1 Jan 1929 Jahr - The depression and the rise of Nazi's

Beschreibung:

Background info:
- In 1929, the US stock market crashed and sent the US into an economic crisis. This then led to an economic crisis in many other countries, but mainly Germany. American businessmen and bankers lost a lot due to the crash, which meant that the US had to ask the German banks to pay back all the loans the US had provided under the Dawes Plan. This was terrible for Germany, businesses went bankrupt, workers were laid off, and unemployment skyrocketed. And along with that, Germany still had to pay off the reparations of the TOV.

Due to this economic crisis, the Nazis became very popular very quickly. Their 25-point program became very liked by the public, and by 1930, the Nazis had 200 seats. They still did not have the overall majority, but were the biggest single party.

Why did the Nazis succeed in the elections?

- Nazi campaigning:
Hitler would make speeches, he would use films, radio, and records to spread his message. He was seen and portrayed as a man who understood the people and their problems. Slogans, to make them more memorable, “uniting the people”, and “going back to traditional values”, but they never actually told anyone what the slogans meant, this made it hard for people to criticize them. When they were criticized for a specific policy, they would remove it immediately. Nazis also helped the people, they provided shelters and soup kitchens.

- Negative Cohesion:
Nazis would gain an audience by sharing common fears and how to deal with them, things like “if you hate what I hate, then I support you”

- Disillusionment with democracy:
With the government at the time not being able to deal with issues and increasing the taxes making it hard on the public, the Nazis used this to their advantage to “prove” to the public that the current government was awful and that they should choose them instead. Unemployment was almost at 6 million, and the average German income had decreased by 40%.

- Communism:
The fear of communism grew slowly but surely, there were frequent street fights between communists and police, business leaders didn't like communism either because it would mean less profit for them, and farmers also didn't like communism because some farms were completely taken away from them by communist governments and millions of peasants had been killed in the process. Nazis then promised to help the small farmers.

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