Focus Study 1: The peace and the rise of dictatorships, 1919-1939
The conditions that gave rise to dictatorship in Germany, including Hitler's rise to power 1919 to 30 January 1933, the failures of the Weimar Republic, and the collapse of parliamentary politics
A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Core Study dot point on Hitler's rise to power. The Weimar weaknesses, the 1923 Munich Putsch, the impact of the Depression, the 1932 elections, the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933, and the verdict of historians including Kershaw, Bullock, and Evans.
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What this dot point is asking
NESA expects you to explain how Hitler moved from joining the German Workers' Party in 1919 to becoming Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Strong answers integrate four levels of causation: long-term Weimar weaknesses, the Depression, Nazi electoral strategy, and the elite politics of January 1933.
The answer
Long-term Weimar weaknesses
The Weimar constitution (August 1919) used proportional representation, producing fragmented parliaments (around 30 parties contested 1928 elections). Article 48 gave the President emergency powers to rule by decree. The Treaty of Versailles (June 1919) supplied the founding grievance, exploited as the Dolchstosslegende (stab in the back) by the nationalist right. Hyperinflation (1923) wiped out middle-class savings.
Hitler and the early Nazi Party, 1919 to 1928
Hitler joined the German Workers' Party (DAP) as its 55th member in September 1919. The Party was renamed the NSDAP in February 1920 with the 25-point programme. Hitler became Party leader in July 1921.
The Munich Putsch (8-9 November 1923) failed. Hitler used his trial as a propaganda platform, was sentenced to five years (served nine months in Landsberg Prison), and wrote Mein Kampf. The "stab in the back" myth, Lebensraum, and racial antisemitism were all laid out.
The Weimar Republic stabilised under Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann (Locarno 1925, League membership 1926, Young Plan 1929). The Nazi vote share collapsed to 2.6 per cent in May 1928. By 1928, Nazism appeared a marginal phenomenon.
The Great Depression and the Nazi breakthrough
The Wall Street Crash (29 October 1929) ended American loans under the Dawes Plan. Industrial production fell by 40 per cent. Unemployment rose from 1.3 million (September 1929) to 6.1 million (early 1932). The "grand coalition" of SPD, Centre, and DDP collapsed on 27 March 1930.
President Hindenburg appointed Heinrich Bruning Chancellor (March 1930), governing by presidential decree under Article 48. Bruning's deflationary policies (cutting wages and unemployment benefit) deepened the crisis. Parliamentary government effectively ended in March 1930, almost three years before Hitler's appointment.
Nazi vote share rose: 2.6 per cent (May 1928), 18.3 per cent (September 1930), 37.4 per cent (July 1932, the peak in a free election), 33.1 per cent (November 1932). The Nazis ran a modern campaign using radio, air travel, and saturation rallies. Joseph Goebbels coordinated the propaganda.
The Nazi voter base
The Nazi vote was disproportionately Protestant, rural, small-town, and middle-class (Mittelstand). The KPD held urban industrial workers; the Catholic Centre Party held the Catholic vote. The Nazis combined a youth movement (the Hitler Youth, founded 1926), a paramilitary (SA, 400,000 by 1932), and a women's organisation.
The Backstairs Intrigue: November 1932 to January 1933
Bruning was dismissed in May 1932 and replaced by Franz von Papen, then by Kurt von Schleicher in December 1932. Schleicher's attempt to split the Nazi Party by negotiating with Gregor Strasser failed. Papen, sidelined and resentful, negotiated with Hitler in early January 1933 at the home of banker Kurt von Schroder.
On 30 January 1933, Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor in a coalition cabinet of three Nazis (Hitler, Frick, Goering) and eight conservatives. Papen, as Vice-Chancellor, believed he could control Hitler. Papen reportedly told a colleague, "Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far into a corner that he'll squeak."
