How did hitler gain control of the German people?

Germans - Hitler
TerryGallagher, the question is difflcult, but hope this gives you an incling of an idea. Some basic background:

NAZI (Nationalsozialistiche Deutshe Artbeitpartel
The National Socialist German Workers Party.

"Mein Kampf" (my struggle) written by Hitler in 1922 while he was in jail for political activity. It is a poorly organized, rambling personal statement o his beliefs. He inveighed against Jews and Slavs. He called his perceived enemies "Bacilli". He wrote, "Hence today I bekieve that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

Hitler's hatred of Marxism was extreme. One historian commented that while Nazism cannot be defined solely as anti-Marxist, it also cannot be defined without that label.

In 1963, twenty-two former members of the staff at
Auschwitz concentration camp opened in Franfurt. It was the first large scale case to be tried by the Germans before a German judge and jury. There were four depositions to the court that were made by four members of the Institut fur Zeitgeschite: Helmut Krausnick, Hans Buchheim, Martin
Broszat, and Hans-Adolph Jacobsen. This was done before the first witness was called. They were intended as expert
historical statements on the organiztion and functions of the SS.

I belive "Anatomy of the SS State" is one of the most important books on the subject.

Terry Gallagher,

Anti-semitism played a central role in Germany.
In 1923, Hitler stated publicly that the Jews were not human. Jews are "the image of the devil" and the "racial tuberculosis of the nation."

The Jews became the embodiment of every ill in the nation including capitalism, anarchism and communism. The Jews also caused societal problems such as lesbian and homosexual magazines, smoking among women, and the number of abortions.

TheNazis accused the Jews of not being true Germans because they owned many businesses but did not farm.
So some Jews sold their businesses and bought farms. That, the newspapers said that proved that the Jews were attemtpting to take over the agriculture of the country.

And, take a guess at what percentage of the German population was Jewish? Less than two percent!

The fanatic and irrational nature of Nazi anti-semitism can be observed by the fact that the death camps were operating up to the end of the war during a time when there were pressing military for such things as precious freight space and armament workers.

The historian Dietrich Orlow views the nature of political myths such as racism as being different in a totalitarian state. All past, present, and future evebts are divided into two parts, each with a moral vale. "We" are morally good. "They" are morally evil. This belief controls all actions of the individual who accepts it. If the myth is internalized, it provides an answer to all questions and substitutes a mythical reality for an objective reality

I hope this helps to explain the pervasive and intense nature of anti-semitism in Germany prior to WWII.

Did Hitler have any other social policies? Not really. Some will talk about the roads he may have had built, etc. Nazi contains the word "socialism" but Hitler disavowed the goals of the NAZI party. He did this to get support of industrialists and bankers. Hitler was a nihilist who would change to anything to keep power.

I hope this helps to explain the pervasive and intense nature of anti-semitism in Germany prior to WWII.

So he mainly "succeded" because of his ability to change the views of the German people?

I know their was properganda and a change in the education system to promote NAZI ideals, but the main reason he got in power was exploiting the German people when they were desperate. He used the Jewish population of German for all the problems in Germany?

I was also wondering how much opposition there was to Hitler, I know he had the SS to break up oppostion meetings and parties, but did the vast majority support Hitler with a few voices or was it that he just got into power and when he was in used the power to make sure he would keep it?

Hitler, Germany, Germans

Terry, Hitler used the Jews as scapegoats. Germany was in very, very bad economic shape in the early 1930s when Hitler came to power. The worldwide Great Depression had hit Germany harder than many other parts of the world. Inflation was so bad that workers were paid twice a day so that they could do some shopping on their lunch break because by the end of the workday the money would be worth much, much less. Germany's economy, in other words, was in the toilet. Hitler hit upon the brilliant plan of blaming it all on the Jews. The Jews and the Communists, he said, were the enemies of the German people.

As to how many otherwise decent Germans actually bought this propaganda is a tough question. Enough of them did so that there was no real, serious opposition to his rule. It was pretty difficult to form any kind of meaningful opposition group, anyway, because of the all-pervasive spying of the Gestapo informants. Most people, if they were opposed to Nazi policies, were simply too terrified to say anything. Hitler ruled through fear and through an appeal to German pride. Germany had been humiliated at the end of World War I and it wasn't too hard to persuade most of the people that it was time to get even. Not all Germans were anti-Semitic, but most were fairly indifferent to the plight of a minority that they did not identify with.

