929, at the peak of the boom

Unemployment, 1929–1932

The headline figure is the one everybody knows. The useful figure is who those people voted for, because it is not who you would expect.

The evidence
  • Unemployment rose from 1.4 million in 1928 to over 6 million by 1932
  • Roughly one working-age German in three was out of work
  • Only about 13% of unemployed workers voted Nazi
  • The often polled over 60% in the poorest districts of Berlin

Farming was already in crisis from 1927

The countryside did not wait for the Crash. Farm prices had been falling for two years, which is why rural Germany turned radical before the cities did.

The evidence
  • Farming had been in recession since 1927, two years before the Crash
  • The Nazis already polled 17% in rural Schleswig-Holstein in 1928
But

Hardship on its own explains nothing. The United States and Norway took comparable unemployment and kept their democracies, and the Nazi vote fell to 33.1% in November 1932 at the worst point of the German crisis.

Argue

The two things that mattered most after 1929 were the end of majority government and the choice to cut government spending while the economy was shrinking. Weimar’s own politicians made both.

The last majority government falls, March 1930

split over half a percentage point of contributions. Neither side would move.

The evidence
  • Hermann Müller led a coalition holding 301 of 491 seats — over 60%
  • The insurance scheme had been built for 800,000 claimants; by 1930 there were 3.2 million
  • The SPD wanted contributions raised from 3% to 3.5%; the DVP wanted benefits cut instead
  • Hindenburg refused Müller the emergency powers he granted Brüning weeks later

Rule by decree, 1930–1932

Once a Chancellor could govern without a majority, the Reichstag stopped mattering, and governed on the President’s decrees. The job Hitler was handed in 1933 had already been made far more powerful.

The evidence
  • In 1930 the Reichstag passed 98 laws against 5 decrees
  • By 1932 it passed 5 laws against more than 60 decrees
  • The Reichstag sat for only 13 days in the whole of 1932
  • Brüning dissolved the Reichstag in July 1930 when he did not have to, and the Nazis went from 12 seats to 107

What Brüning cut, 1930–1932

Governing by decree, answered a collapse in demand by cutting his own government’s spending and raising taxes. That reached people who still had a job, a shop or a salary — and something to lose.

The evidence
  • Real state spending was cut by 15%
  • The federal deficit was 38% lower in 1932 than in 1928
  • In Prussia, housing spending fell 95.8% — the sharpest cut of all
  • Healthcare there fell 71.8% and education 28.2%
  • Salaried public employees had their pay cut directly by decree
But

They could not have fixed most of it. Versailles could not be undone, the army and the judiciary were never reformed after 1918, and no German politician could stop American banks asking for their loans back. If that is right, there was very little they could have done except cut — which is what .

Argue

The mattered because it was feared, and the fear was strongest among people the Communists never threatened.

The Communist vote grew, 1930–1932

Communist support was real and rising, and it fought the in the streets. A rising vote and street fighting made the threat believable.

The evidence
  • 13.1% and 77 seats in September 1930
  • 16.9% and 100 seats in November 1932 — nearly six million votes
  • Over 60% in the poorest tenement districts of Berlin

How shallow the KPD was

The party could win votes and could not hold members. Its kept it from working with the only party that might have stopped the Nazis.

The evidence
  • More than half of new KPD members left within months
  • The KPD called the SPD “social fascists” and would not combine with them
  • It never spread beyond urban industrial areas

Who the fear reached

Anti-communism did the recruiting, and it worked on people with something to lose rather than on the destitute.

The evidence
  • Two-thirds of early Nazi recruits gave anti-communism as their main motive
  • The fear was weakest among the poorest — the people the KPD really recruited
  • Contemporaries had no way of knowing how fast KPD membership turned over
But

The KPD’s strength was not only imagined. Rising Communist votes pushed the SPD out of working-class districts and forced moderate politicians into positions they could not hold.

Argue

reflected divisions that were already there rather than creating them.

The case against proportional representation

One seat for every sixty thousand votes and no threshold produced many small parties and no reason for any of them to combine.

The evidence
  • One seat per 60,000 votes, with no threshold
  • Twenty cabinets in fourteen years, lasting 239 days on average

The divisions were older than the constitution

The divisions were older than the constitution. A different voting system would have changed who held the seats, not what Germans believed.

