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History That Doesn't Suck
184: The Rise of Adolf Hitler: From Failure to Führer of Nazi Germany or the Third Reich
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Greg Jackson
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It's eight in the evening, November 8, 1923. We're in Munich, which is the capital of the Bavarian Free State within Germany's Weimar Republic, at one of the city's largest beer halls, the Berger Boykelle. Every seat is taken as 3,000 people, including government officials, influential conservatives, and plenty of average citizens, swig their beer and listen to Bavaria's General State Commissioner, Gustav Rieter von Kahr, speak about the future of Bavarian politics. But this night is about to take a far more dramatic turn than the State Commissioner realizes. Tell you what, let's step into a quieter, adjoining room, grab a Bavarian brew, and I'll fill you in on the situation. Here's the deal. 1923 has been a year of crisis for Germany, a Crisis rooted in 1919's Great War ending Treaty of Versailles. Per the treaty, Germany owes France, Belgium and Britain massive reparations and to pay, the defeated nation's new Weimar Republic, resorted to printing cash. Well, this caused inflation, so Germany stopped making payments. But in January, France and Belgium answered by sending troops to occupy western Germany's mighty industrial region, known as the Ruhr. The Ruhr's populace then refused to work. The Weimar Republic blessed their civil disobedience. But this state sanctioned passive resistance strike only kicked Germany's inflation into hyperinflation. As in, people's life savings became worthless overnight and workers daily pay was worthless by the end of a shift, the government polled its support for passive resistance and declared a state of emergency on September 26th. But that hyperinflation has continued. In fact, the exchange rate between the US dollar and the German mark, which was $1 to 4 marks and change before the war, is now $1 to 34.2 trillion. Yes, with a T 4.2 trillion marks. This economic crisis emboldened the far left's Communists. Entering the state governments of Thuringia and Saxony, they envisioned a Marxist revolution in October. But as German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann used his emergency powers to boot them from office and put down their insurrection in Hamburg, the communists were so called. German October didn't lead to revolution, it led to scores of dead and wounded. Meanwhile, the crisis has also inspired the far right's nationalists, including the man speaking in this very Munich beer hall tonight, Gustav Ritter Vanquart. Yes. Despite his appointment as State Commissioner with near dictatorial powers over Bavaria due to it likewise declaring a state of emergency on September 26, he too wants revolution. A nationalist dictatorship. He and his Triumvirate have advocated for this openly. Inspired by Benito Mussolini's recent march on Rome. They want to march on Berlin. But Gustav's toned down his rhetoric in recent weeks as it's become clear that his northern allies aren't willing to take the first step. Ah, but Adolf Hitler is willing. In fact, he has to act. See, Adolf's not only the leader of the 50,000 strong Nazi party, but the alliance of German nationalists and paramilitaries known as the German Combat League, Der Deutsche Kampfbund. And after months of tough talking speeches at rallies blaming Germany's ills on Marxism, pacifism, democracy and you guessed it, the Jews, he must act or lose control of his violent followers. But that's a problem since Gustav's iced him out of late. Or it was a problem because this triumvirate versus Kampfgund situation is ending tonight. And on that note, let's return to the hall. Oh, and don't forget your Seidel or beer stein. It's now 8:30pm Gustav's likely in the middle of denouncing Marxism when suddenly the beer hall's doors fly open. The heavy set, mustachioed commissioner falls silent as he and his audience of 3000 watch steel helmeted Nazi stormtroopers enter and set up a machine gun. As they do, a man in a trench coat with two pistol wielding bodyguards advances. Stepping on a chair, he begins addressing the room, but the excited and scared chatter drowns him out. No problem. He pulls his Browning pistol and fires into the ceiling. Terrified silence envelops the hall as 3,000 sets of eyes turn toward the man in the trench coat. A 30 something man with brown hair and a toothbrush mustache. Yes, this is Adolf Hitler. He announces that the Bavarian state government is deposed and makes the State Commissioner and his two other Triumvirate members, Army or Reichswehr commander General Otto von Losso and Bavarian State Police chief Hans von Seisse join him in a nearby room. As they exit, Hermann Goering assures the room that despite the guns, all is fine. They're all on the same nationalist side. Besides, he adds, you've got your beer now. Speaking privately, Adolf apologizes to the Triumvirate, but explains that he had to do this and that they have to carry out this revolution with him. Adolf envisions a new Reiss with him at the head, but the three of them beside him. And this, he says, is do or die. In fact, if they fail, his pistol has four bullets. Three for my collaborators and the last one for myself. Leaving the triumvirate to ponder the situation, Adolf returns to the hall. He addresses the 3,000 attendees, assuring them that they are on the same side. Tonight's actions, he says, are aimed at the Berlin Jew government and the November criminals of 1918. And as Adolf continues, he whips the hall around, magically transporting the crowd from fearful captives to frenzied supporters. He calls upon them to assure the Triumvirate that they support him. And as they do so with furious acclamation, as his ally, Great War General Erich Ludendorff, arrives. And as the Triumvirate gets on board and joins him on stage, the toothbrush mustachioed nationalist wraps his rhetorical masterpiece by dramatically proclaiming either the German revolution begins tonight or we will all be dead by dawn. Adolf's revolution is proceeding perfectly. Until it isn't his brown shirts and other Kampfbund paramilitaries meet with mixed success, then begin failing outright to take over their government, railroad and media targets. Adolf goes to personally check on one failure, and in his absence, General Erich Schludendorff makes a critical error. He trusts the Triumvirate is really with him and Adolf and lets them leave the beer hall. Big mistake. At 2:55am Reichswehr commander General Otto von Losser makes it known via the radio that he, the Triumvirate and their combined police and military forces oppose this couple. As morning dawns and despair washes over the Nazis and their allies, Erich Schludendorff suggests they march into central Munich with the hope that they'll inspire the people and armed forces