Timeline of the rise
| Date | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Sept 1919 | Hitler joins DAP | Beginning |
| Feb 1920 | NSDAP 25-point programme | Founding ideology |
| Nov 1923 | Munich Putsch fails | Hitler decides on "legal" road |
| Dec 1924 | Hitler released from Landsberg | Mein Kampf published 1925 |
| May 1928 | Nazi vote 2.6 per cent | Movement marginal |
| Oct 1929 | Wall Street Crash | Loans cut off |
| Mar 1930 | Grand coalition collapses; Bruning rules by decree | Parliamentary system breaks |
| Sept 1930 | Nazi vote 18.3 per cent | Breakthrough |
| July 1932 | Nazi vote 37.4 per cent | Peak in a free election |
| Jan 1933 | Hitler appointed Chancellor | Power transferred |
How to read a source on this topic
Section I sources on Hitler's rise are usually NSDAP election posters, photographs of unemployment queues or rallies, extracts from Mein Kampf, Goebbels' diary entries, or memoirs by Papen, Bruning, and Schacht. Three reading habits.
First, separate the propaganda from the electoral reality. A Nazi poster overstates support; the vote share is the harder data. Both are evidence, but of different things.
Second, fix the date precisely. A source from September 1930 (the Nazi breakthrough) is different from one from January 1933 (elite politics). The Depression turns the page.
Third, watch for retrospective self-justification. Papen's memoir (Memoirs, 1952) downplays his role in handing Hitler power. Schacht's defence at Nuremberg minimised his complicity. Treat memoirs as historiography, not as transparent fact.
Examples in context
Example 1. The Lipset thesis and the Nazi vote. Seymour Martin Lipset (Political Man, 1960) argued the Nazis were the party of the disaffected Mittelstand, a thesis Richard F. Hamilton (Who Voted for Hitler?, 1982) modified by showing strong upper-middle-class support. Ian Kershaw (Hubris, 1998) treats the July 1932 vote of 37.4 per cent as a structural breakthrough across class lines but concentrated in Protestant rural regions, while Detlev Peukert (The Weimar Republic, 1989) traces the disintegration of the Weimar party system from Bruning's deflationary decrees onward.
Example 2. The Goebbels Diaries on 30 January 1933. Joseph Goebbels's entry for 30 January 1933 records the torchlit procession through the Brandenburg Gate and his exultation that "it is almost like a dream, a fairy tale." The diary was published in English in selections from 1948 onward, and the full critical edition by Elke Frohlich (1987 onwards) is now standard. Kershaw uses it to show how the SA understood the appointment as a seizure of power; Karl Dietrich Bracher (The German Dictatorship, 1969) reads the same evening as the beginning of the legal revolution.
Try this
Q1. Source A is the manifesto of the 25 Points of the NSDAP (February 1920) demanding abolition of the Treaty of Versailles and union of all Germans. Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain how the early Nazi programme attempted to win mass support. [5 marks]
- What the marker wants. Identify the appeal to nationalist grievance, antisemitism, and economic anti-capitalism; pair with Munich Putsch failure and reorganisation 1925.
Q2. Evaluate the extent to which the Great Depression was the decisive factor in Hitler's rise to power between 1929 and 1933. [25 marks]
- What the marker wants. Thesis weighing Depression against Weimar structural weakness, Nazi propaganda, and elite intrigue of January 1933; Kershaw, Bracher, Evans cited.
Q3. Compare the views of Alan Bullock and Ian Kershaw on Hitler's personal role in the Nazi seizure of power. [10 marks]
- What the marker wants. Bullock (Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, 1952: personal will) versus Kershaw (Hubris, 1998: charismatic authority structurally enabled); judgement.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of NESA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
2022 HSC (verbatim)12 marksHow significant was the Nazi party to the collapse of the Weimar Republic? Integrate evidence from Source D and ONE other source from the Source Booklet in your answer.Show worked answer →
A 12-mark extended response requires a thesis, three to four developed paragraphs, source integration, and historiography.
- Thesis
- The Nazi Party was the central agent of the Weimar collapse from 1930, but its rise was made possible by structural weaknesses (proportional representation, Article 48, the Depression) and by elite miscalculation. The Party's significance was decisive but not solitary.