The evidence
  • Most 1928 votes went to parties that supported the Republic
  • By 1932 two-thirds voted for openly anti-democratic parties
  • Ebert used 136 times — while defending the Republic
But

The constitution still handed the President a way to govern without parliament. Article 48 was written into it in 1919 and sat there until someone wanted it, and a system carrying that was doing more than reflecting the divisions.

If you learn four facts here, learn these

  1. Unemployment rose from 1.4 million in 1928 to over 6 million by 1932, about one working-age German in threeThe Depression
  2. Müller’s coalition held 301 of 491 seats and fell over raising insurance contributions from 3% to 3.5%Weimar’s politicians
  3. Two-thirds of early Nazi recruits named anti-communism as their main motiveFear of communism
  4. Proportional representation gave one seat per 60,000 votes and produced twenty cabinets in fourteen years, averaging 239 daysThe Weimar constitution

Names and events you should know

3.1.2Reasons for the growth of support for the Nazis, 1929–32

How it happened

  1. May 1928: the Nazis are a national irrelevance2.6% and 12 seats, about 1% in Berlin and the Ruhr
  2. But the party has already changed directionAway from the city worker, towards the farmer and the small town
  3. 1927–28: the countryside is already in revoltFarm prices collapse; the blocks auctions and organises tax refusals
  4. September 1930: 18.3% and 107 seatsAbout a quarter of those voters had never voted before
  5. April 1932: Hitler takes just under 37% in the presidential run-offHe loses to Hindenburg on about 53%, and becomes a national figure
  6. July 1932: the peak, at 37.3% and 230 seatsThe largest single party — and nearly two-thirds still voted for someone else
  7. : down to 33.1% and 196 seatsAbout two million votes and 34 seats lost, with the treasury empty

The explanations, and what is wrong with each

Argue

The Depression did not build the Nazi base — it enlarged one the party had already found and started working.

Where the Nazis were already strong, 1928

A national percentage is an average, and averages hide things. The map shows the party already somewhere specific.

The evidence
  • 2.6% and 12 seats nationally in May 1928, in the calmest year Weimar had
  • About 1% in Berlin and the Ruhr
  • Several times 2.6% in Protestant farming districts
  • A Protestant voter was about twice as likely to vote Nazi as a Catholic one

Farm prices had collapsed since 1927

Tariffs and relief favoured the big grain estates east of the Elbe. The small dairy and livestock farms of the north and west were left exposed.

The evidence
  • Farm prices fell from 1927, two years before the Crash
  • The of 1928: blocked auctions and organised tax refusals
  • In Schleswig-Holstein the protest ran as far as bomb attacks on tax offices
  • Catholic farming regions faced the same prices and did not defect

A national party machine by 1928

The party already had a distribution system reaching the whole country. When the crisis came, the message could be delivered everywhere at once.

The evidence
  • A national network of regional commands
  • Roughly 100,000 members by 1928
  • The same machine produced 2.6% in the same year
But

Organisation made existing support count for more; it did not create it. The 1928 map shows where Protestants turned radical, never why, and a party machine without a crisis had produced 2.6%.

Argue

The Depression mattered as a socially selective shock rather than as general misery: the Germans it hurt worst are not the ones who voted Nazi.

The three groups that switched

The growth was socially specific, and it came out of the liberal and conservative middle rather than out of the working class.

The evidence
  • Medium-sized Protestant family farms in the north and east
  • The old : shopkeepers and craftsmen
  • The new Mittelstand: salaried public employees, whose pay was cut by decree
  • Their votes had gone to the DDP, the DVP and the DNVP
  • About a quarter of the September 1930 Nazi vote had never voted before

The groups that refused

Catholic Germany and organised labour were offered exactly the same appeal and turned it down. Thick local institutions, not a different economic experience, are what protected them.

The evidence
  • Catholic Germany was about a third of the population and stayed with the and the BVP
  • Unionised industrial workers stayed with the SPD and the KPD
  • In Berlin and the Ruhr the Nazis polled ten points below their national average
  • About a quarter of Nazi voters in July 1932 were still manual workers — mostly non-unionised men in small firms and on the land

Spending cuts predict the vote better than unemployment

Comparing districts, the level of unemployment is a weak guide. Exposure to the cuts and tax rises is a strong one.

