What allowed Hitler to come to power. Hitler's rise to power and the legislative consolidation of the fascist dictatorship

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On January 30, 1933, the President of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, appointed Adolf Hitler to the post of head of the new coalition government - the Reich Chancellor. And two days after the appointment, the future Fuhrer asked Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag (the highest representative and legislative body in Germany) and call new elections. At that time, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, which was headed by Hitler, had only 32% of the seats in the Reichstag, and the politician expected that he would achieve a majority for the NSDAP in the elections.

Hindenburg went to meet the future Fuhrer: the Reichstag was dissolved, and the vote was scheduled for March 5. But Hitler's dream did not come true: the National Socialists again did not receive an absolute majority - they got only 288 out of 647 mandates. Then Wilhelm Frick, the Reich Minister of the Interior of Germany, proposed to annul 81 mandates, which, according to the results of the elections, were supposed to go to the communists. With the Communists, the issue was resolved a few days before the elections: by decree of the Reich President on the protection of the people and the state, their party was banned.

In addition, the decree allowed the viewing of correspondence and wiretapping, searches and seizures of property.

On March 24, 1933, under pressure from the NSDAP, Hindenburg approved a law to overcome the plight of the people and the state. This decree abolished civil liberties and transferred emergency powers to the government led by Adolf Hitler. Now Hitler's cabinet could make legislative decisions without the participation of the Reichstag. According to historians, the law on emergency powers was the final stage in the seizure of power by the National Socialists in Germany.

From that moment on, parliament was convened only to listen to Adolf Hitler's speeches and formally approve his decisions.

So, for example, the Reichstag was forced to agree with the concept of the "night of long knives" - the massacre of the assault squads, paramilitary formations of the NSDAP. The official reason for the massacre is the disloyalty of the stormtroopers, led by Ernst Julius Röhm, who, in particular, once said: “Hitler is treacherous and should at least go on vacation. If he is not with us, then we will do our job without Hitler.”

Soon Rem was arrested, and the next day a newspaper was brought to his cell, which reported on the execution of supporters of the leader of the assault squads. Together with the newspaper, Ernst received a pistol with one cartridge - Hitler expected that after reading the publication, the prisoner would commit suicide. But Rem was in no hurry to take his own life, he went to the window, threw up right hand and shouted: Hail my Fuhrer!» In a second, four shots were fired at the politician, and he died.

On November 12, 1933, an extraordinary nationwide vote was held for parliamentary elections. The vote took place simultaneously with the referendum on Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations (the vast majority of voters - 95.1% - supported the proposed decision).

In the parliamentary elections, the Germans were offered a single list of candidates without the possibility of a clear vote against.

This list was compiled by the Ministry of the Interior with the participation of the National Socialist Party. Although large protest votes were held in the major cities of the country, according to the results of the elections, candidates from the single list of National Socialists took all the seats in the Reichstag (661). And Hitler was waiting for good news: on average, the Nazis received 92.11% of the vote across the country.

On March 7, 1936, German troops occupied the demilitarized Rhineland, grossly violating the terms of the Locarno Treaties. On the same day, Adolf Hitler dissolved the Reichstag and announced new elections and a referendum on the occupation of the Rhineland.

Parliamentary elections were held on March 29 - according to official data, 99% of voters out of 45,453,691 came to the polls, and 98.8% of them approved of the activities of Adolf Hitler. 741 deputies of the new convocation of parliament were declared elected. Taking into account that the ballot contained only the “for” field, the “against” votes can conditionally be considered blank and spoiled ballots, which turned out to be 540,211.


Foreign correspondents who visited the polling stations noted some violations - in particular, open voting instead of secret, wrote historian William Lawrence Shearer in his classic work "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". -" And this is natural, since some Germans were afraid, and not without reason, that the Gestapo would take note of them if they voted against. I happened to write reports about the elections in different parts country, and I can say with confidence that Hitler's action was approved by the vast majority of the population. Why not? Breaking the Treaty of Versailles German troops marching in fact on German territory - every German would approve of this".

This gave him power over the generals, who were indecisive in crisis situations, while Hitler remained adamant.

This taught the generals to think that in foreign and military affairs his opinion was indisputable. They were afraid that the French would resist, Hitler was smarter. Finally, the occupation of the Rhineland is quite insignificant military operation- opened up, as Hitler understood, and besides him only Churchill, new opportunities in a shocked Europe, since the strategic situation changed radically after three German battalions crossed the Rhine.

On the night of March 12, 1938, German troops entered Austria, and the day before, the country experienced a coup d'etat: Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg announced the resignation and transfer of power to Arthur Seyss-Inquart, leader of the Austrian wing of the NSDAP. On March 13, Adolf Hitler arrived in the capital of Austria, proclaimed the "protector of the crown of Charlemagne", and the law "On the reunification of Austria with Germany" was also published. And on the night of September 30, 1938, an agreement was signed in Munich between Germany, Italy, Great Britain and France on the transfer of the Sudetenland, which was part of Czechoslovakia, to Germany. On the morning of the same day, the President of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Benes, on behalf of the Czechoslovak state, announced the acceptance of the terms of the agreement.

