Myth: Democracy elected Hitler to power.
Fact: Hitler used backroom deals, not votes, to come to power.
Summary
Hitler never had more than 37 percent of the popular vote in the
honest elections that occurred before he became Chancellor. And
the opposition among the 63 percent against him was generally
quite strong. Hitler therefore would have never seen the light
of day had the German Republic been truly democratic. Unfortunately,
its otherwise sound constitution contained a few fatal flaws.
The German leaders also had a weak devotion to democracy, and
some were actively plotting to overthrow it. Hitler furthermore enjoyed
an almost unbroken string of luck in coming to power. He benefited
greatly from the Great Depression, the half-senility of the president,
the incompetence of his opposition, and the appearance of an unnecessary
backroom deal just as the Nazis were starting to lose popular
appeal and votes.
Argument
Critics of democracy often claim that Hitler was democratically
elected to power. This is untrue. Hitler never had the popular
votes to become Chancellor of Germany, and the only reason he
got the job was because the German leaders entered into a series
of back-room deals. Some claim that
Hitler's rise was nonetheless legal under the German system. The
problem is that what was "legal" under the German system
would not be considered legal under a truer and better-working
democracy. In a democracy along the lines of the United States or
Great Britain, Hitler could have never risen to power.
The background to Hitler's rise to power
The German Weimar Republic was doomed from the start. (1)
Germany had no democratic tradition, and in fact many parties
were deeply opposed to the creation of a democracy. These included
old monarchists, the Army, the industrialists, the Nationalists
and several other conservative parties. Many, like the Nazis to
come, were not so much members of the Republic as they were conspirators
to overthrow it. When it came time to create the Republic, the
conservative parties took no part in the process. They left that
responsibility to the Social Democrats, who were not enthusiastic
about building a Republic either, but did so anyway, by themselves.
Yet this would allow the conservative parties to blame
the Republic and the Social Democrats for all of Germany's future
problems. The new government, led by the liberal parties, inevitably
had to sign Germany's surrender documents and terms of peace.
Unfortunately, the punitive Treaty of Versailles humiliated Germany
before the entire world. This event was really beyond Germany's
control, but conservative parties would blame liberals and the
Republic forever afterwards, calling it a "stab in the back"
by the "November criminals." To be loyal to the Fatherland,
conservatives often said, one had to be disloyal to the Republic.
Hitler himself would rely heavily on this very rhetoric.
The constitution of the new Republic was also doomed from the
start. On paper, it seemed like one of the most liberal and democratic
constitutions of Europe at the time. It called for the government
to be led by a president with limited but sometimes strong constitutional
powers. The Reichstag, or parliament, would be filled with a varying
number of elected representatives (usually about 600). These representatives
would in turn elect the Reichstag's chancellor and cabinet, which
would remain in power only as long as they commanded majority
approval in the Reichstag. In the event that no single party or
candidate commanded a majority, then coalitions would have to
be forged.
Unfortunately, the constitution also contained several fatal flaws.
One of the worst was Article 48 of the constitution, which granted
dictatorial powers to the president in times of national emergency.
Unfortunately, the president would frequently evoke this clause,
and it ultimately proved the downfall of the Republic.
Another flaw was an elaborate and complex system of proportional
voting and voting by list, intended to give minorities the fairest
possible representation.
This is a laudable goal, of course, but other democracies use
different methods to achieve it. Germany's approach had the practical
effect of splintering the parties; by 1930, there were no less
than 28 parties competing for election. This made it virtually
impossible to establish a majority in the Reichstag, and led to
instability and frequent changes in the government. What made
this worse is that Germany's middle class was too small, and there
were too few middle-class parties to stabilize German politics.
With Communists on one side, and Nazis on the other, there was
little room for compromise and coalition-building.
Finally, the constitution created a government that was not sufficiently
centralized. Many of the German states retained a high degree
of autonomy under the new government. This was not the original
intention of Professor Hugo Preuss, the constitution's chief architect.
He had called for states like Prussia to be turned into provinces
under a unified German state. But his suggestion was rejected,
creating a situation where strong German states would endlessly
squabble for power.
In addition to these constitutional defects, there were two other
problems that weakened democracy in Weimar Germany. One was the
advanced age of its president, Paul von Hindenburg, a strong-willed
field marshal and war hero. Unfortunately, Hindenburg would be
in his middle 80s and partly senile by the time Hitler started
achieving real power. Although he personally detested Hitler,
he made many costly blunders and miscalculations about him, thinking
he could easily control him. But by then the aged field marshal
had lost much of his competence.
The second problem was that the Army was not subordinated to the
government, but was a strong political player in its own right.
By the time Hitler started his final rise to power, the Army's
most influential political figure would be Lieutenant General
Kurt von Schleicher, who was a close personal friend of Hindenburg
and other government leaders. He would emerge as a major power
broker -- and an undemocratic one -- in the power struggles that
erupted in the early 30s. Of course, Hitler had long made sure
to cultivate his alliances with the Army.
These were the conditions under which Hitler began his political
career.
Hitler's rise to power
Like all mass movements, Nazism only thrived in times of great
national distress. However, it is important to note the significant
limits of Nazi popularity even then. After World War I, Germany
lay defeated, humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles, its industrial
regions occupied by foreign powers, saddled with enormous war
reparations, and with no military to defend itself. Yet throughout
the 1920s, Hitler could not exploit these setbacks to achieve
political power. As late as May 1928, the Nazis had obtained only
12 seats in the Reichstag.