The evidence
  • Districts with the sharpest tax rises and deepest cuts gave the largest Nazi gains
  • True of vote share and of party membership alike
  • The swing voter was self-employed, a small shopkeeper or a public employee just above the poverty line
But

A pattern across districts cannot show why any single German voted. It shows which places moved, not which people, and one district can hold a ruined shopkeeper and a Communist labourer.

Argue

Propaganda did not create the anger; it turned anger that already existed into a single vote for a single party.

Goebbels takes over, April 1930

Nazi campaigning was centralised and professionalised at exactly the moment the Depression began to bite.

The evidence
  • Goebbels made Reich Propaganda Leader in April 1930
  • Hitler flew city to city in the 1932 campaigns, speaking in several in one day
  • A comparable organisation existed in 1928, when the party polled 2.6%

A different promise for every audience

The appeal was segmented, not uniform. Keeping the programme vague was a design decision, because it let groups who wanted opposite things vote the same way.

The evidence
  • Arbeit und Brot — work and bread — for the workless
  • Tariffs and cheap credit for farmers; protection from department stores for shopkeepers
  • Private property and anti-Marxism for employers; family and morality for women
  • Specific policies were quietly dropped from campaign material after 1928

The SA in the streets, and the money running out

The uniformed column advertised the disorder Hitler offered to cure. Marching men were also expensive, and by the end of 1932 the party could not pay for them.

The evidence
  • SA violence deterred many women voters before 1930
  • Nazi backing for a Communist-led Berlin transport strike in November 1932 sent middle-class voters back to the DNVP and DVP
  • emptied the treasury
  • The Thuringian local vote fell 40% in December 1932
But

The same campaign was aimed at Catholic Germany and the organised working class and made very few converts there. It worked where hardship had already made people receptive.

Argue

His popularity made the Nazis the largest party available, not an unstoppable one — and it was falling before he took office.

What Hitler added

One recognisable leader, sold as standing above party politics, and a programme vague enough for voters to read their own hopes into.

The evidence
  • Just under 37% in the April 1932 presidential run-off
  • “Hitler over Germany”: chartered aircraft, several cities in a single day
  • Modern dynamism set against an 84-year-old presidential rival

What Hitler could not do

The same speaker, the same ideas and the same machine had produced almost nothing four years earlier, and the vote was falling before January 1933.

The evidence
  • The same speaker took 2.6% in 1928
  • He lost the presidency; Hindenburg won with about 53%
  • July 1932 was the peak at 37.3%; November fell to 33.1%
  • Roughly two-thirds of Germans never voted Nazi
But

The cult was built by the propaganda office, which makes Hitler part of that machine rather than a separate reason for the vote.

If you learn four facts here, learn these

  1. The party had a national Gau network and roughly 100,000 members by 1928, and still polled 2.6%The Nazi party before 1929
  2. 2.6% and 12 seats in May 1928 became 37.3% and 230 seats in July 1932The economic crisis
  3. Goebbels became Reich Propaganda Leader in April 1930, and the Thuringian vote still fell 40% in December 1932 once the money ran outNazi propaganda
  4. Hitler took just under 37% in the April 1932 run-off and still lost to Hindenburg’s 53%Hitler’s personal appeal

Names and events you should know

3.1.3Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, 1933

How it happened

  1. July 1932: the Nazis become the largest party230 seats, and no majority possible without them
  2. : still largest, and shrinking196 seats, with over 60% of Germans voting for other parties
  3. Hitler refuses the Vice-ChancellorshipHe will take the top job or nothing, which narrows everyone else’s options
  4. Right, Centre and Left refuse to combineThe two parties could have stood together and never did
  5. Schleicher’s government fails, and Papen sees a route backHe inspires little confidence and will not act on the alternatives urged on him
  6. January 1933: Papen proposes a cabinet he expects to runHitler at the top, with only two other Nazis in it
  7. 30 January 1933: Hindenburg agrees, reluctantlyIt looked lawful: there was no coup, and nobody at the time said there was

The explanations, and what is wrong with each

Argue

The Nazis were the largest party and their vote was falling, which made Hitler impossible to ignore and far from inevitable.

