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Nazi Seizure of Power
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The ideology of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party is presented in considerable detail in Hitler’s Mein Kampf and William Sheridan Allen’s Nazi Seizure of Power. The NSDAP used Hitler’s ideology and made them the focus of their party. These beliefs were crucial to the spread of the Nazi party in Germany. They were also used to determine who could join the party destined to seize power with the failure of the Weimar Republic. One of the main attractions of the Nazi party was that the Nazis presented themselves as the salvation for the masses hurt by the Great Depression. With the coming of the Great Depression, many political divisions formed in the Weimar Republic among the member parties of the Grand Coalition. Eventually the Grand Coalition collapsed over the issue of unemployment insurance for workers that were laid off by the advancing depression. In response to this failure, Paul von Hindenburg named Heinrich Bruenig chancellor, but this did little to help the situation of the average German citizen. At first the depression was hardly felt in the city because there was very little industry in Northeim. However, the Depression directly affected the working classes and scared many of the middle classes who feared the downward spiral of the world depression. “In fact, at the beginning of 1929 there were just five members of the Nazi party in Northeim, too few to even constitute a local group, the lowest formal unit of the NSDAP.” (Allen, 25) Allen argues that Ernst Girmann, the local leader of the Nazi party, used the Great Depression effectively to rally the people to the Nazi cause. They played on peoples fears of what the winter would bring and what evils will the Weimar government continue to let happen. In 1931, the Nazi party opened a soup kitchen to try and fight the Great Depression in Northeim. This soup kitchen fed many of the unemployed workers as well as kept SA and party members fed. In response to the Great Depression, the Nazi party launched a new propaganda campaign in the Northeim region with the goal of gaining people to their side against the evils of capitalism. The party held many meetings for the locals lead by speakers from outside the area that talked about how the Nazi party would save the middle class from the evils of capitalism. Large numbers of people suffered during the Great Depression and saw their entire economic security wiped away by it. Many people joined the Nazi’s because the party was so adamantly against the Weimar Republic and people associated their suffering with the failure of the Bruenig to do anything to help.
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