to rally behind them. It's now a little past 12 noon the next day, November 9th. Bystanders both jeer and cheer as Adolf and some 2,000 men from his country Kampfbund approach Munich's large open square known as the Odeansplatz. They're armed, some with weapons taken from the state police that they overpowered at the Ludwig Bridge. They lucked out there, though. Police sympathies with their cause. Eased that first fight. But now they're about to contend with a much larger police cord. Suddenly a gunshot rings out. But from which side? No one knows. All that we know for certain is that the Kampf Wund breaks. And after a few minutes of furious shooting, the only would be nashnosed revolutionaries still at the Odean's Platz are either wounded or dead. Welcome to history that doesn't suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. Adolf Hitler had hoped to take over the Bavarian state government and from there to goose step in the boots of his fascist role model Benito Mussolini, by marching on Berlin just as Il Duce marched on Rome last year, as we know from the last episode. Instead, Adolf's Bir Hall Putsch, as his November 1923 insurrection in Munich is known, was a failure. It left 18 dead, four police officers and 14 members of the Kampfbund, dozens wounded, and landed Adolf in prison for high treason. Nonetheless, he manages to end Germany's democracy and emerge as as the nation's dictator over the next decade or so. How on earth does that work? Well, that's what we're here to find out. Today is the tale of Adolf Hitler's rise and his brand of fascism, commonly known as Nazism. Let me start by noting that Adolf's Nazism differs from Benito's version of fascism in Italy. Now I won't redefine fascism as we did that at length in the last episode. But I'll remind you that a challenge in defining fascism is that as a form of extreme nationalism, it emerges uniquely in every nation it infests. Thus we'll see commonalities as Adolf's brand of fascism will be every bit as nationalistic, militaristic, expansionist, authoritarian, dictator worshipping and Marxist hating as Benito's fascism. But Nazism will also be uniquely German and uniquely reflect Adolf himself. That's going to make Nazism, that is Adolf's National Socialism. And yes, I'll explain his intentional use of a Marxist term in his nationalist movement, uniquely and incredibly anti Semitic. In short, the Nazis will cast the Jewish people as their ultimate scapegoat, blaming them for Marxism and every ill suffered by the German people and therefore the ultimate enemy. That note or definition of Nazism made. Let me clarify further that we'll only begin to interrogate Adolf's antisemitism today. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of it in this episode. But the Nazi regime's hatred for the Jewish people is such a deep chasm of darkness with such large ramifications to come that it deserves its own episode. It will be our next one. In fact. That delineation will give us the time we need today to witness Adolf's evolution from uninspiring Austrian artist to Bavarian German soldier of the Great War, and from there into the leader or Fuhrer, of a fringe far right nationalist party that ultimately exploits interwar Germany's dire economic conditions, painful political polarization and apathy, if not disdain for the democracy of the Weimar Republic to become that republic's Chancellor and cause of its death in 1933, we'll then see how, with the help of men like Hermann Goering, Dr. Joseph Goebbels and and Heinrich Himmler, the Chancellor solidifies his power over the next year to become the dictator, the Fuhrer of the Third Reich, or Reich, also known as Nazi Germany. Finally, we'll end our tale in 1935 with the disturbing brilliance of the Nazi propaganda machine as we attend the Berlin premiere of the Adolf glorifying film the Triumph of the Will. It probably goes without saying that some of the tales ahead are unsettling, but please indulge my reminding you of that and that they're also important as they help us all recognize the dark places people and indeed whole societies can go. So if you're ready to face this first chapter of the insidious rise of Adolf and Nazism, Let us begin, and we do so by meeting the Hitler family in 19th century Austria. Rewind. In early 1876, Johann Nipple Machidle or Hutle, to use another variation of the careless ways family names get recorded in this era, took three witnesses with him to a notary office in the small Austrian town of Weitra. There, Johann Nippelmuk officially declared that his foster son, Alois Schickelgruber is in fact his nephew. That although Alois has carried his deceased mother's family name of Schickelgruber through nearly four decades of life, the long hidden identity of his father is none other than Johann Nipple Muk Hiddle's brother, Johann Georg Hitler. Hmm, an odd record to set straight this late in Alois life. Might it have something to do with inheritance tax? No matter. Three witnesses do the trick. The record is updated and still in this era of careless spelling, the notary writes Alois new last name, not as Hiedle or Hudle, but Hitler. Nearly 40 year old Alois does indeed take the new last name of Hitler. And following the death of his first wife, then second, he makes his mistress, Clara Pozel, his third bride. They marry in 1885. Four years later, on April 20, 18th, 1889, Clara gives birth to their fourth child and first that will live past infancy on the second floor of an inn in Braunau, Austria. That child is Adolf Hitler. Ironic, isn't it? Young Adolf Hitler, the future German nationalist who will obsess over racial purity and heritage, owes his own family name to a misspelled alleged clarification of his grandfather's identity. And I say alleged because this entirely questionable situation only makes historians wonder. Was Johann Georg really Alois Hitler's father? Or was it perhaps Johann Nepomuk using his dead brother's name to legitimize his own son with his sister in law, even if she wasn't his sister in law when she gave birth to alois back in 1837. A third paternal path that some have wandered down is speculating that Alois father, that is Adolf's grandfather, was Jewish. But historians consider that one untenable. The fact is, we'll never know exactly who Adolf's grandfather was, only that his family name change from Schickelgruber to Hitler was most unfortunate. As more than one of his biographers have joked, Heil Schickelgruber would likely have elicited only laughter. The mystery continues as we consider Adolf's youth. This is because the narrative crafting Fuhrer will later order documents about his childhood destroyed, leaving Us, mostly with sources that historian Richard Evans calls highly speculative, distorted or fantastical. Some aspects, like his love of drawing and cowboy Westerns or his leadership over a gang of six year olds, we can entertain. But others, like Adolf's claim about growing up