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The NSDAP
Hitler joined the German Workers' Party and assumed its control, renaming it the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) -
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Inflation
Economic losses pushed the middle class towards the rightest parties which were hostile to the republic. -
The Munich Beer Hall Putsch
Hitler tried to seize power through an armed uprising in southern Germany. The attempt failed, but the Nazis gained national prominence.
Hitler was sentenced to prison. -
Mein Kampf
In prison Hitler wrote an autobiographical account of his movement and its ideology. The main ideas were: extreme German nationalism, anti-Semitism, anti-communism, Social Darwinism, the right of superior nations to Lebensraum and the right of "superior" individuals to take authority over the masses. -
The Nazi Party gains members
The Nazi Party's membership had grown to 55.000. -
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Nazi grows
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Short recovery from inflation
Short recovery from inflation. -
Weimar Germany
Paul von Hindenburg, a military hero of WWI, was elected President of the newborn Weimar Republic. -
The Nazi seizure of the power
Hitler understood that the Nazis needed to acquire power by constitutional means, and this implied the formation of a mass political party.
After his release from prison, Hitler reorganized the Nazi Party which membership had grown to 178.000 by 1929. -
The Great Depression in Germany
Unemployment increased to nearly 4.4 million people by December 1930. -
A young man's movement
The Nazi party had 800.000 members (mainly from the youth) and was the largest party in the Reichstag. -
Election posters
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The Nazi State
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Hitler is made chancellor
The right-wing elites of Germany began to see Hitler as the man that would save Germany from a communist takeover, so President Hindenburg allowed Hitler to become chancellor. -
Reichstag fire
A fire broke out in the Reichstag building, supposedly set by the Communists.
President Hindenburg gave the government emergency powers: this meant enabling the Nazis to arrest and imprison anyone without redress. -
Enabling Act
It empowered the government to dispense with constitutional forms for four years while it issued laws to deal with Germany's problems.
Hitler became a dictator appointed by the parliament. -
The Night of the Long Knives
It was the murdering of almost 200 people by Hitler. They were SA members and their commander, Ernst Röhm, that got the distances from Hitler and that then started opposing to his despotic regime. -
Hitler becomes a sole ruler
Hindenburg died. The office of president was abolished and Hitler becomes the sole ruler of Germany.
Public officials and soldiers are required to take a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler as the "Fuhrer". -
Nuremberg laws
The Nazi party embraced Hitler's anti-Semitic policies. It announced new racial laws which excluded German Jews from German citizenship, and essentially separated Jews from the Germans politically, socially and legally. -
Kristallnacht
A low-ranking secretary was killed by a Polish Jew in the German embassy in Paris. This one became the excuse to lead to a destructive rampage against Jews in Germany: synagogues were burned, 7000 Jewish businesses were destroyed and 100 Jews were killed.
Finally, Jews were encouraged to emigrate from Germany.