Does that help you understand it better?

Let's try to add onto this a bit. Hitler one his parties chair. He was later made Chancelor but he wasn't the first choice for that. he was the third. After the first two didn't pan out he was appointed. He then worked both sides of every fence. Telling one group, such as the workers, that he was all of them then telling the owners he was for them. they both in turn would vote for him. In the mean time he was finding ways to shaft them both.
He also found LOTS of scapegoats. He used these scapegoats to rally the German people. Add to this that he was a dynamic speaker. Hitler also spoke to the common people. He kept his messages aimed at the masses as opposed to the intelectuals. That garnered for him more support.
I hope that helps you to some degree. I have read a book about how Hitler came to power but unfortunatley, I don't have the exact title or author handy.

Some salient pieces about Hitler,the SS,etc. are missing or unclear. I hope to do that as succinctly as possible.

It is true that the Germans were in dire economic shape after WWI. But I would add that that was what may have created conditions for a mind set supporting Hitler. However, you don't go around methodically killing off twelve milliion people as revenge without somebody knowing.

William Shirer wrote the very popular book, "The Third Reich." In his book, Shirer wrote that anti-semitism was a straight unbroken line from Luther to Hitler. Suggesting the Germans were genetically pre-disposed to be anti-semitic. But that thought makes the same error the Nazis made about the Jews. Shirer's book is quiite shallow.

In surmising the general support for Hitler, one only has to look at "Crystal Night," Nov. 9, 10, 1938. The police (Gestapo, SS, whatever they were at this time) and the people, went on a rampage against the Jews.

A "Rampage" is a real understatment:

7,500 Jewish owned shops burned down.
400 synogogues burned down.
90 Jews killed.
20,000 sent to camps.

------------------

I think the use of the term "scapegoats" is a euphenism in regard to what Hitler and the Nazis wanted and got -- A Jew-free Europe. Surely. the anti-semitism was not created after WWI.

( In the original meaning, the Scapegoat was allowed to escape.)

scapegoat n. --One that is made the object of blame for others.

Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary.

I have never heard of the scapegoat being allowed to escape. The theory behind the scapegoat was that all of one's sins and shortcomings were symbolically loaded onto a goat, then the goat was stoned to death of lieu of the human sinner. But that's going too far back into history.

Shirer was a credible, if pedestrian, writer. I don't doubt that a thread of anti-Semitism runs throughour German history. Shirer is right: Martin Luther hated Jews. So did Richard Wagner. So what? It doesn't begin to compare with the rampant officially snactioned anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia. Those pogroms were hardly spontaneous. They were orchestrated by the Czar's minions in many localities in the Pale. As was Crystallnacht. There was nothing whatever spontaneous about that, either. It was perpetrated largely under the guidance of the Sicherdienst, the brown-shirted SD. A few German hoodlums participated to take advantage of the looting opportunities.

And, finally, how is 'scapegoat' a 'euphemism'? Do you have a better word? I, for one, can think of no other.

Police has always been 'police'; 'Gestapo' means 'Secret State Police (Geheime Staatspolizei) and was what the name says; 'SS' [abbreviation of Schutzstaffel (German: "Protective Echelon")}, was the black-uniformed elite corps of the Nazi Party.

Actually - besides hardline NSDAP-members - it is not known that "people, went on a rampage against the Jews" during the progrom night. ("Crystal night" is a belittlement of what happened there, I think.)

Right you are, Walter. As I said earlier, that whole Nov. 9-10, 1938 incident was orchestrated and choreographed. It was no rampage, which would imply a kind of spontaneous anti-Jewish riot. This was a uniformed pogrom.

I actually know how to write it and don't have a really excuse for that typo besides that it was one

(Crytal Night) So what? It doesn't begin to compare with the rampant officially sanctioned anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia. Those pogroms were hardly spontaneous. They were orchestrated by the Czar's minions in many localities in the Pale. As was Crystallnacht. There was nothing whatever spontaneous about that, either. It was perpetrated largely under the guidance of the Sicherdienst, the brown-shirted SD. A few German hoodlums participated to take advantage of the looting opportunities.

