Nazi use of Violence to Gain Power in the Third Reich
Uploaded by LupinZX on May 26, 2007
Nazi use of Violence to Gain Power in the Third Reich
Hitler was a cunning man who used many techniques to achieve the success of the Nazi party and establish a dictatorship in Germany. Amongst these techniques, was the use of violence. In this essay I will determine whether the NSDAP's use of violence was the main reason why Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January of 1933.
In the early days of the Nazi party, Hitler believed that power could be achieved through a revolution, triggered by a single violent taking of an area in order to set off a series of violent take overs across Germany, the idea was taken from Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party's march on Rome which resulted in bringing Mussolini to power. This idea of a “March on Rome” style takeover lead to the Munich Putsch in November 1923. However, the Putsch failed, the authorities in Munich refused to hand the city over to Hitler, and Hitler's national support was severely lacking for any sort of national revolution. After the Putsch failed, Hitler was arrested and sent to prison which gave him time to rethink his strategy. He wrote down his political philosophies in his book “Mein Kampf” which he wrote whilst in prison. One major revelation was that he could not reach power by violence, and must go by the democratic process and enter into the Reichstag. This did not mean that Hitler would stop using violence to gain power however.
Hitler's main opposition in the Reichstag were the communists, the communists had many seats in the Reichstag and had links with other smaller parties. The Communist Party's own methods were perhaps more violent than the Nazi's. The Red Fighting Force was an organisation of militant communists who beat people up and forced them to support the communist party. The German people feared communism, and the Nazi party appeared to be the only group who were effectively combating the communists. Hitler used the SA to round up and murder communists, thus destroying opposition from them, and gaining support from the German people.
The Night of Long knives saw Hitler's new private army the SS gather and murder the SA hierarchy. Hitler put the murders down to the fact that the SA hierarchy were homosexuals. The SA preferred the socialist side of National Socialism, and were planning to rebel against Hitler and seize power for themselves. If...