impoverished, are demonstrably lies. After all, his father, Alois is an ambitious man, building a successful career as a customs bureaucrat for the Austro Hungarian Empire. It's his work that takes their small family to Passau in the German Empire in 1892, where some say that Adolf adds the lower Bavarian accent to his native Upper Austrian German. But while the Hitlers are solidly middle class and Alois is able to retire in the quaint village of Leondin just outside Linz, Austria in 1898, home life is complicated for Adolf, his two older half siblings and younger siblings, or sibling. As little Edmund dies from the measles in 1900, Adolf and Paula are now the only surviving children that Klara Hitler has brought into the world. Alois is at best distant toward his children, at worst abusive. He's quick tempered, prefers beekeeping, spending time with the kids, and gets frustrated that Adolf, whom he wants to follow in his professional footsteps, performs terribly at school. Conversely, Klara Hitler is the doting mother, understandable, she has lost four of her six children. Adolf will later say of his parents, I had honored my father, but loved my mother. On January 3, 1903, Alois dies. No longer pressured by his father, Adolf does even worse in school and at 16 years old in 1905, drops out. For the next two years, Adolf lives in an apartment in Linz with his mom, sister and an aunt, doted and waited upon as he draws, paints and enjoys Richard Wagner's operas with their heroic depictions of a mythic and glorious German past. Adolf will later describe these two indolent years as being like a beautiful dream. In fact, Adolf's interest in art has really taken off. He dreams of becoming a famous artist, but that means studying. Does he dare go away to study while his mother is suffering from breast cancer? For her part, his mother Clara is likely glad to see her aimless dropout and unemployed son find a path. Whatever the family discussions are, Adolf decides to go for it. He'll apply to the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts. It's an unspecified day in September 1907. We're in the Austro Hungarian capital of Vienna, where an 18 year old Adolf Hitler, lugging his paintings and drawings, is just stumbling onto the open space of the Schillerplatz. And that's when he sees it. Looking Past the impressive statue of Friedrich Schiller, he takes in a three story building, the upper two levels of which are covered with niches, each housing a breathtaking godly sculpture. Yes, this is the Academy of Fine Arts. And as he ascends its steps toward the columned entrance, Adolf is sure that this is but his first step to a glorious career that will launch him to artistic greatness. All that remains is to pass the examination. A cakewalk. Sitting with 112 other candidates inside the Academy, Adolf's brush glides across the canvas. Is he painting the expulsion from paradise of Adam and Eve? Perhaps Cain killing Abel? Both are options among a few others. But whatever his subject, Adolf has three hours to paint his masterpiece, and it works out. While 33 of the other candidates are booted, Adolf is invited back for round two tomorrow, at which point the paintings he brought will be examined. All is going just as the confident Austrian expected. Adolf returns the next day with his portfolio. But this is as far as his application goes. The examining professor concludes that his examples have inadequate few heads. Adolf presses for more feedback, and the rector tells him that he really doesn't have the chops to be an artist. There's no feeling in his soulless work, but his urban scenes are proficient, so he should consider architecture. Maybe, but that would be a lot of work for a dropout. Deflated, the formerly confident artist will later recall that this rejection struck me as a boat from the blue. And future generations will long wonder if the whole, whole world would have been better off if the Academy had accepted him. Worse news brings Adolf back to his mother's bedside in Linz. By the end of October, Dr. Idoua Bloch has to tell the teenager that his mother's breast cancer is terminal. It all stays by her bedside until she passes on December 21, 1907. The loss hits him hard. As Dr. Broch later recalls, I have never seen anyone so prostrate with grief. One theory about Adolf's rabid anti Semitism will later posit that he blames Dr. Boch, who is Jewish, for his mother's death. But that doesn't hold up. Adolf is actually grateful for the doctor's exceptional care and will ensure that he receives special protection when the Nazi machine annexes Austria in 1938. But now, in December 1907, orphaned Adolf is again rudderless. He returns to Vienna and lives off his inheritance and his aunt's money while living easy and making a second failed attempt at the Academy of Fine Arts. By the end of 1909, he's broke, renting a cheap room in a men's home, essentially a shelter, and forced to work for the first time in his life, the failed art student copies postcards depicting local Viennese architecture to canvas, then sells them. Is this when his anti Semitism takes off? He'll later claim that and he's certainly exposed to anti Semitic ideas in Vienna's newspapers. Mayor Karl Lueger is terribly anti Semitic. These influences only add to the earlier influence of Austria's deeply anti Semitic German nationalist Georg Rieter von Schoene, who would prefer to see ethnically German Austria dissolve its multi ethnic Austro Hungarian empire to to merge with the German Empire. This idea is nothing new. You might recall this Grossdeutsch vision of German nationalism from episode 128. But it goes to show how ubiquitous antisemitism is in Adolf's early years. Nonetheless, Adolf still has some Jewish acquaintances. The depths of his anti Semitism are yet to come. In May 1913, Adolf leaves Vienna for Munich, the capital of the Bavarian kingdom within the German Empire. Munich fits much better with Adolf's ideas of a Germanically pure life, even if that life still consists of little more than a cheaply rented room and painting architectural scenes. Yet that life is briefly interrupted. Adolf's failure to register for military service in his native Austro Hungarian empire has caught up with him. Fearing jail time, he reports to Salzburg, Austria, where he's quickly deemed too weak to serve. He returns to Munich deeply embarrassed. But in 1914 the Great War gives the dropout failed art student and never to be architect what he's always purpose accepted into the Bavarian army, he fights at the battle of Ypres that first year. He will otherwise serve as a trench messenger. Not that this is without risks. He's wounded in 1916 and twice decorated for bravery. Ironically, his second award, the Iron Cross First Class is thanks to the recommendation of a Jewish officer. And as you may recall from episode 147, Adolf is hospitalized after a gas attack, though scholars believe his temporary blindness