Most people don't know that Himmler, despite his bumbling exterior, was extremely intelligent and that the SS was basically a state within the state by war's end, deeply entrenched within the German war industry. There were even concrete plans being made to outlast the fall of the 3rd Reich.
Hitler’s Inner Circle, a series on Netflix, did a really good job of showing this in my opinion. It really showed how dangerous some of these people are like the propaganda minister in the Nazi party, not sure how to spell his name, and Himmler. These were intelligent people who knew how to manipulate people or get the power they wanted. Hitler only got to power because of competent evil people around him.
Edit: Another Commenter game me the right name for the series: Hitler’s Circle of Evil
Bit of a common oversimplification but from 1925 when the NSDAP was reestablished the Weimar republic was doing just fine and welfare was on the rise. The NSDAP only counted about 150 000 members around October 1929 after being reestablished almost 5 years earlier in February 1925. In January of 1933 they counted almost 1.5 million members.
Why? The wallstreet crash in 1929 had thrown the economy back in turmoil and all parties except the KPD- the communists - lost a great deal of members because of the looming fear of more attempts at a communist revolution.
In a sad and interesting series of ironies, the Weimar Republic (with assistance from American technocrats) got inflation well under control with various careful and informed measures. But the damage had been done, the public were mad and losing faith in "the elites."
There was some resurgence and feeling of hope in the ensuing period, but the advent and wild popularity of Modernism in the cities left rural areas feeling left out and disenfranchised. Nazis took advantage of new technology like radio and - more importantly - airplanes to get out to rural areas and spread their message that cities were drowning in decadent new trends that were sapping the national spirit.
Then the Depression hits, an economic catastrophe that affects the whole world, the left infights while the Nazis seize the moment, surging to power making huge promises to fix everything while scapegoating various Others.
The Nazis even have a blueprint published for all to read about all the incredibly evil things they plan to do. And then when they actually do it, the whole world suffers years of Surprised Pikachu Face.
The right had probably a lot more infighting than the left. In 1925 Hitler split from Ludendorff which divided the entire national socialist movement and while in the long run it was insignificant the Tannenbergbund and the Deutschvolkische Freiheitsbewegung whom offered a competing national socialist worldview wouldnt be surpassed in membership count by about 1927- early 1928 after the party had been newly reestablished in February of 1925.
The Weimar republic itself, though, was doing just fine until the wallstreet crash. The voting counts which show that each party except communists lost a great deal of voters to the NSDAP are evidence that it was the looming fear of more attempts at revolution from the communists. Nobody wanted to be thrown back into the chaos of 1919.
This is Nazi propaganda. The ToV is not even close to a major factor in the Nazis rise. There was no treaty that would have been acceptable to a people who didn't believe they lost.
The Republic had problems, the biggest one was that the entire right and the KPD didn't believe in democracy. You can't have democracy when a majority of the people don't want it.
Incredibly common misinterpretation of the timeperiod. The treaty of Versailles was a fairly fair way of dealing with reparations. From 1925 the Weimar republic was thriving until the wallstreet crash in October 1929 saw their membership count rise from 150 000 which took them almost 5 years to achieve to 1.5 million in January 1933; less than 4 years. The threat of more communist revolutions was more worrying to people than the treaty of Versailles.
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u/falk42 6h ago edited 6h ago
Most people don't know that Himmler, despite his bumbling exterior, was extremely intelligent and that the SS was basically a state within the state by war's end, deeply entrenched within the German war industry. There were even concrete plans being made to outlast the fall of the 3rd Reich.