Jake Tomer

Mr. Palcsey

Honors English 11

May 1, 2018

Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power

An old Jewish man sits on his bed and thinks to himself, “Why am I like this? Why do I

feel so empty?” although he knows why he feels this way. He feels like this because his family

was killed during the Holocaust. He is now 88 years old. When he was 12 years old, his family

and he were sent to Auschwitz. His sister, brother, mother, and father died. He has no family,

and no close friends, as they all died. Although he is very sad, he considers himself lucky

because he escaped with his life. This is just one person’s story. Adolf Hitler killed over 11

people in the Holocaust, and this does not take into account the survivors and loved one of those

killed. Adolf Hitler committed a genocide against a group of people simply based on race. He is

one of the most evil people to walk the earth. This Jewish man now thinks, “How did the people

of Germany let this man take power and do this to us?” Adolf Hitler rose to power because of

Germany’s previous economic struggle, his four-year economic plan, and his strategic use of

censorship and propaganda to brainwash the German people.

One reason Adolf Hitler was able to rise to power was the state of Germany after World

War I. Germany was in a great state before World War I. It was prospering in 1910 as its cities

and economy were growing and its population was 67 million (Bessel 1). Unfortunately for

Germany, this prosperous state did not last long, as they entered World War I in 1914. Germany

fought in World War I until November 1918, and they took heavy casualties. "10,573,242

German soldiers served in the field between August 1914 and July 1918. Of these, 6,346,041 (60
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percent) had to be removed at one time or another from the front as a consequence of wounds or

illness and had to be replaced” (Bessel 6). The war affected the whole country as over 13 million

men fought in the war (Bessel 5). Germany agreed to an armistice on November 11, 1918 that

ended the war and the Treaty of Versailles was formed about 7 months later. The terms of this

treaty were that Germany was to take full responsibility for starting the war as well as paying 6.6

billion gold marks in war reparations (Simkin 27). Germany also had other consequences such as

reducing the size of their military and navy and loss of some of their territories such as the

Rhineland (Simkin). World War I sent Germany into a state of economic depression due to the

reparations they had to pay. The 6.6 billion gold marks that’s Germany had to pay was too much

for them to handle and their economy plummeted. Germany’s economic state after World War I

truly paved the way for Adolf Hitler’s rise.

Adolf Hitler’s rise to power began in 1919 when he joined a political party named the

Deutsche Arbeiterpartei which later became the Nazis under his leadership (Pappas 3). Hitler

was granted a spot in the party due to his public speaking skills he showcased at a meeting

(Pappas 12). At this point, Germany was in a rough economic state and it needed someone with a

plan to bring about improvement. Germany’s economic struggles continued for the next decade.

Germany began to print mass amounts of money which sent them into a "super inflation" where

millions of marks were worth nothing (Castillo 3). In 1930, the Municipal Finance in Germany

crashed (Castillo 2). All of these problems helped Hitler truly begin his ascent. Countries

generally look for someone to blame for economic problems when they occur. (Castillo 4) Hitler

knew this and he blamed the Jews for Germany’s struggles. "Hitler had two significant ideas that

helped launch him in to power. He had someone to blame for the economy and he had a plan for

a swift economic recovery” (Castillo 5). Hitler devised a four-year plan that would bring
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Germany’s economy back to its former state. Hitler's plan was to rid Germany of unemployment

and build up the military all while being able to prepare to take revenge on other European

nations that Germany had held a grudge on for years for its economic problems (Castillo 5).

After his plan began to work, Hitler truly began to gain power. He lost the 1932 election, but the

new president, Paul von Hindenburg, had no choice but to make Hitler the chancellor due to

many people pressuring him to do so (Pappas 21). Hitler began to gain more and more power and

he essentially took control of Germany when the Enabling Act was put into place in 1933

(Pappas 24). This act gave Hitler the power to put any law into place without consulting

Hindenburg. Hindenburg died in 1934 which allowed Hitler to fuse the chancellor and president

positions together to become a true dictator (Wilde 18). Adolf Hitler put the Nazi party into

power with himself at the head.

Hitler used various techniques to gain and keep control of the German public. Hitler

utilized propaganda and censorship very well. The Nazis took such control of Germany by

controlling all media outlets such as radios, magazines, books, and newspapers (Kallis).

Hitler was able to keep the public opinion of himself high by sharing pictures of him with

children and dogs, picturing that displayed him in a positive light. He did not permit the public to

hear any negative messages about him. Hitler tried to depict himself as a kind, gentle, and

likeable leader, which he did a good job at. While Hitler was violently forcing his way into a

dictator role, his propaganda team was putting up pictures of him gently playing with children or

dogs, portraying Hitler as the opposite of his true self, a gentle, kind person (Pappas 26). Hitler

also controlled the public’s opinion of his Nazi regime through his propaganda. The Nazis

controlled Germany very easily by making Nazi propaganda an unavoidable part of every

German citizen's life (Kallis). Hitler also rose to power due to his public speech and persuasion
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skills. Hitler’s very early rise to power began when he was added into a German political party

due to his strong speaking skills. Hitler gained power and influence because of his speeches he

gave. Hitler was able to maintain his power through propaganda and his brainwashing of the

youth through the Hitler Youth. Hitler figured the best way to maintain his power was to teach

the young people his ways when they did not know anything else. Hitler knew that he could

make an impression on kids, so that is why he targeted them to train in his ideas (Blakemore 8).

Then, they would only know his teachings and think those teachings were the best. The Hitler

Youth is described as “a group designed to indoctrinate kids into Hitler’s ideology, then send

them off to war" (Blakemore 4). Adolf Hitler began to grow the Hitler Youth rapidly, as he grew

the Hitler youth from 50,000 members to over 2 million members in one year (Blakemore 6).

Hitler also did a great job of making the Hitler Youth attractive for children. He was able to

make Hitler Youth attractive to children by making marching and signing part of meetings, and

reinforcing that most of the childrens’ friends were part of Hitler Youth (Blakemore 11).

Children who did not join the Hitler youth were alienated among their peers (Blakemore 7).

Hitler took control of the youth in Germany. By 1939, 90 percent of Germany's youth were a part

of the Hitler Youth (Blakemore 7), firmly ensuring that Hitler was in control of Germany and its

youth.

Adolf Hitler had a huge impact on the world. He rose to power due to many different

reasons, but the main factors in his rise were Germany’s economic turmoil, his four-year plan

that he developed, and his strategic use of censorship and propaganda to brainwash Germany’s

people. Over 11 million people died during the Holocaust, an unforgivable genocide that he is

fully responsible for. "All in all, the Germans deliberately killed about 11 million

noncombatants, a figure that rises to more than 12 million if foreseeable deaths from deportation,
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hunger, and sentences in concentration camps are included" (Snyder 13). Not only was Hitler

responsible for the lives of those who died in the Holocaust, it can also be argued that he is

responsible for all of the deaths in World War II, a war that Germany started. “Hitler and the

Nazis were responsible for about 29 million deaths during World War II, a war that they were

responsible for starting” (Snyder 14). Germany is widely blamed for this war and how they

conducted themselves throughout the war was intolerable as well. "Germany bears the chief

responsibility for the war, and killed civilians almost exclusively in connection with the practice

of racial imperialism" (Snyder 9). Adolf Hitler is known as one of the evilest people that has ever

walked the earth. It is widely debated which World War II dictator was more evil, Hitler or Josef

Stalin. The argument for Hitler is that he tried to eliminate an entire racial group for no reason

other than their race. "Hitler was worse, because his regime propagated the unprecedented horror

of the Holocaust, the attempt to eradicate an entire people on racial grounds" (Snyder 2). Today,

Hitler is thought of as a horribly evil person and a model for evil. The world must learn from him

and never let a person like him gain power and influence again, or the world may see another

atrocity like the Holocaust or World War II.

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Works Cited

Bessel, Richard. Germany after the First World War. Clarendon Press, 2002.

Blakemore, Erin. “How the Hitler Youth Turned a Generation of Kids Into Nazis.” History.com,

History in the Headlines, 11 Dec. 2017, www.history.com/news/how-the-hitler-youth-

turned-a-generation-of-kids-into-nazis.

Castillo, Daniel. “German Economy in the 1920s.” German Economy in the 1920s, Dec. 2003,

www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/1920s/Econ20s.htm.

Kallis, Aristotle A. Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Pappas, Stephanie. “Hitler’s Rise.” Live Science, Live Science, April 2016,

https://www.livescience.com/54441-how-hitler-rose-to-power.htm.

Simkin, John. “Versailles Treaty.” Spartacus Educational, Spartacus Educational, Nov. 2017,

Spartacus-educational.com/FWWversailles.htm.

Snyder, Timothy. “Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More?” The New York Review of Books, 10 Mar.

2011, www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/03/10/hitler-vs-stalin-who-killed-more/.
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