is likely psychological. Either way, it's while hospitalized with the rest of the gas attacked 16th Bavarian Reserve infantry in November 1918 that Adolf learns of the war ending armistice and that a revolution ending the German Empire, the Second Reich, is underway. Corporal Hitler is devastated by the news. He feels betrayed. And he's not alone. Indeed, Germany changes dramatically with the end of the Great War. You can revisit episodes 146, 150 for the details, but as the Treaty of Versailles imposes a harsh post war world on Germany, as the empire is replaced by Revolution, flirtations with Marxism, then ultimately parliamentary democracy in the form of the Weimar Republic. The far right becomes convinced that the Jews and socialists are to blame for the loss of the war and the Empire. This so called stab in the back myth is utterly false. But between the rise of Bolshevism in Russia and the attempt at Bolshevism in the Bavarian capital of Munich, the information office of the Bavarian military administration is determined to stand against Marxism in 1919 by rooting out any leftist sympathies among the troops through far right RE education and by gathering intel on political parties in Munich. And this is where Adolf Hitler finds belonging in the post war world. Having nothing else going for him, he stays in the Bavarian army. And if he wasn't already sold on the stab in the back myth, his re education does the trick. His passionate hatred for Marxism and the Jews is obvious and he proves a gifted orator. He's soon teaching re education classes himself. It also sent to a meeting of the Deutsche Arbeiter Pathei, the DAP or in English, the German Workers Party. This small potatoes party was founded on January 5th, 1919 by toolmaker Anton Drexler and journalist Karl Harrer, their second attempt at a party. It's August 1919 before Adolf is sent to spy. But rather than simply gather intel, he is taken with their anti Treaty of Versailles nationalist and anti Semitic goals. He soon joins the party. He'll later claim he's the small group's seventh member, but in reality his member number is 555, though that number is an exaggeration too. The DAP started counting at 501 to look bigger on paper. His first official speech for the party is on October 16, 1919. It goes so well that he continues to speak for them, particularly as they make a first attempt at drawing a real crowd. It's 7:15 in the evening, February 24, 1920. Adolf Hitler is just stepping into Munich's historical beer hall known as the Hofbuy House. Pushing past patrons, he makes his way to its enormous banquet hall, the festival. And as he enters, he couldn't be happier. A massive crowd, 2,000 by his estimate, fills the space. Some are members of the German Workers Party, but many are not. Some are even communists. Following the first speaker, Adolf takes the floor. Standing in his army uniform before this rough, slightly inebriated lederhosen clad crowd, Adolf feels the pressure, knowing that if he botches this, the German Workers Party may shrivel up like so many others have before. So he hits his favorite part points, the ones that always prove popular. Adolf attacks the bespectacled politician we met in episode 146 who signed the November 1918 armistice, Matthias Erzberger, the Treaty of Versailles, and of course the Jews, to quote Adolf and police notes detailing the crowd's enthusiastic response to his anti Semitism first chuck the guilty ones, the Jews out, and then will purify ourselves. Monetary fines are no use against the crimes of fencing and usury. How shall we protect our fellow human beings against this band of bloodsuckers? With the crowd reveling in their shared bigotry, Adolf proceeds to share the German Workers Party's manifesto. Point 1 the creation of a Greater Germany Grossdeutsch that includes all ethnic Germans.2 the revocation of all great war treaties Jumping ahead. Point four expressly excludes Jews from German citizenship, and anti Semitism is laced through many of the points that follow. Ultimately, the manifesto calls for an expanded ethnic anti Semitic German nation under a strong central power, not parliamentary democracy. Leftists in the room shout down some of his points, far right followers fire back. But by the time Adolf's done, the room is largely with him, and later he'll romanticize this, barely noted by the press meeting of February 24, 1920, in his reading of the party's 25 points as the moment that a fire was sparked from whose embers the sword would necessarily come, which would restore freedom and life to the German nation. The deutsche Arbiter Parthei, I.e. the German workers Party, marks this allegedly monumental meeting by soon adding National Socialista or National Socialist to the start of their name, making them the nsdap. Though you and I will know these so called National Socialists by another abbreviation Nazi. Out here, it's not only the amazing views, but the way time stretches out a little longer, how laughter bellows louder among friends, and how the breeze hits just right at the summit. With alltrails, you can discover and experience the best of nature with over 450,000 trails worldwide and navigation right at your fingertips. Find your outside with alltrails. Download the free app today and find your next outdoor adventure. Get smoother, brighter skin instantly. In one easy step, Dermalogica's daily microfoliant gives you the smooth, glowy skin you want with without damaging your skin barrier. 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And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@indeed.com listen just go to indeed.com listen right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com listen terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need National Socialism an odd name for a far right fascist movement that hates socialists. And yet it's quite intentional. The term nationalism speaks to the far right, while socialism piques the interest of Marxists whom Adolf Hitler sees as potential converts. After all, fascism embraces some state ownership, and Adolf still offers an authoritarian state, though his is built on race rather than the proletariat. But even if the left shows up to a meeting angry, the Nazis don't mind a fight. Adolf has learned from the far left's communists how to control and intimidate in meetings. Moreover, he has organized squads which soon develop into the Strumapteilung, that is The SA or Stormtroopers, or even brown shirts. Yes, like Benito's paramilitary, Adolf is also known for the color of its attire, pulling from other nationalists already using the Hindu sun symbol called the swastika as an emblem of the unconquerable Germanic hero. Adolf also provokes with a flag that depicts this arm bent cross in black on a circle of white and centered on a red banner. It's an eye catching logo that angers the red flag waving left while simultaneously incorporating the three colors of the