These events required a new vote in the Third Reich - this time the Germans had to approve the list of candidates put forward by the ruling National Socialist Workers' Party, as well as approve the unification of the German and Austrian states. " Do you agree with the unification of the Austrians with the German state that took place on March 13, and do you support the list of our leader Adolf Hitler?"- was written on the bulletins. 99.01% of voters said yes.

During the by-elections in the Sudetenland, the Nazis received 2,464,681 votes (98.68%), while 32,923 voters opposed their uncontested list.

The referendum in Austria on the Anschluss with Germany was held on April 10, 1938 - on the ballots, the diameter of the “for” cell was almost twice as large as the diameter of the “against” cell. According to official figures, 99.73% of voters were in favor of the Anschluss.

Rise to power Adolf Hitler took place in January 1933. In this article, we will talk about how this happened, how the Germans themselves allowed a man to power who brought huge problems to both Germany and the whole of Europe. When Hitler came to power in Germany, no one even guessed how the dictatorial rule would end ...

Chancellor by the will of the President

Germany was in a difficult position. They had a huge level of unemployment, reparations, which, according to the Treaty of Versailles, must be constantly paid, so in addition, the crisis of 1929 began, which swept the whole world. At that time the president was Paul von Hindenburg. He appointed Heinrich Brüning as chancellor, who was independent of parliament and solely subordinate to the president. This new chancellor introduced austerity to the people for the first time. At the same time, Hitler was the head of the National Socialist Party of Germany. In just a year, he increased the number of party mandates from 12 to 107. For comparison, the Communists during this time have achieved an increase from 54 to 77 people. As a result, Hitler's party made up a little more than 30% of parliament. It became impossible to pursue an active policy. If the communists had joined forces with the social democrats, they would have gained an advantage over the Nazis, but Stalin, who oversaw the German communists, flatly forbade this. For some unknown reason, he considered the socialists the worst enemies, and the Nazis, on the contrary, almost allies.

In the 1932 elections, the Nazis got 37% of the vote, which made this party the most influential. But this was not enough for Hitler, he wanted even more power. This man was really smart, because he understood that more could be achieved only by enlisting the support of influential officials. With a decent amount of money, success in the election campaign and a small army of soldiers, he filed a demand to appoint himself to the post of German Chancellor. At first he was refused, but in 1933 he was nevertheless given the opportunity to take this post. Only one problem remained in Hitler's path - his fellow party members occupied only two ministerial positions out of the existing eleven. Gidenburg did not succeed in using the active and persistent Hitler for his own purposes.

The attitude of the people of Germany towards Hitler

Although Hitler was appointed chancellor, although he headed the most influential party in the country, the threshold of even 40% of those who voted could not be overcome. In November 1933, this figure fell from 37% to 33%. From this we can conclude that people began to doubt their choice.

The exact answer to the question of why Hitler came to power in Germany was never found. Many historians most life explored this topic, hundreds of books were written, but no one got to the bottom of the truth. Hitler became the head of state, despite the fact that in his own book "Mein Kampf" he described all the plans, which included the extermination of the Jews and the war with the eastern countries.

The elites were wrong

Contributed to Hitler's rise to power German elites. According to the theory, they did this based on the fact that such a person is not able to govern the country and will soon be removed from office. More than 60% of the country's inhabitants were sure that Hitler's term of office would not last even a month, so they were not particularly worried. The people of Germany have never been so deluded.

Hitler received the desired power and did not part with it until the last second. A couple of months after his election, he established a dictatorship never seen before in the country. In February of the same 1933, people learned what the abolition of freedom of speech and total control are. printed publications. Parliament lost power. May was marked by the crackdown on trade unions, and in July all political parties(except, of course, Hitler's native National Socialist). And in order to consolidate the terror, concentration camps were opened for politicians, whose actions were not beneficial to Hitler.

Hitler and children Universal love

August 1934 brought even more pain to the Germans. The president died, and the ruling Nazis decided to combine the office of chancellor and president, making Hitler the most powerful man in Germany. From that day on, the country became totalitarian.

Results

And the results are really impressive. Hitler managed to become head of state and establish dictatorship in just a few months of rule. Along with the level of dictatorship, the unemployment rate grew. The main mistake of the population is that instead of protecting their freedom and rights, they decided to achieve economic and political stability in the country. For the sake of achieving the goal, people were neutral about oppression, and then open humiliation. If not for the victory of the USSR, it is not known how the reign of the dictator would have ended, because the Germans could not get rid of this “burden” on their own.

When Hitler came to power. Concentration camps for Jews and political opponents.

Almost 70 years have passed since the suicide of Adolf Hitler. However, his colorful political figure is still of interest to historians who want to understand how a modest young artist without an academic education could lead the German nation into a state of mass psychosis and become the ideologist and initiator of the bloodiest crimes in world history. So what were the reasons for Hitler's rise to power, how did this process take place and what preceded this event?

Beginning of political biography

The future Fuhrer of the German nation was born in 1889. The beginning of his political career can be considered 1919, when Hitler retired from the army and joined the German Workers' Party. Already six months later, during a party meeting, he proposed renaming this organization to the NSDAP and proclaimed his own consisting of 25 points. His ideas resonated with the people of Munich. Therefore, it is not surprising that at the end of the first party congress, held in 1923, a march of storm troopers passed through the city, in which more than 5,000 people took part. Thus began the story of Hitler's rise to power.

