The Rise of Hitler - Kendall McIntyre

· 1919: Hitler joins the German worker’s party

· July 1921: Hitler becomes the Führer of the Nazi party

· 1923: France invades the Ruhr

· November 9th 1923: The failure of the Beer Hall Putsch and Hitler’s arrest several days later

· February 26th 1924: Hitler put on trial for treason

· December 1924: Hitler released from prison

· October 29th 1929: The beginning of the Great Depression

· 1932: Hitler runs against Hindenburg for the presidency, he loses but gains publicity

· January 30th 1933: Hitler named chancellor of Germany

· February 27th 1933: Burning of the Reichstag building

· March 23rd 1933: Hitler made dictator of Germany

Hitler was the aggressive leader of a single party Germany who was in charge of rapidly re-arming the country and quickly revived it to be the most powerful industrial and military power in Europe. Yet how did this man come to have such a great amount of influence on global politics? What sort of situation would have to have been present for one man to have held such a great amount of power??

Hitler had a very important skill in that he was a fantastic orator. This was due to his careful study the elements of speaking, and as such, he could at once strongly assert things and appeal to the emotions of the German masses. Otto Strasser described his ability as: "He enters a hall. He sniffs the air. For a moment he gropes, feels his way, senses the atmosphere. Suddenly he bursts forth. His words go like an arrow to their target; he touches every private wound on the raw, liberating the mass unconscious, expressing its innermost aspirations, telling it what it most wants to hear."

Indeed it was this very ability that first got him started in his political career, where, after an impassioned speech at a German Workers’ Party meeting, he was asked to join the party. Hitler was very pleased to find that this parties views were quite similar to his own, and thus he joined and began working feverishly in order for it to gain influence. Hitler eventually went on to change the party’s name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or for short, Nazi. In 1921, Hitler was made the chairman, or Führer, of the Nazi party.

Between 1921 and 1923, several economic events within Germany cause the Nazi’s to grow in power. The two most important would be demand of reparations from Germany for the damages caused in World War I, as well as the French invasion of the Ruhr after Germany stopped their payments. Both had the effect of causing tremendous inflation in Germany, thus causing the loss of many people’s life savings. The decision to resume payments by Germany’s government caused resentment in the people, and Hitler saw this as an opportune moment to strike. In November 1923 Hitler and his storm troopers began an uprising which would be known as the Beer Hall Putsch, which failed miserably and led to Hilter’s imprisonment.

However Hitler’s political career was far from over. After his release from prison in December 1924 he began on a long road of cunning propaganda and manipulation to further destabilise the already failing republic. Following the great depression, with unemployment peaking in Germany, the Nazi’s gained even more support and Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30th, 1933. From here Hitler tried to further his power by staging a communist uprising with the burning of the Reichstag building. He now had an excuse to conveniently arrest all of those who opposed him. On March 23rd of the same year, the "Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich" was passed in the Reichstag, which effectively made Hitler the legal dictator of Germany.