former German Empire's flag. And indeed, it's not long after he read those 25 points on February 24, 1920 that the Nazi Party becomes Adolf's party. Discharged from the army a month later, on February 31, he starts giving the party his full time attention. By mid-1921, he shouldered out all competition among party leaders and on August 1st of that year, he reorganizes the party with himself, holding Complete supremacy. He is the Nazi party's leader. It's or Anglicized it's Fuhrer. Meanwhile, Ernst Kum and Hermann Goering firm up the brown clad SA and in 1923, with a party of some 50,000 plus members, the command of a nationalist paramilitary combat league or Kampfbund. As well as crisis, communist insurrections, hyperinflation and internal division, weakening the Bavarian government and the Weimar Republic, Adolf seized his moment. That November he launches his beer hall putsch to seize the Bavarian government, then polo Benito Mussolini by marching on the national capital. But as we know from this episode's opening, Adolf's putsch fails and he's imprisoned for high treason. His sentence is five years. Yes, insane lenience for high treason. But let's recall that Bavaria's nationalist politicians have been cozy with Adolf and talked about revolution. They can't have Adolf talking, so they make sure a sympathetic nationalist judge oversees Adolf's and other putsch participants trials. Sent to a Kush prison in Lambsberg am Leisch, Adolf welcomes a constant flow of gift bearing visitors, reads and writes. Specifically, he writes his autobiography, Mein Kampf or My Struggle, as incoherent as a bad social media rant. Before others edit it, Mein Kampf hits on the imperial or expansionist component of fascism, which Adolf frames as the German people needing Lebensraum or living space. Adolf also elaborates on his anti Semitism. He'll hit this particularly in his later volume two, but in his view, Marxism is a Jewish idea and the Bolsheviks in Russia are simply the military arm of a Jewish conspiracy. Thus Adolf claims that once his Nazis sweep Jewish Bolshevism from Russia, they'll have Lebensraum for his master race. Mein Kampf doesn't sell well, and it won't until Adolf is in power. And just how does an incarcerated trader whose party is banned come to power? Especially since 1923's government destabilizing hyperinflation is over. Yes, the German economy is booming by 1924. That is in no small part thanks to US Vice President Charles Dawes. As we know from episode 156's coverage of the Banker VP's Dawes Plan, which uses US loans to stabilize Germany. And even as the latter returns to paying war reparations. Anyhow, it sounds like Adolf's dream of a Benito Mussolini style rise in Germany is toast. So how does he turn that around? First, Adolf is paroled in December 1924. That's right, he did less than a year for treason. Second, a Sympathetic judge lifts the ban on Adolf's Nazi party and his newspaper, the Racial observer, as Bavaria's state of Emergency ends in February 1925. Third, he gets the band back together. Although the Nazi party withered during his incarcerated absence, Adolf quickly rebuilds. And ironically, he's helped by his beer hall putsch, particularly because he took the fall for it. He's got hero status among far right nationalists. Adolf also now understands that his Nazi party can't ignore legality parties. It must compete in elections painful for an anti democratic party. But to quote Adolf's new friend and Berlin organizer, Joseph Goebbels, or Dr. Goebbels as the PhD in literature is often called, we are going into parliament to arm ourselves with weapons from democracy's arsenal. If democracy is stupid enough to give us free tickets and allowances for this disservice, that is its own business. We will use any legal means to revolutionize the current state of affairs. But even as the party grows its paramilitary organizations within the sa, they had bodyguards for Adolf, known as the Schutzstaffel or SS in 1925 and reorganized their adolescent indoctrination program, Hitlerjugen or Hitler Youth in 1926 and better organize across the nation. Their democratic aspirations are not working out. The Nazis are a blip on the Weimar Republic's political map. Without a crisis to push radical politics. They earned between 1.6 and 2.5% of votes in state elections in 1926 and 1927 and only 2.5% in the elections for the Reichstag or national parliament in 1928. Following that embarrassment, they switch from focusing on the working class to rural and middle class voters and downplay their anti Semitism to push unity through nationalism. This helps, but as we enter the year 1929, the same year that 40 year old Adolf meets a slender, athletic 17 year old blonde working as a photographer's assistant in Munich named Eva Braun, the Nazis get a leg up thanks to the Great depression. Revisit episodes 170 and 172. If you need a refresher on the stock market crash and the subsequent early Great Depression. But as we learned in 172, the Great Depression spreads to Europe. Germany feels it as the Dawes Plan's successor, the Young Plan collapses like a financial house of cards without US banks able to continue making loans. In 1930, Germany's unemployment shoots to 15%, about 2 million people. Suddenly parties saying that the Weimar Republic needs to go, which includes several far right parties as well as the Far left's Communists are making more sense. That's even the case as Chancellor Hermann Muller resigns along with his fellow Social Democrats after failing to win emergency powers in March 1930. That leaves the great war hero, the former field marshal turned president of the Weimar Republic, 82 year old Paul von Hindenburg. To solve the crisis, a staunch conservative, Paul makes the Center Party Chancellor Heinrich Bruning form a government without the Social Democrats, leaving him without a parliamentary majority. Little surprise then that when Paul makes his own play for emergency powers to bypass parliament through the Weimar Constitution's Article 48 in July, Parliament overrides him. Fine. Paul dissolves parliament and calls for new elections. The Nazis jump into action. Led by propaganda head Dr. Joseph Goebbels, they run a nationwide campaign with Adolf theatrically shouting at every event possible. That September, The Nazis get 18% of the vote, taking them from 12 to 107 seats, making them the second largest party in the multi party Parliament. Nonetheless, the Chancellor wisely excludes the Nazis from his cult list government. Banks closing, unemployment rising, the economy crashing. The Nazis point the finger at Communists as the two parties respective paramilitaries clash, leaving scores, if not hundreds dead in the streets. Between 1930 and 1932, President Paul von Hindenburg responds by banning the Nazis SA and SS thugs in hopes of ending the bloodshed. Meanwhile, in March's 1932 presidential election, Paul wins 53% of the vote, but Adolf comes in second