The activities of the NSDAP in the period from 1923 to 1933

The next significant event in the history of the National Socialists was the so-called Beer Putsch, during which a three thousandth column of attack aircraft led by Hitler tried to capture the building of the Ministry of Defense. They were driven back by a police detachment, and the leaders of the riots were tried. In particular, Hitler was sentenced to 5 years in prison. However, he spent only a few months in prison and paid a fine of 200 marks in gold. Once at large, Hitler developed a storm. Thanks to his efforts in the elections of 1930, and then in 1932, his party won more seats in parliament, becoming a powerful political force. Thus, the political conditions were created that made it possible for Hitler to come to power. Germany during this period was in the grip of the crisis that broke out in Europe in 1929.

Economic reasons for Hitler's rise to power

According to historians, the NSDAP, which lasted about 10 years, played a big role in the political successes of the NSDAP. It hit hard and spawned an army of 7.5 million unemployed. Suffice it to say that almost 350,000 workers took part in the strike of the Ruhr miners in 1931. Under such conditions, the role of the Communist Party of Germany increased, which caused concern among the financial elite and large industrialists, who relied on the NSDAP as the only force capable of resisting the communists.

Appointment to the post of head of the cabinet of ministers

In the beginning, President Hindenburg received a large bribe from German magnates who demanded the appointment of the head of the NSDAP to the post of Reich Chancellor. The old soldier, who lived his life saving every pfennig, could not resist, and on January 30, Hitler occupied one of the most important posts in Germany. In addition, there were rumors that there was blackmail associated with the financial fraud of Hindenburg's son. But the appointment to the post of head of the cabinet of ministers did not mean Hitler's coming to power, since only the Reichstag could adopt laws, and at that time the National Socialists did not have required amount mandates.

Reprisal against the Communists and the Night of the Long Knives

Just a few weeks after Hitler's appointment, the Reichstag building was set on fire. As a result, the Communist Party was accused of preparing to seize power in the country, and President Hindenburg signed a decree granting emergency powers to the Cabinet of Ministers.

Having received carte blanche, Hitler ordered the arrest of about 4,000 Communist Party activists and achieved the announcement of new elections to the Reichstag, in which almost 44% of the votes went to his party. The next force that could make it difficult for Hitler to come to power was the assault squads, led by Ernst Röhm. To neutralize this organization, the Nazis staged a pogrom, later called the "Night of the Long Knives". Nearly a thousand people fell victim to the massacres, including most of the leaders of the SA.

Referendum

On August 2, 1934, President Hindenburg died. This event hastened Hitler's rise to power, as he succeeded in replacing the early elections with a referendum. During its conduct on August 19, 1934, voters were asked to answer just one question, which sounded as follows: "Do you agree that the posts of president and chancellor be combined?" After the votes were counted, it turned out that the majority of voters were in favor of the proposed reform. state power. As a result, the presidency was abolished.

Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor

According to most researchers, the year Hitler came to power is 1934. Indeed, after the referendum on August 19, he became not only the head of the cabinet of ministers, but also the Supreme Commander, to whom the army was to personally swear allegiance. Moreover, for the first time in the history of the country, he was given the title of Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor. At the same time, some historians believe that when Hitler's rise to power is considered, the date of January 30, 1933 is more important, since it was from then on that he and the party he led were able to exert a significant influence on the internal and foreign policy Germany. Be that as it may, a dictator appeared in Europe, as a result of whose actions millions of people were destroyed on three continents.

Germany. Hitler's Rise to Power: Implications for Domestic Politics and Economics (1934-1939)

In the first years after the establishment of the dictatorship in the country, a new ideology based on three pillars began to be introduced into the minds of its citizens: revanchism, anti-Semitism and faith in the exclusivity of the German nation. Very soon, Germany, in which Hitler's rise to power was predetermined, among other things, by foreign policy reasons, began to experience an economic boom. The number of unemployed was sharply reduced, large-scale reforms were launched in the industry, and various actions were taken to improve the social situation of poor Germans. At the same time, any dissent was nipped in the bud, including through mass repressions, which were often sincerely supported by law-abiding burghers, pleased that the government isolates or even destroys Jews or communists who, as they believed, interfere with the formation of Greater Germany. By the way, the outstanding oratory skills of Goebbels and the Fuhrer himself played a significant role in this. In general, when you watch “Double-Headed Eagle. Hitler's Rise to Power - a film by Lutz Becker, based almost entirely on newsreels filmed from the beginning of the November Revolution in Germany to the book auto-da-fé - you understand how easy it is to manipulate public consciousness. At the same time, it is puzzling that we are not talking about several hundred or even thousands of religious fanatics, but about a nation of many millions, which has always been considered one of the most enlightened in Europe.

The rise to power of Hitler, briefly described above, is one of the textbook examples of how a dictator came to power democratically, plunging the planet into the chaos of a world war.