Why Hitler could not be left out

No coalition could be built without the largest party, and none could be built against it either. The seat numbers are what forced the conservatives to deal with him.

The evidence
  • Largest single party in July and again in November 1932
  • Hitler had refused the Vice-Chancellorship and would take nothing less
  • He had run against a sitting head of state and done well

Why he was not inevitable

Across the vote was going down at the moment the decision was taken, which is fatal to any account in which rising support put Hitler in office.

The evidence
  • 230 seats in July 1932 fell to 196 in November
  • More than 60% of voters chose other parties
  • had emptied the treasury
But

Seat numbers explain why Hitler could not be shut out. They do not explain why he was picked, and the picking was done by a few men in a private room.

Argue

Blame belongs where a different course was open and refused — and on that test the leadership must take some of it.

Nobody would form a coalition

The two parties could have stood together, and never did. The failure belongs to the leadership as a group, not to any one man.

The evidence
  • Right, Centre and Left all refused to work together
  • They manoeuvred for position instead of managing the crisis
  • The KPD called the SPD “social fascists” and would not combine with them

Other policies were urged and refused, 1931–1932

A policy that is pressed on a government and turned down is a choice. A refusal is what turns hardship into a decision someone can be blamed for.

The evidence
  • Different policies were pressed on the government from 1931
  • The trade unions’ was voted down by the SPD in summer 1932
  • Devaluation became possible once Britain left the in September 1931
  • The economic historian Borchardt found the plans averaged about 2.3% of 1929 national income, so they were too small to have changed much

Hindenburg did not see saving the Republic as his job

The man with the constitutional power to appoint did not regard defending democracy as his role, so its safeguards were never used.

The evidence
  • He was ageing and visibly failing by 1932
  • Defending democracy was no part of his thinking
  • He is still placed among those who must take some of the blame
But

None of them wanted the outcome. Hindenburg appointed Hitler reluctantly, so this is a matter of how much blame each of them takes, not of who intended it.

Argue

Industry, the press and a neutral army gave the Nazis the money and the space to keep campaigning.

Who found the Nazis useful

Anti-communism and nationalism reached two different groups, and neither needed to like the movement to find it convenient.

The evidence
  • Anti-communism appealed to industrialists
  • Nationalism appealed to conservatives
  • Money and Hugenberg’s newspapers paid for repeated national campaigns
  • The army stayed neutral, so the one force that could have intervened did not
But

Appeal to elites is not evidence of mass support, and backing explains capacity rather than the decision. The appeal was real and it was not enough on its own.

Argue

Hitler was appointed by two men who believed they could control him, and who were still expecting to run the government themselves.

The cabinet Papen designed, January 1933

The containment plan was real, and it is visible in who held the posts. Papen expected to run the government and said so.

The evidence
  • Only two other Nazis held cabinet posts
  • The Chancellorship was offered and accepted within the constitution
  • Nobody at the time claimed there had been a coup

What they expected to happen

Neither man wanted a Nazi dictatorship. They wanted the Nazi vote inside a government they ran, and they thought the cabinet made that safe.

The evidence
  • Papen expected to run the government and said so to his friends
  • Hindenburg appointed Hitler reluctantly
  • Nobody at the time planned for what followed
But

Being wrong about Hitler is not the same as being innocent of the appointment. Hindenburg held the power, and he used it.

If you learn five facts here, learn these

  1. The Nazis were the largest party in July and November 1932, and fell from 230 seats to 196The Nazi vote in 1932
  2. Alternatives to the deflation were urged from 1931; the unions’ WTB- Plan was voted down by the SPD in summer 1932The failures of Weimar’s leaders
  3. Hugenberg’s newspapers and industrial money paid for three national campaigns in one yearSupport from the elites
  4. After the failed Munich Putsch of 1923 Hitler insisted on staying within the lawThe legal route to power
  5. Only two other Nazis held posts in the cabinet of 30 January 1933Papen and Hindenburg’s miscalculation