with just less than 37%. Parliamentary elections that summer give the Nazis 230 seats, making them not the majority, but nonetheless the largest party in Parliament. That same summer, Paul asks his thickly mustachioed buddy Franz von Papen to serve as Chancellor. A Center Party conservative, Franz is not a fan of parliamentary democracy, lifting the ban on the SA and the SS to woo the Nazis, he has sufficient support to use Article 48 in Rule by Decree until November's election returns a slightly less Nazi parliament that then boots him from power. Ah, but France won't go down so easily. He convinces his dear friend Paul von Hindenburg to make Adolf Hitler Chancellor. They think that if Adolf is chancellor and two more of the total 12 cabinet posts go to other Nazis, Franz can serve as Vice Chancellor and keep the Nazis in check. So convinced, Paul appoints Adolf as Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Yes, Adolf is now Chancellor of the Weimar Republic. And for many historians, this is the day that the Weimar Republic dies after all. With the Great Depression pushing radicalization in a nation where palace political parties have paramilitaries and democracies, often viewed with apathy, if not outright contempt. Adolf is just one crisis away from killing parliamentary democracy. It's 9:30 at night, February 27, 1933. The President of Weimar, Germany's parliament, that is the Reichstag, Hermann Goring, is in his office at the gorgeous Baroque 18th century built Reich palace on the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin. He's working late, not unusual for the Nazi Reichstag president. He's been with Hitler since the early days. A Great War pilot who soared in the Red Baron's flying circus, Herman numbered among the wounded. At the Beer hall putsch, he took a bullet to the groin, a wound that led to years of opium addiction. He's cleaner now, functional, and in no small part thanks to the support of his beloved late wife Karen, who passed on two years ago. If only she could see him now, in his suit, his black hair slicked back, and President of the Heistag. But no time for daydreaming right now. Herman needs to focus on next month's elections and ensure that the National Socialists defeat the great enemy, the Communists. They must do so if they're to kill parliamentary democracy and move closer to establishing a decidedly nationalist and not Marxist dictatorship. Suddenly, his work is interrupted with a distressing report. Across the street, the parliament building, the Reichstag building is on fire. Throwing on his coat, Herman races outside to see flames leaping from the Heisteig's glass cupola. The nearly 50 year old Neo Renaissance home of the German government belches smoke as firefighters strive to stop the inferno within. Worried about family heirlooms in his Reichstag office and the tapestries, Herman enters the building through an underground tunnel. And that's when the cupola comes crashing game. On the other side of Berlin, Adolf Hitler and the deposed Emperor's son, Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, are enjoying dinner with Dr. Joseph and Magda Goebbels when a friend calls with the news. Dr. Goebbels doesn't even believe it at first, but soon he and Adolf are in a car, racing to the scene. They find Hermann Goring back in his surviving Reichstag office, the chief of the Prussian Secret Police, or chief of the Prussian Gestapo as it will soon be known. Rudolf Diels and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen join them. And soon they learn there's a suspect for this great crime of arson against Germany. Found shirtless and sweaty while trying to flee the burning building, 24 year old Dutch bricklayer Marinus van der Lubbe has all but admitted he started the blaze with fire starters and his own shirt in protest of the government's oppression of workers. And he's a communist. Marinus isn't German, nor is he associated with German Communists. But no matter. Adolf knows they have more than enough to spin this in the press to their purposes. He calls it a got given sir signal and predicts that same night there will be no more mercy. Now anyone who stands in our way will be butchered. Adolf goes with Dr. Goebbels to the Berlin office of the doctor's newspaper, the Volkersche Beobektag, where a new front page is prepared and made as inflammatory as the fire that nearly consumed the whole Reichstag. And as those papers hit the streets of Berlin the next morning, February 28, 1933, the Reich Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, has whipped up a decree called for the Protection of People and State. Commonly known as the Reichstag Fire Decree, it ostensibly empowers the state to protect and restore order after this act of arson, but in reality, its suspension of all sorts of personal liberties and civil rights, including the freedom of speech and we warrants for searches or arrests, gives Adolf the power to sweep up and mistreat his Marxist foes without so much as a pretext. With Paul von Hindenburg's consent, the Heistag Fire Decree takes effect that same day. For all intents and purposes, the reign of the Third Reich, or Nazi German, has begun. Right now at the Home Depot, you'll find storage solutions made to fit your needs. Grab an HDX Tuff tote to protect your tools, or keep your sports equipment contained with reinforced Snap Fit lids. 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If this sounds familiar, it might be time to talk to your healthcare provider and explore a different kind of schizophrenia treatment. Discover your possibilities@treatingscz.com the Nazis did not set the Reichstag fire, but they sure made good use of it. The March 5, 1933 election hands them 288 of Reichstag's 647 seats, or 43.9% of parliament. It isn't the outright majority that Chancellor Adolf Hitler wanted, But with the 8% taken by its nationalist coalition partners, that makes a majority. Hmm, still not big enough to guarantee Adolf can get the 2/3 majority vote of the Reichstag's deputies needed to constitutionally amend the Weimar Republic's already dead democracy. Democracy completely out of existence though. Or is it? The week old Heistag fire decree makes it so easy to arrest Marxists, even those elected to the legislature. Indeed, two weeks after the election, on March 20, Birhal putsch Wetteren and Reichswerer SS or SS commander Heinrich Himmler announces the creation of a camp to house Communists and if needed, Socialists, particularly either group's paramilitary members. In short, Marxist troublemakers or really any other political opposition to the Nazi regime. The camp is just outside the Bavarian town of Dachau. Two days later, on March 22, the first 200 prisoners arrive. With an initial capacity for 5,000, this camp will nonetheless fill quickly. 