Hitler's rise to power

On January 30, 1933, 86-year-old President Hindenburg appointed the head of the NSDAP, Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany. On the same day, superbly organized stormtroopers concentrated on their assembly points. In the evening, with torches lit, they passed by the presidential palace, in one window of which stood Hindenburg, and in the other, Hitler.

According to official figures, 25,000 people took part in the torchlight procession. It went on for several hours. This was the beginning of the 12-year Reich.

February 18, 1932 Hitler becomes a German citizen. While still an Austrian, the future Fuhrer fought on the side of Germany in the First World War, for which he even received the Iron Cross First Class. Having lost Austrian citizenship after the war - since he was hiding from the Austrian authorities in Bavaria, Hitler lived for many years without citizenship at all, which did not prevent him from becoming the leader of the National Socialist Party of Germany (NSDAP) in 1921. And if back in 1930 he flatly refused the opportunity to obtain German citizenship "not in a straightforward" way, but through party support, then in the winter of 1932 he does just that: the state government, located in Braunschweig and full of Hitler's party friends, chooses him to the post of State Councilor, which automatically means permission to obtain German citizenship. Why such a drastic change in moral principles? In March 1932, the election of the President of the Reich is coming, and the National Socialists, in the person of Goebbels, nominate the 43-year-old party leader as a candidate.

The first round of elections held on March 13 does not give any of the candidates the required absolute majority, although the Social Democratic candidate Paul von Hindenburg, with his 49.6 percent, is only 170,000 votes short of victory. Hitler gets “second place” by a significant margin of 30.1 percent, although he is well ahead of the German Communist candidate Ernst Thalmann with his 13.2 percent.

German poster: "One people, one Reich, one Fuhrer!"

The second round of elections, held on April 10, although bringing victory to Hindenburg, still improves the results of the National Socialists by six percent. After Hitler’s failure in these elections, time seems to play into the hands of the National Socialists: victories in subsequent land elections (Prussia, Berlin, Wittenberg, but not Hamburg!) significantly strengthen the party’s position, but do not bring it a preponderance of forces in the government, and elections in the Reichstag on July 31, 1932 ends with the victory of Hitler's party (37.4 percent versus 21.6 percent received by the socialists and 14.5 percent by the communists), but not yet with a personal victory for Hitler. President von Hindenburg is ready, that is, forced, to offer Hitler the post of vice-chancellor, the Führer's comrades-in-arms in the party are ready for this compromise, but Hitler himself demands the post of chancellor for himself.

January 30, 1933 a newly minted German citizen wins absolute power in the German state.

Hitler left the Landsberg fortress on December 20, 1924. He had a plan of action. At first, to clear the NSDAP of "factionalists", to introduce iron discipline and the principle of "fuhrerism", that is, autocracy, then to strengthen its army - the SA, to destroy the rebellious spirit there.

Already on February 27, Hitler delivered a speech in the Bürgerbräukeller (all Western historians refer to it), where he directly stated: “I alone lead the Movement and personally bear responsibility for it. And I alone, again, bear responsibility for everything that happens in the Movement ... Either the enemy will pass over our corpses, or we will pass over him ... "

Accordingly, at the same time, Hitler carried out another "rotation" of personnel. However, at first he could not get rid of his strongest rivals - Strasser and Röhm. Although pushing them into the background, he began immediately.

The purge of the party ended with the fact that in 1926 Hitler created his own "party court" - the Investigative and Arbitration Committee. Its chairman, Walter Buch, until 1945 fought "sedition" in the ranks of the NSDAP.

However, at that time, Hitler's party could not count on success at all. The situation in Germany gradually stabilized. Inflation has gone down. Unemployment has decreased. Industrialists managed to modernize the German economy. The French troops left the Ruhr. The Stresemann government managed to conclude some agreements with the West.

The pinnacle of Hitler's success in that period was the first party congress in August 1927 in Nuremberg. In 1927-1928, that is, five or six years before coming to power, heading a still relatively weak party, Hitler created a "shadow government" in the NSDAP - political department II.

Goebbels was the head of the propaganda department since 1928. No less important "invention" of Hitler were the Gauleiters in the field, that is, the Nazi bosses in certain lands. Huge Gauleiter headquarters replaced, after 1933, the administrative bodies established in Weimar Germany.

In 1930–1933 In Germany, there was a fierce struggle for votes. One election followed another. Pumped up with the money of the German reaction, the Nazis rushed to power with all their might. In 1933 they wanted to get it out of the hands of President Hindenburg. But for this they had to create the appearance of support for the NSDAP party by the general population. Otherwise, Hitler would not have seen the post of Chancellor. For Hindenburg had his favorites - von Papen, Schleicher: it was with their help that it was “most convenient” for him to rule the 70 million German people.

Hitler never received an absolute majority in an election. And an important obstacle in his way were the extremely strong parties of the working class - the Social Democratic and the Communist. In 1930, the Social Democrats won 8,577,000 votes in the elections, the Communists 4,592,000, and the Nazis 6,409,000. In the June 1932 elections, the Nazis reached their peak: they received 13,745,000 ballots. In December, the situation was as follows: the Social Democrats received 7,248,000 votes, the Communists strengthened their positions - 5,980,000 votes, the Nazis - 11,737,000 votes. In other words, the preponderance has always been on the side of the workers' parties. The number of ballots cast for Hitler and his party, even at the peak of their career, did not exceed 37.3 percent.