I agree with your arguments that Crystal Night was not spontaneous
but was planned, orchestrated, like the pogroms in Czarist Russia. However, you seem to think that, in some way, that being plannned and orchestrated and not being as big as the pogroms in Czarest Russia, in some way mitigates the barbarism of Crystal Night.
Or, at the very least that ordinary Germans did not take part, except for a few hoodlums who tried to take advantage of the looting opportunities.
I agree that Crystal Night was planned, directed, etc. by the Gestapo, SS, etc. But what difference did it make to the victims which Germans did it?

None. I didn't notice that this was the question nor did I comment on it.

(Crytal Night) So what? It doesn't begin to compare with the rampant officially sanctioned anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia. Those pogroms were hardly spontaneous. They were orchestrated by the Czar's minions in many localities in the Pale. As was Crystallnacht. There was nothing whatever spontaneous about that, either. It was perpetrated largely under the guidance of the Sicherdienst, the brown-shirted SD. A few German hoodlums participated to take advantage of the looting opportunities.

I agree with your arguments that Crystal Night was not spontaneous
but was planned, orchestrated, like the pogroms in Czarist Russia. However, you seem to think that, in some way, that being plannned and orchestrated and not being as big as the pogroms in Czarest Russia, in some way mitigates the barbarism of Crystal Night.
Or, at the very least that ordinary Germans did not take part, except for a few hoodlums who tried to take advantage of the looting opportunities.
I agree that Crystal Night was planned, directed, etc. by the Gestapo, SS, etc. But what difference did it make to the victims what Germans did it.

So, posting it again somehow makes your point? Walter has a good point that most Germans did not participate in such vicious behavior, and therefore don't deserve to be tarred with the same brush.

Thanks for ignoríng me, Billy Falcon.

Billy Falcon, my post was intended to refute your claim that "the people went on a rampage" against the Jews. Crystal Night was an operation of the Nazi Party aparatus, not "the people." That some civilians took part in it is undeniable, just as some people will always get into the middle of a melee. That was my only point. That, and the fact that nobody has yet come up with a better word than "scapegoat."

SCAPEGOAT
Oxford English Dictionary

"In the Mozaic ritual of the DAY of Atonement,
that one of two goats that was chosen by lot to be
sent alive into the wilderness, the sins of the
people being symbolically laid on it, while the
other was appointed to be sacrificed."

In fact, Hilter tried to make scapegoats of the Communists first. It is generally considered that the Reichstag fire of 1933, which Hitler blamed on "Reds" was arson by the Brown Shirts (the SA, or sturmabteilung) or the SS. It was not until later that he decided to make the Jews the bad guys. Although he was counting on latent and persistent anti-semitism among Germans (as was prevalent with most Europeans), it is by no means reasonable to state that most, or even a significant number of Germans had murderous attitudes toward Jews.

When, in 1932, the NSDAP won 37% of the seats in the Reichstag, the rest of the nation's political parties were in disarray. The SA had about 400,000 members, but they lacked political focus, which the NSDAP provided. Gradually, their leadership were "converted" or marginalized, and in 1934, the SS conducted what became known as the "night of the long knives," which referred to the ceremonial dagger which was a part of the comic opera uniform the SS wore. Brown Shirt leaders were rounded up, most were beaten in prison cells, many were executed, and the rank and file left with the choice of joining the NSDAP or being pretty much without political affiliation, as they were to the right of everybody but the NSDAP. The political leadership of the rest of the German political landscape badly underestimated Hitler's political skill, which was that of a gutter politician. Thanks to the Parliamentary system so common to Europe, Hitler became Chancellor simply because of the power of the NSDAP and their representation in the Reichstag. The old imperial system had given the Chancellor enormous power, because it had been designed by Bismark. Bismark wanted to rule all the Germans, and Kaiser Wilhelm I just wanted to be King of Prussia and to be left alone. The office of Chancellor could be very powerful, as with Bismark and Hitler, or it could be the sinecure of a non-entity, as with Bethmann-Hollweg. Obviously, with someone like Hitler, the office gave him all the power he needed to reshape the political and administrative landscape of Germany to suit his agenda.