10,000 Bavarian Communists and Socialists will be arrested by the end of April alone. Meanwhile, just one day after this first and later notorious Nazi concentration camp at Dachau opens, Adolf makes his final and biggest Reichstag fire related power grab. On March 23, 1933, as the temporarily displaced legislature, the Reichstag meets in the nearby Kroll Opera House, the toothbrush mustachioed Chancellor gives a two and a half hour speech in which he claims Germany's dire situation. Its need for moral renewal requires amending the constitution to enable the cabinet to make laws. In other words, Adolf wants the Reichstag to hand the executive branch, which is effectively him, their legislative powers. As Adolf speaks, it isn't the nation's flag but a massive Nazi swastika that hangs behind him. It isn't the nation's police, but armed SA and ss, three thugs who menacingly fill the opera house and surrounding streets. Nor are the Reichstag's 81 elected communist deputies here. They've fled or been arrested with assurances that Christianity will be respected and their positions will remain. The conflicted and scared Catholic Center Party ultimately folds. Only the Socialists dare to say no. Thus, with 441 deputies in favor and 94 against, the Reichstag votes for the so called Enabling Act. In doing so, the national legislature has voted to make itself pointless, to destroy any remaining semblance of checks and balances and to drive the nail in the coffin of the Weimar Republic. The next month, April 1933, it becomes legal to fire civil servants for their politics or for being Jewish. A little over 400 judges, prosecutors and other officials are swept a as in May, state parliaments are dissolved as Reich governors are established, thereby eradicating any degree of state sovereignty and killing German federalism. In July, all other political parties apart from the Nazi party are outlawed. Books burn. The Nazi approved German Labor Front replaces labor unions. Germans with certain hereditary health conditions are sterilized. All this and more as Adolf Tyler tightens the screws through 1933. Meanwhile, the brown clad SA is having a grand old time, attacking, robbing and sometimes murdering dissidents and Jews. But are the Brownshirts, the very thugs who've been the muscle in this revolution, becoming too powerful? They number three to four million. As we enter the year 1934 and their stabs, chef Ernst Krum is spouting off about Adolf's stupid and dangerous advisors. In fact, word has it that Ernst and his SA want a second revolution to purge the nation of non Nazi elites and to see the SA itself evolve into a genuine militia, a real military. Well, Adolf knows that threatening old school right wing non Nazi elites and the German army or Reichswehr is a terrible idea. After all, the Reichswehr is the one entity still able to possibly stop him. This second revolution talk and any threat Ernst and his SA pose all have to end. And shortly after his dismal June visit with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini that we heard about in the last episode, Adolf decides to cut the head off the snake. It's just past 6:30 in the morning, June 30, 1934, and three cars cars are pulling up at the Hotel Hanselbauer in Bad Vise. It's a gorgeous little Upper Bavarian spa town nestled at the foot of the Alps in southern Germany. But the scenery is the furthest thing from Adolf Hitler's mind as he, Dr. Joseph Goebbels and an entourage of SS Police burst out of their cars and charge into the hotel. Dashing into one room after the next, Adolf and his cronies rip groggy hungover brown shirts wearing SA leaders from their beds, all conveniently gathered at this hotel for a meeting with the Reich Chancellor. Though this isn't the meeting they expected. Pistol in hand, a frothing, frenzied, raging Adolf charges into stabbed chef Ernst Khum's room, declaring to this longtime ally and party builder, Hum, you are under arrest. Utterly shocked, the brown shirt command commanders simply answers Heil Hitler. Breslow's SA division chief Edmund Hymas is found in bed with a blond 18 year old troop leader that is an 18 year old man. Dr. Goebbels takes note. He'll later make use of this and Ernst, his own barely secret homosexuality, to help justify today's attack. In his propaganda, Ernst Grumman and his men are arrested and taken to Stadelheim prison in Munich. Adolf marks six of Ernst's men for immediate execution without a trial. SS officers seize them, take them outside and declare you have been condemned to death by the Fuhrer. Heil Hitler. They've been gunned, the sixth down on the spot. Meanwhile, Dr. Goebbels telephones President Hermann Goring in Berlin with the password Kolibri, that is Hummingbird. With that, Hermann has Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler put his SS officers and Gestapo murder squads in action. They take out brownshirt leaders and Nazi regime foes old and new across the country. As for Stabbeschef Ernst Hum, he is provided with a newspaper the next day, July 1, announcing his alleged revolt against Adolf, dubbed the Krumputsch and given a pistol to kill himself. But Ernst won't go along with the false narrative. He refuses. So Dachau concentration camp commander Theodor Eicke and his deputy shoot the man dead. Nacht der Langen Messer, or in English Knight of the Long Knives. That's what this Adolf sanctioned SS and Gestapo murder spree of June 30 through July 2, 1934 is called. It certainly curbed any threat the semi autonomous SA posed, including Stabschaft Ernst Humm. About 50 of their brown shirt wearing leaders met their end. And over the next year the group's millions strong membership will drop by 40% as the mighty paramilitary doesn't die, but definitely devolves. Nor does the sa, which is now run by Viktor Lutze, continue to house the ss. Instead the Heinrich Himmler run and Adolf Hitler, loyal SS is detached and will continue to evolve into an increasingly powerful and elite Nazi force. But the Night of the Long Knives didn't just bring the Brownshirts to heel. From Weimar Republic leaders to the Bavarian leader whose speech Adolf interrupted with his beer hall putsch Over a decade ago, as many as 150 others were summarily executed. Still more were put on notice, like Vice Chancellor Frank von Papen, who's placed under house arrest. And it all pays off. Most Germans are happy, as is the Reichswehr and Adolf's inner circle, which is pleased to know that Adolf's and therefore their power are in no way threatened by the sa. In fact, the Night of the Long Knives only cements the army's ties to Adolf and his Nazi machine. Only a month later, on August 2, 1934, Adolf's last step to solidifying his power comes with the passing of The Weimar Republic's 86 year old president, Paul von Hindenburg. Even as Adolf publicly mourns the decades long public servant and war hero of several regimes, he exploits him, saying that in Paul's honor, the office of President should be retired. And it just so happens that Adolf has a new law already prepared. The law on the