As early as January 30, 1933, a discussion of measures against the Communist Party of Germany took place. Hitler spoke on the radio the next day. “Give us four years. Our task is to fight against communism."

Hitler fully took into account the effect of surprise. He not only prevented the anti-Nazi forces from uniting and consolidating, he literally stunned them, took them by surprise and very soon defeated them completely. This was the first Nazi blitzkrieg on their own territory.

1 February - Dissolution of the Reichstag. New elections have already been scheduled for March 5. The ban on all communist rallies under open sky(of course, they were not given halls).

On February 2, the president issued an order “On the Protection of the German People”, a virtual ban on meetings and newspapers critical of Nazism. The tacit permission of "preventive arrests" without appropriate legal sanctions. Dissolution of city and communal parliaments in Prussia.

February 7 - Goering's "Decree on Shooting", permission for the police to use weapons. The SA, SS and Steel Helmet are involved in helping the police. Two weeks later, the armed detachments of the SA, SS, "Steel Helmet" come under Goering's disposal as auxiliary police.

February 27 - Reichstag fire. On the night of February 28, about ten thousand communists, social democrats, people of progressive views are arrested. The Communist Party and some organizations of the Social Democrats are banned.

February 28 - Order of the President "On the protection of the people and the state." In fact, the declaration of a state of emergency with all the ensuing consequences.

In early March, Telman was arrested, the militant organization of the Social Democrats Reichsbanner (Iron Front) was banned, first in Thuringia, and by the end of the month - in all German lands.

On March 21, a presidential decree "On betrayal" is issued, directed against statements that harm the "well-being of the Reich and the reputation of the government", "extraordinary courts" are created. For the first time concentration camps are mentioned. Over 100 of them will be created by the end of the year.

At the end of March, a law on the death penalty is issued. Introduced the death penalty through hanging.

March 31 - the first law on the deprivation of the rights of individual lands. Dissolution of the state parliaments (except for the parliament of Prussia).

April 7 - the second law on the deprivation of land rights. The return of all titles and orders abolished in 1919. The law on the status of officials, the return of their former rights. Persons of "unreliable" and "non-Aryan origin" were excluded from the corps of officials.

May 2 - the appointment in certain lands of "imperial governors" subordinate to Hitler (in most cases, former Gauleiters).

May 7 - "purge" among writers and artists. Publication of "black lists" of "not (true) German writers". Confiscation of their books in shops and libraries. The number of banned books is 12,409, the number of banned authors is 141.

June 22 - prohibition of social Democratic Party, the arrests of the functionaries of this party who were still at large.

From June 27 to July 14 - self-dissolution of all parties not yet banned. The prohibition of the creation of new parties. The actual establishment of a one-party system. Law depriving all emigrants of German citizenship. The Hitler salute becomes mandatory for civil servants.

August 1 - renunciation of the right of pardon in Prussia. Immediate enforcement of sentences. Introduction of the guillotine.

August 25 - A list of persons deprived of citizenship is published, among them - communists, socialists, liberals, representatives of the intelligentsia.

September 22 - Law on "imperial cultural guilds" - states of writers, artists, musicians. A virtual ban on the publication, performance, exhibition of works by all those who are not members of the chamber.

November 12 - Elections to the Reichstag under a one-party system. Referendum on Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations.

November 24 - the law "On the detention of repeat offenders after they have served their sentence." “Recidivists” means political prisoners.

December 1 - the law "on ensuring the unity of the party and the state." Personal union between party Fuhrers and major state functionaries.

December 16 - mandatory permission from the authorities to parties and trade unions (extremely powerful during the Weimar Republic), democratic institutions and rights are completely forgotten: freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, freedom of movement, freedom of strikes, meetings, demonstrations. Finally, creative freedom. From the rule of law, Germany has become a country of total lawlessness. Any citizen, on any slander, without any legal sanctions, could be put in a concentration camp and kept there forever. The "Lands" (regions) in Germany, which had great rights, were completely deprived of them.

In order to get the support of big business, even before 1933, Hitler said: “Do you really think I am so crazy that I want to destroy German big industry? Entrepreneurs on account business qualities won a leading position. And on the basis of selection, which proves their pure race (!), they are entitled to the headship. During the same 1933, Hitler gradually prepared himself to subjugate both industry and finance, to make them an appendage of his military-authoritarian state.

The military plans that he hid at the first stage, the stage of the "national revolution", even from his inner circle, dictated their own laws - it was necessary to arm Germany to the teeth in the shortest possible time. And this required extremely intense and purposeful work, capital investment in certain industries, creation of conditions for economic “autarky” (self-sufficiency).

As early as the first third of the 20th century, the capitalist economy was striving to establish widely branched world ties, to the division of labor, etc.

The fact remains that Hitler wanted to control the economy, and thereby gradually curtailed the rights of owners, introduced something like state capitalism.