Names and events you should know

3.1.4Hitler’s consolidation of power and creation of a dictatorship, 1933–34

How it happened

  1. 30 January 1933: in office, not in powerThree Nazis in a cabinet of eleven, and no Reichstag majority
  2. 27 February 1933: the Four weeks after he took office
  3. 28 February 1933: civil rights suspendedThe decree was never lifted; roughly 100,000 arrests followed by the year’s end
  4. March 1933: the election falls short288 seats, with the state, the police and the SA campaigning
  5. 23 March 1933: the 441 votes to 94 — the cabinet can now make law alone
  6. April–July 1933: everything else brought into lineCivil service purged, unions abolished, parties banned, the signed
  7. 30 June 1934: the The SA leadership murdered, and a law passed afterwards to make it lawful
  8. 2 August 1934: Hindenburg diesThe offices merge and the army swears a personal oath to Hitler

The explanations, and what is wrong with each

Argue

The laws and the violence are not alternatives: the law only worked because of what stood behind it.

Civil rights suspended, 28 February 1933

Article 48 had been used for years. What was new was that this suspension of civil rights was never lifted.

The evidence
  • Free speech, free association, privacy of post and protection from arrest all suspended
  • Roughly 100,000 people in custody without trial by the end of 1933
  • Camps opened for the purpose

Force behind the Enabling Act vote

The Act’s margin looks like consent and was not. The opposition that would have voted against it was already gone.

The evidence
  • The Communist deputies were arrested or in flight before the vote
  • SA men lined the chamber while it was taken
  • The 288-seat March result had already shown that persuasion fell short

The purge, 30 June 1934

Killing without charge or trial, of Nazis and non-Nazis alike, with old scores settled in the same operation.

The evidence
  • The SA leadership was killed without charge or trial
  • Schleicher, Kahr and Strasser died alongside them
  • The killings began on the evening of 30 June and continued into July
But

Much of the consolidation was negotiated or self-inflicted rather than imposed, and that is the strongest evidence against terror as the crucial factor.

Argue

The opposition was not so much feeble as divided — the same failure that had produced the appointment in the first place.

Opponents crushed by force

One end of the spectrum was broken quickly, and by arrest rather than argument.

The evidence
  • The KPD was broken by arrest, not by argument
  • The unions were abolished in a single day in May 1933
  • Roughly 100,000 held without trial by the end of 1933

Opponents who surrendered without a fight

The other end dissolved itself, negotiated its own withdrawal, or abandoned its main weapon before using it.

The evidence
  • The Centre Party voted for the Enabling Act and then dissolved itself
  • Most other parties dissolved themselves before the July 1933 law
  • The SPD had already rejected a general strike
  • Little sign that judges, police, churches or universities would obstruct
But

At one end the opposition was not weak but destroyed: the KPD was broken by mass arrest, not by argument. Division explains the Centre and the SPD, not the Communists.

Argue

Hitler gave the army, the churches and industry what each of them wanted, and took in return the things he could not seize.

What the army was given

The generals wanted rearmament and disliked the SA’s claim on their status. The generals were given both, and the oath followed about five weeks later.

The evidence
  • Rearmament and higher military spending
  • The SA threat to the army’s status removed on 30 June 1934
  • The armed forces swore a personal oath to Hitler after 2 August 1934

What the churches and employers were given

The largest organised body outside the state agreed to leave politics, and employers were handed the destruction of organised labour.

The evidence
  • The of July 1933 guaranteed Catholic schools and clergy
  • Trade unions abolished in May 1933, their funds and buildings seized
  • The Civil Service Law of April 1933 purged the state’s own officials
But

The guarantees were broken later, and buying support explains capacity rather than the whole outcome. Whether the elites were the cause of the consolidation or its price is the real disagreement.

If you learn four facts here, learn these

  1. The Enabling Act passed 441 votes to 94, with the KPD deputies already gone and the SA in the chamberLegal methods
  2. Roughly 100,000 people were in custody without trial by the end of 1933Terror and violence
  3. Only the SPD voted against the Enabling Act; the Centre Party voted for itWeak opposition
  4. The Concordat of July 1933 traded Catholic withdrawal from politics for guarantees on schools and clergyDeals with the elites

Names and events you should know

Question stems, the arguments and the examiner tips are taken from Cambridge past papers, mark schemes and examiner reports. The content is written for this guide and is not Cambridge’s wording.