- Paragraph 1: Nazi electoral breakthrough
- The Wall Street Crash (October 1929) ended American loans under the Dawes Plan. Unemployment rose from 1.3 million (September 1929) to 6.1 million (early 1932). Nazi vote share rose from 2.6 per cent (May 1928) to 18.3 per cent (September 1930) to 37.4 per cent (July 1932). The Party offered work, bread, and national revival.
- Paragraph 2: Constitutional weaknesses
- Proportional representation produced 30 parties in the 1928 Reichstag. The "grand coalition" collapsed in March 1930. From 1930, Chancellor Heinrich Bruning ruled by presidential decree under Article 48. The constitutional system was already broken before Hitler took office.
- Paragraph 3: Elite miscalculation
- Franz von Papen persuaded Hindenburg to dismiss Schleicher and appoint Hitler Chancellor on 30 January 1933 in a coalition designed to "tame" Hitler. Papen reportedly said, "Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far into a corner that he'll squeak." Within eight weeks Hitler had broken through with the Enabling Act.
- Historiography
- Ian Kershaw (Hubris, 1998) argues Hitler became Chancellor "not by storming the gates" but because conservative elites handed him power. Richard Evans (The Coming of the Third Reich, 2003) stresses both Nazi political skill and the failure of the Weimar parties to coordinate against them.
- Conclusion
- The Nazi Party was the decisive but not the sole cause. Markers reward source integration, specific dated evidence, and named historians.
2022 HSC (verbatim)6 marksWhat are the values and limitations of Source C for a historian investigating the reasons for the rise of the Nazi party?Show worked answer →
A 6-mark source-analysis task requires balanced values and limitations.
- Step 1: Identify origin, purpose, audience
- Note the date, the author, and the genre. Common Section I source types: Nazi election posters, photographs of unemployment queues or rallies, extracts from Mein Kampf, Goebbels' diary entries, Bruning or Papen memoirs.
- Values
- A 1932 Nazi election poster reveals the appeal of the Party at its peak: imagery of work, family, and national revival; the target voter (often the unemployed middle class, farmers, or Mittelstand); the visual style of NSDAP propaganda. A photograph of the 1932 Reichstag opening (with SA deputies in uniform) reveals the breakdown of parliamentary norms.
- Limitations
- The source captures one moment, not the full causal chain. Propaganda overstates support. Memoirs by Papen, Bruning, or others are retrospective and self-serving. An election poster cannot show the elite negotiations of January 1933 that put Hitler in office.
- Wider knowledge
- Pair the source with the economic data (6 million unemployed by 1932, 37.4 per cent Nazi vote in July 1932) and the elite miscalculation thesis (Kershaw).
Markers reward balanced values and limitations, three to four substantive points from own knowledge, and the link to the Kershaw "handed power" thesis.
Related dot points
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- The conditions that gave rise to dictatorship in the USSR, including Stalin's rise to power after Lenin's death in 1924 and his consolidation through the late 1920s
A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Core Study dot point on Stalin's rise to power. The succession struggle after Lenin's death (1924), Lenin's Testament, Stalin's tactical alliances against Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin, and the verdict of historians including Figes and Service.
- The methods by which the Nazi regime consolidated power between January 1933 and August 1934, including the Reichstag Fire, the Enabling Act, Gleichschaltung, the Night of the Long Knives, and the death of Hindenburg
A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Core Study dot point on the Nazi consolidation of power. The Reichstag Fire, the Enabling Act, Gleichschaltung, the Night of the Long Knives, and the death of Hindenburg, with the verdict of Kershaw and Bracher.
- The peace treaties that ended World War I, including the Treaty of Versailles, and the impact of these settlements on Germany and on the post-war international order
A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Core Study dot point on the Treaty of Versailles. The terms (Article 231, reparations, territorial losses, military restrictions), the immediate political impact in Germany, and the verdict of historians such as Margaret MacMillan and A.J.P. Taylor.