On March 16, 1933, that is, a month and a half after coming to power, Schacht was appointed chairman of the German Reichsbank. "Own" man will now be in charge of finances, seek gigantic sums to finance the war economy. In 1945, the same Schacht sat on the dock in Nuremberg, although he retired from business even before the war.

convened on July 15 general council German economy: 17 large industrialists, agrarians, bankers, representatives of trading firms and apparatchiks of the NSDAP issue a law on the "mandatory association of enterprises" in cartels. Part of the enterprises "joins", in other words, is absorbed by larger concerns. This was followed by: Goering's "four-year plan", the creation of the super-powerful state concern Hermann Goering-Werke, the transfer of the entire economy to a war footing, and at the end of Hitler's reign, the transfer of large military orders to Himmler's department, which had millions of prisoners, and therefore , free work force. Of course, we must not forget that the big monopolies profited immensely under Hitler - in the early years at the expense of "arized" enterprises (expropriated firms in which Jewish capital participated), and later at the expense of factories, banks, raw materials and other valuables seized from other countries. .

By the summer of 1934, Hitler was facing serious opposition within his own party. The "old fighters" of the SA assault detachments, led by E. Remus, demanded more radical social reforms, called for a "second revolution" and insisted on the need to strengthen their role in the army. German generals opposed such radicalism and the claims of the SA to lead the army. Hitler, who needed the support of the army and himself feared the uncontrollability of the attack aircraft, spoke out against his former comrades-in-arms. Accusing Rem of plotting to assassinate the Fuhrer, on June 30, 1934, he staged a bloody massacre (“the night of long knives”), during which several hundred SA leaders, including Rem, were killed. Strasser, von Kahr, the former Chancellor General Schleicher and other figures were physically destroyed. Hitler acquired absolute power over Germany.

Soon, army officers swore allegiance not to the constitution or country, but to Hitler personally. Germany's supreme judge proclaimed that "the law and the constitution are the will of our Fuhrer."

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    85 years ago, on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. The world did not shudder and did not consider this an important event at all.

    Hitler was the fourth head of government of the Weimar Republic in three years.

    Liberal democracy then was rather an exception. In half of the European states, from Moscow to Lisbon, authoritarian regimes of varying degrees of rigidity were in power.

    The Nazi leader's anti-Semitic remarks and talk of conquering the living space were seen as populist chatter.

    In the West, especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries, it was widely believed that after the First World War, Germany was treated excessively harshly, it was necessary to give in to the Germans in some way in order to calm their pride, and everything would be fine.

    Until the spring of 1939, when the Fuhrer, having violated the Munich agreements, seized the remnants of Czechoslovakia and without interruption began to make claims to Poland, he was seen as not a completely systemic, but, in general, civilized politician.

    If he had been content with collecting the lands inhabited by ethnic Germans and not staged the Holocaust, he would probably have ruled until the end of his days, like Salazar and Franco.

    Instead, Hitler became an arch-villain beyond the ranks, a demonic figure who to this day arouses the same curiosity as Jack the Ripper and, as usual in such cases, is covered in legends.

    Myth 1: Hitler came to power democratically

    This is often mentioned when they want to emphasize the imperfection of democracy.

    However, the Nazis never won a majority in elections. We can say that Hitler came to power in accordance with the constitution - but he observed it for exactly four weeks.

    After the "grand coalition" of the Social Democratic Party, the Catholic Center Party, the German National People's Party, the German Democratic Party and the Bavarian People's Party broke up in March 1930 due to disagreements over the anti-crisis budget, political instability began in Germany and ministerial mess.

    I would entrust such a person with a maximum post office Paul von Hindenburg, President of Germany

    No matter how many early elections were held, it was not possible to form a stable parliamentary majority.

    The NSDAP reached its peak of popularity on July 31, 1932, gaining 37.2% of the vote, but in the next elections on November 5, the Nazis lost about 2 million votes. On April 10 of the same year, Hitler lost the presidential election to Paul von Hindenburg.

    “Hopes have completely disappeared”, “no money, no one lends”, “we are on our last legs,” Goebbels wrote in his diary at the end of 1932.

    "Things were the worst in 1932," Hitler claimed 10 years later in one of his dinner conversations.

    In the November 5 elections, the Social Democrats, the Communists and the Center Party together won half the seats in the Reichstag.

    Not a coalition with social democracy, but a mortal battle with it Joseph Stalin, from a speech at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in January 1924

    If the Communist Party of Germany had agreed to enter the coalition government as a junior partner, there would be no question of Hitler's premiership. But Stalin, who had long declared that the Social Democrats were worse than the Nazis, forbade the German Communists to join the coalition.

    In return, the party of Ernst Thalmann put forward the slogan of a general strike in a country already in crisis and 6 million unemployment. This threat prompted the top business, the generals and Hindenburg, who had not previously concealed contempt for the "corporal", to seek " strong hand". In January 1933, the head of state invited Hitler to become Reich Chancellor.

    "It's almost like a dream, like a fairy tale!" - exclaimed Goering, having learned about the proposal received by Hitler.

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    Image caption Freedom and democracy burned in the fire of the Reichstag

    The National People's Party entered the minority cabinet and received key portfolios.

    At the same time, Hindenburg appointed another early election for March 5, 1933, which is still unknown how it would have ended. But on February 27, surprisingly in time for the Nazis, the Reichstag was set on fire.