It took the Great Depression -- which hit Germany harder than
any than any other nation -- to turn Nazism into a true mass movement.
But even then, the Nazis never gained a majority of the people's
vote. Nazism generally appealed to only a third of the German
people, and these came from its lower classes, armed forces and
war industries. Nearly two-thirds of Germany were opposed to Hitler,
and adamantly so. There was never any hope that Hitler could have
won their support. It goes without saying that if the German Republic
had been truly democratic, it would have survived even the test
of a depression.
Still, the Great Depression gave Hitler a chance to blame the
status quo, and he expertly exploited the people's misery to increase
his political power. In elections held on September 14, 1930,
the Nazis won 18 percent of the vote, increasing their seats in
the Reichstag to 107. Overnight they went from the ninth to second
largest political party in Germany.
Between 1931 and 1933, vicious power struggles would break out
between rival political parties. The power brokers in these struggles
were Hindenburg and Schleicher. The problem during this period
was that no party even came close to achieving the majority required
to elect its leader Chancellor. Coalitions were either impossible
to build, or were so transient that they dissolved as quickly
as they formed. Ambitious leaders from every party began maneuvering
for power, striking deals, double-crossing each other, and trying
to find the most advantageous alliances. Hitler himself would
ally the Nazis to the Nationalist Party. "The chess game
for power begins," Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary. "The
chief thing is that we remain strong and make no compromises."
(2)
In 1932, hoping to establish a clear government by majority rule,
Hindenburg held two presidential elections. Hitler, among others,
ran against him. A vote for Hindenburg was a vote to continue
the German Republic, while a vote for Hitler was a vote against
it. The Nazi party made the most clever use of propaganda, as
well as the most extensive use of violence. Bloody street battles
erupted between Communists and Nazis thugs, and many political
figures were murdered.
In the first election, held on March 13, 1932, Hitler received
30 percent of the vote, losing badly to Hindenburg's 49.6 percent.
But because Hindenburg had just missed an absolute majority, a
run-off election was scheduled a month later. On April 10, 1932,
Hitler increased his share of the vote to 37 percent, but Hindenburg
again won, this time with a decisive 53 percent. A clear majority
of the voters had thus declared their preference for a democratic
republic.
However, the balance of power in the Reichstag was still unstable,
lacking a majority party or coalition to rule the government.
All too frequently, Hindenburg had to evoke the dictatorial powers
available to him under Article 48 of the constitution to break
up the political stalemate. In an attempt to resolve this crisis,
he called for more elections. On July 31, 1932, the Nazis won
230 out of 608 seats in the Reichstag, making them its largest
party. Still, they did not command the majority needed to elect
Hitler Chancellor.
In another election on November 6, 1932, the Nazis lost 34 seats
in the Reichstag, reducing their total to 196. And for the first
time it looked as if the Nazi threat would fade. This was for
several reasons. First, the Nazis' violence and rhetoric had hardened
opposition against Hitler, and it was becoming obvious that he
would never achieve power democratically. Even worse, the Nazi
party was running very low on money, and it could no longer afford
to operate its expensive propaganda machine. Furthermore, the
party was beginning to splinter and rebel under the stress of
so many elections. Hitler discovered that Gregor Strasser, one
of the Nazis' highest officials, had been disloyal, attempting
to negotiate power for himself behind Hitler's back. The shock
was so great that Hitler threatened to shoot himself.
But at the lowest ebb of the Nazis' fortunes, the backroom deal
presented itself as the solution to all their problems. Deal-making,
intrigues and double-crosses had been going on for years now.
Schleicher, who had managed to make himself the last German Chancellor
before Hitler, would eventually say: "I stayed in power only
57 days, and on each of those days I was betrayed 57 times."
(3) It's not worth tracking the ins and outs of all these schemes,
but the one that got Hitler into power is worth noting.
Hitler's unexpected savior was Franz von Papen, one of the former
Chancellors, a remarkably incompetent man who owed his political
career to a personal friendship with Hindenburg. He had been thrown
out of power by the much more capable Schleicher, who personally
replaced him. To get even, Papen approached Hitler and offered
to become "co-chancellors," if only Hitler would join
him in a coalition to overthrow Schleicher. Hitler responded that
only he could be the head of government, while Papen's
supporters could be given important cabinet positions. The two
reached a tentative agreement to pursue such an alliance, even
though secretly they were planning to double-cross each other.
Meanwhile Schleicher was failing spectacularly in his attempts
to form a coalition government, so Hindenburg forced his resignation.
But by now, Hindenburg was exhausted by all the intrigue and crisis,
and the prospect of civil war had moved the steely field marshal
to tears. As much as he hated to do so, he seemed resigned to
offering Hitler a high government position. Many people were urging
him to do so: the industrialists who were financing Hitler, the
military whose connections Hitler had cultivated, even Hindenburg's
son, whom some historians believe the Nazis had blackmailed. The
last straw came when an unfounded rumor swept through Berlin that
Schleicher was about to attempt a military coup, arrest Hindenburg,
and establish a military dictatorship. Alarmed, Hindenburg wasted
no time offering Hitler the Chancellorship, thinking it was a
last resort to save the Republic.
On January 30, 1933, Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor. As Hitler
historian Alan Bullock put it: