HIST-410N Week 3 Discussion 1: Dictatorship and Democracy

HIST-410N Week 3 Discussion 1: Dictatorship and Democracy Analyze Adolph Hitler's rise to power and the policies he used to rule Germany. Textbook tyrant? Overheated Nationalist? Or the right man for at the right time for the right job? In the early 1930s, the economic depression of Germany had hit the country especially hard, and millions of people were out of work. Still fresh in the minds of many was Germany's humiliating defeat fifteen years earlier during World War I, and Germans lacked confidence in their weak government (Brower & Sanders, 2013). These conditions provided the chance for the rise of a new leader, Adolf Hitler, and his party, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi party for short. Hitler was a powerful speaker who attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change. He promised a better life and a new and glorious Germany. The Nazis appealed especially to the unemployed, young people, and members of the lower middle class. Hitler set a few policies that gained him many followers and respect. He seeked to destroy the Treaty of Versailles because he felt the Treaty was unfair and, unsurprisingly, most Germans supported this view. Hitler also attempted to unite all German speakers together in one country because he hoped that by uniting them together in one country, he would create a powerful Germany. Lastly, he aspired to expand eastwards into the East (Poland, Russia) to gain land for Germany (Bloy, 2016). Due to the desperation of the German people, Hitler's policies especially gained followers and made him a very popular figure in Germany at the time. Brower, D & Sanders, T. The World in the Twentieth Century, 7th Edition. (07/2013). Pearson Learning Solutions. [Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from Bloy, M. (2016, January 12). Hitler’s Foreign Policy. Retrieved from