    The next day, Hitler, without waiting for the conclusions of the investigation, publicly accused the communists of arson, but dealt a blow to all dissidents.

    At his request, Hindenburg signed the decrees "On the Protection of the People and the State" and "Against the betrayal of the German people and the intrigues of traitors to the motherland" without discussion in parliament, abolishing the inviolability of the person and property, freedom of assembly, associations, speech and press and the secrecy of correspondence.

    The constitution prescribes to us only the methods, but not the goal. We will try to give the state a form that suits our ideas Adolf Hitler, 1930

    In a few days, the authorities arrested about 10,000 people. On February 28, the stormtroopers began to carry out detentions and created illegal "wild" prisons in which people were beaten and tortured.

    Despite the atmosphere of hysteria and intimidation, in the March 5 elections, the NSDAP received only 43.91% of the vote. 12.32% of voters supported the already banned Communist Party, but their votes were declared invalid, and the mandates were handed over to the Nazis by a strong-willed decision. Thus, for the first time, they achieved a majority in the Reichstag.

    On March 23, this illegitimate parliament gave the chancellor emergency powers and the right to independently legislate. During the voting in the hall were armed stormtroopers and SS men.

    Image copyright Getty Images
    Image caption Hindenburg formally handed over the powers of chancellor to Hitler on January 30, 1933.

    After that, the Reichstag lost all significance, and since 1942 it did not gather at all. Many deputies were arrested and persecuted, 96 members of the Reichstag of various convocations were killed.

    On March 31, the land parliaments were liquidated, on April 7 the institution of unelected "imperial governors" was created, on May 2 trade unions and strikes were banned, on June 22 - the Social Democratic Party, on July 14 - all parties, with the exception of the Nazi.

    The unconstitutional coup ended on August 2, 1934, when, on the day of the death of the 86-year-old Hindenburg, Hitler, without any vote, appropriated presidential powers and proclaimed himself "the Fuhrer of the German nation."

    Myth 2: Hitler's real name is Schicklgruber

    "Everyone knows" that Adolf Hitler was actually Adolf Schicklgruber, but he took his grandfather's surname because "Schicklgruber" is long and sounds somewhat comical to a German ear.

    As the American scholar of Nazism William Shearer noted, it is impossible to imagine a greeting: "Heil Schicklgruber!". Approximately like the Soviet anthem with the words: "Dzhugashvili raised us to be loyal to the people!"

    By the time Hitler changed his surname, one could judge when he seriously thought about a political career. However, the time and circumstances of this event are unknown, and for good reason.

    In fact, the father of the future dictator was born out of wedlock and until the age of 39 bore his mother's surname: Schicklgruber. Five years after the birth of Alois, the biological father Johann Hitler married his mother, but did not officially acknowledge his paternity.

    Hitler was a bloody despot, guilty of many monstrous crimes, except for one - he was not a Schicklgruber for a single minute Victor Zaitsev, Russian historian

    Only in 1876, the brother of the deceased by that time, Johann, with three more witnesses, certified the origin of Alois, about which a corresponding entry was made in the church book of the city of Dellersheim.

    In January 1877, Alois received new documents.

    12 years later, a son, Adolf, was born to a 51-year-old customs official - naturally, with the surname "Hitler".

    In the 1930s, Austrian journalists unearthed an ancient story, and then the laws of psychological warfare came into force: now, he also has a funny surname!

    Myth 3: Hitler was a staunch and complete vegetarian

    Until the age of 42, Hitler ate everything, and later, according to his cooks and waiters, he used Bavarian sausages, ham and pates.

    The American restaurateur Dion Lucas, who worked in Hamburg in the second half of the 1930s, claimed that the head of the German government ate stuffed pigeons in her establishment.

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    Image caption Of the drinks, Hitler preferred tea and mineral water

    Hitler also loved fish, although he disdained crayfish.

    From 1931, he did restrict meat consumption, apparently primarily for medical reasons.

    Armaments Minister Albert Speer, who was close to Hitler, claimed that his stomach hurt from heavy food.

    In table conversations, he repeatedly assured that meat causes cancer.

    Other researchers claim that to some extent he was influenced by the example of his beloved composer Richard Wagner, who claimed that people degrade from meat, and the passion for Tibetan culture.

    The Imperial Association of German Societies for the Protection of Animals issued a medal with a portrait of Hitler and the inscription: "I am a determined opponent of the slaughter of animals." The Soviet poet Samuil Marshak responded with a satirical poem saying: "I don't need sheep's blood, but I need human blood!"

    Myth-4: Intimacy of the Fuhrer

    Hitler's sexual life clearly went beyond the usual, was surrounded by mystery, and, of course, still haunts human curiosity.

    Image copyright Getty Images
    Image caption In the photo, Eva Braun smiles, but judging by the scarce information available, she was not particularly happy with the Fuhrer

    Numerous mistresses, illegitimate children and complete impotence were attributed to the Nazi leader, he was called a latent homosexual and even a coprophage (feces eater). But these are all unsubstantiated rumors.

    Hitler was not married and had no offspring - in any case, well-known and recognized by himself.

    The legend for the people said that he had once made a vow: only Germany would be his bride! Although Stalin, Napoleon, Genghis Khan and many other dictators and conquerors, "greatness" did not prevent them from having wives, children and mistresses.

    Not a single woman claimed to have had a connection with Hitler or shared related experiences.

    There is numerous evidence that in the 1920s he behaved like a lover with a young cousin, Geli Raubal, but how far their relationship went, and why Raubal shot herself in 1931, we do not know.

    With the former laboratory assistant and model of his personal photographer Max Hoffmann, Eva Braun, who was 23 years younger than Hitler, he had known each other for 15 years, lived under the same roof for almost eight years, and married a day before his suicide. But again, little is known about their relationship.

    In my opinion, Hitler was asexual in the traditional sense Jack Porter, American historian and sociologist

    In 1935, she complained in her diary about loneliness and lack of attention, and in 1943 she allegedly shared with Speer: "The Führer cannot satisfy me like a man."

    Braun never appeared in public with Hitler and was not mentioned in the German media.

    There is also no evidence of Hitler's homosexuality.

    The only argument in favor of this version is, paradoxically, that he always spoke of non-traditional sexual orientation with contempt and sent gays to concentration camps. There is an opinion that latent homosexuals, who are embarrassed by their subconscious, become the most ardent homophobes, because, as it seems to them, they demonstrate their masculinity.

    Hitler repeatedly spoke in the spirit that the place of a woman in the kitchen, and the most best woman- stupid woman.

    He undoubtedly enjoyed women's society and knew how to be gallant, but preferred platonic relationships.

    For many years, he sent baskets of flowers to the famous film actress of Russian origin Olga Chekhova for Christmas and her birthday, but he did not try to go further in courtship.

    The Fuhrer called his secretaries and stenographers "my beauty" and "beautiful child", never spoke while sitting with a standing lady, presented chocolates and small trinkets.

    None of them complained of harassment after the war.

    He pestered female subordinates in a different way: he invited them to tea parties that dragged on past midnight, during which he spoke incessantly on various topics: for example, that the Earth is a hollow sphere, and people live on its inner surface. The ladies served this duty according to the schedules they compiled.

    Myth 5: Hitler managed to escape in 1945

    The corpse of the Fuhrer after the suicide was burned by the SS on his orders and was never presented for identification. This gave rise to suspicions that Nazi criminal No. 1 managed to fake his death and escape.

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    Image caption According to the authors of the book "The Gray Wolf", Argentine President Juan Peron helped Hitler escape

    Material evidence - a part of Hitler's skull with an entrance bullet hole, his dentures and the side handles of the sofa on which the suicide was committed, with traces of blood, the Soviet authorities kept in the secret archive of the KGB-FSB until 1996 and did not show it to anyone.

    On October 12, 1945, Dwight Eisenhower stated: "There is every reason to believe that Hitler is dead, but there is no direct proof."

    Tibet and even Antarctica were named as the place where Hitler was hiding, but most often Latin America, which since the days of Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" and the stories of O "Henry, has been in the minds of the people of the West a land of miracles and adventures, where absolutely everything is possible.

    The apotheosis of this theory was published in 2012 by British historians Gerard Williams and Simon Dunstan, The Gray Wolf: The Flight of Adolf Hitler.

    The authors claim that the bodies of the doubles of Hitler and Eva Braun were burned in the courtyard of the Reich Chancellery, and they themselves, with several escorts, walked seven kilometers along underground tunnels and got out of the fighting in Berlin.

    Then pilot Peter Baumgart ferried them to Spain with a stopover in Denmark. From there, with the knowledge of Generalissimo Franco, they went by submarine to Argentina, where Martin Bormann and Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller had prepared for them a comfortable estate in the foothills of the Andes back in 1943.

    According to Williams and Dunstan, then-President of Argentina Juan Peron was privy to the secret.

    Hitler allegedly died in his hiding place on February 13, 1962 at the age of 75. Eva Braun broke up with him in 1952, having managed to give birth to two daughters from the former ruler of Germany.

    In an interview with the Russian edition of Komsomolskaya Pravda, Williams said that he had been collecting material for five years and was 100% sure of his version. However, the book is based mainly on the assumptions and conjectures of the persons interviewed by the authors.

    Garbage for two thousand percent British historian Guy Walters, about the book "The Gray Wolf"

    One Argentine in his youth seemed to have seen in the lobby of a hotel in Buenos Aires a man who looked like Hitler in photographs, only without a mustache, another said that on the day of his alleged death, a suspiciously large number of German immigrants had gathered in a house in the Andes, a third heard something from their parents.

    Vasily Khristoforov, head of the Registration and Archival Collections Department of the FSB of Russia, called the book a cheap sensation.

    "There is no doubt about Hitler's death. Protocols of interrogations of persons from his inner circle, photographs of the place where corpses were found, forensic medical examination reports; fragments of Hitler's jaws, his personal belongings, and so on leave no doubt about Hitler's death in 1945," he said. is he.

    According to Khristoforov, the Russian authorities would not mind a DNA examination with international participation. However, such a study, which alone could finally dot the "i", has not yet been carried out.

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