head of State of the German Reich that merges the President's powers with that of the Chancellor's. The law takes effect that same day, making Adolf not only the Fuhrer of Nazism, but the Reichskanzeller or the Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor. Adolf is now the dictator that he dreamed of being back in that Munich beer hall. In fact, he's so confident that he lets the German people vote on it in a referendum that same month, with a 95.7% voter turnout, it passes with 89.9% in his favor. Okay, most of Germany is indisputably with him. But did voter intimidation juice that number? Absolutely. The long anti democratic dictator wouldn't actually leave this decision up to the people. But you know what pairs well with intimidation? Propaganda. And Adolf has a new film to help with that. It's the evening of March 28, 1935. Riding in one of his favorite convertible Mercedes Fuhrer Adolf Hitler sits beside his dear friend and Chief Propagandist, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, as they wave to the crowd while pulling up at one of Berlin's finest cinemas, the UFA Palast Amso, the theater's extension. The exterior is adorned with several huge swastika flags while a massive spotlighted golden Reich eagle spreads its wings over the entrance. All this is to say one tonight is significant for them. And it is. This is the premiere of the film Triumph des Villens or Triumph of the Will. Come on, I'll fill you in as we find our seats. Here's the deal. Triumph of the Will is billed as a documentary, but it's pure propaganda. Even Dr. Goebbels would tell you that, and with pride. It was filmed at last September's Nazi rally in Nuremberg and is the work of the talented director Helene Amalia Bertarifenstag or just Lenny? Lenny made a solid propaganda film for the Nazis out of a 1933 party rally. But it's no good now because Stabbed chef Ernst H. Krum is in it. In fact, he's next to the Fuhrer in it. And after the Night of Long Knives, well, the first film is now as dead to the Reich as Ernst literally is. So here we are with a new film. Oh, and here are our seats. I know we're usually up front, but I thought the back row would do just fine for this one. Sitting, waiting. Finally, a beautiful brunette in her early 30s dashes into the theater. Ah, that's Lenny. Yeah, they held the start for her. Well, let's see how her propaganda turned out. With a powerful brass swelling, jagged white letters against the black background appeared declaring 20 years after the outbreak of the World War, 16 years after the beginning of Germany's suffering, after the beginning of the rebirth of Germany, Adolf Hitler flew to Nuremberg to review his faithful followers. The film then cuts to the point of view of the airplane in flight. It's exhilarating to see clouds from this view sweeping past us and below us. So few of us have experienced flying. Then suddenly, the sun shines through and our heavenly descent toward Nuremberg begins. Swastikas decorate the idyllic town's medieval tower, and the troops below wave while marching in perfect columns. In a show of brilliant camera work, we now cut between the airplane descending and panning views of immense crowds. As the plane lands, this sea of people gives way to a tidal wave of right arms rising at a slight angle and shouts of Heil. Heil. That builds, then erupts into a thunderous chorus of Heil Hitler. Then the Fuhrer Hind himself emerges from the aircraft, following Adolf into Nuremberg. The camera constantly shows Adolf standing tall in his Mercedes, low against the sun to create a halo. It gives a messianic, godlike feel. And Lenny did this on purpose. The director is intentionally invoking Christ's arrival in Jerusalem as she builds the cult of Adolf. We see close ups of adoring figures, fans particularly smiling blonde children and mothers, and smartly stepping soldiers whose very steps move in time with an orchestral score that rises and falls to convey triumphant militarism with peace and prosperity all at once. Somehow the message is clear. Germany loves their Fuhrer. The Fuhrer loves Germany, to use a phrase often repeated in the film, what? One people, one leader, one Reich. Triumph of the Will is an enormous success, and not just for Leni, who faints when Adolf presents her with a bouquet of flowers and a kiss on the hand. It sells more tickets than any other film in Germany in 1935 and will go down in history for its groundbreaking editing and camera work. And of course, for its true purpose for being Nazi propaganda that depicts the Adolf as the God he so desperately wants to be. And so we've witnessed the death of Germany's Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, a transition that was effectively done the day Adolf became Chancellor in 1933 and solidified when he subsumed the powers of the president in 1934. But you know, I'd hardly call his rise a triumph of the will. As Adolf's beloved propaganda frames it, he didn't have an original thought. The world he grew up in was steeped in anti Semitism and German nationalism. The anger and sense of betrayal he felt at the end of the Great War wasn't unique in the slightest. He merely exploited it. Nor could he have succeeded without a crisis. It's telling how his popularity skyrocketed amid the Weimar Republic's early hyperinflation, but failed harder than his art school application once the Dawes Plan stabilized the German mark. Only with the Great Depression and the return of dire economic conditions did his fringe far right politics manage to win a plurality and still not a majority of Germans. Even then, Adolf needed help. He benefited from Germany's brief experience with and underwhelming commitment to democracy. He exploited the people's fear of Bolshevism, particularly after the Reichstag fire. And he never could have done it without allies who, if you'll forgive the term, served as useful idiots, those traditional elites like Paul von Hindenburg and Franz von Papen who thought they could control him. And frankly, these are all things that we could broadly say about the rise of Adolf's hero to the south, Benito Mussolini. But even as we close the tale of Adolf's rise Preparatory to his 1936 Treaty of France with Italy's Duce and empire building in the name of Lebensraum were a far cry from taking in the full enormity of what the Fuhrer is unleashing, particularly against his ultimate scapegoat, the Jewish people. Next time we'll go far deeper into the history of anti Semitism and follow that history into the shattered glass strewn streets of 1930s Nazi Germany and the early years of the Holocaust. History that Doesn't Suck is created and hosted by me, Greg Jackson Episode researched and written by Greg Jackson and Will King Production by Airship Sound design by Molly Bachman Theme music composed by Greg Jackson Arrangement and additional composition by Lindsey Graham of Airship. 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