Partial history of the Nazi party's rise to power
Pre-War Politics 1933-1939
On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg after attempts by General Kurt von Schleicher to form a viable government failed and under heavy pressure from former Chancellor Franz von Papen. Even though the Nazi Party had gained the largest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they had no majority in parliament.
Consolidation of power
The new government installed dictatorship in a series of measures in quick succession (Gleichschaltung for details). On February 27, 1933 Hermann Göring orchestrated the Reichstag building fire, which was followed immediately with the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded Habeas corpus,
(The Reichstag Fire Decree is the commonly used abbreviation for the law that was passed by the Nazi government in direct response to the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933. It took the government only one day to pass it on February 28.
The actual name of the decree is Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat (Decree of the Reich President for the protection of people and state). At the behest of Chancellor Adolf Hitler, the law was issued by the aging (and lapsing in and out of senility) Paul von Hindenburg using the authority of Art. 48 subsection 2 of the Weimar Constitution which allowed the Reichspräsident to take any appropriate measure to remedy dangers to public safety. It represents one of the key steps which the Nazi government took to formally establish its rule, commonly referred to as Gleichschaltung.
It suspended most of the human rights set forth in the constitution of the 1919 Weimar Republic. Since the decree is exemplary of how the Nazis quite legally abolished all remainders of what makes a modern democracy)
and other protective laws. The next Reichstag elections on March 5, 1933, yielded 43.9 % of the vote for the NSDAP giving them a slight plurality. The Reichstag drove the final nails in Weimar's coffin by passing the Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz) on March 23, 1933, which formally gave Hitler the power to govern by decree and in effect disbanded the remainders of the Weimar constitution altogether.
Further consolidation of power was achieved on January 30, 1934 with the Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reichs (act to rebuild the Reich). The act changed the highly decentralized federal Germany of the Weimar era into a centralized state. It disbanded state parliaments, transferred sovereign rights of the states to the Reich central government and put the state administrations under the control of the Reich administration. At the death of president Hindenburg on August 2, 1934, the Nazi controlled Reichstag merged the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler and reinstalled Hitler with the new title Führer und Reichskanzler.
The institution of the Gestapo, police to act outside of any civil authority, highlighted the Nazi's intention to hold powerful means of directly controlling German society. Soon, mirroring Stalin's terror in the Soviet Union, an estimated army of about 100,000 spies and infiltrants operated throughout Germany, reporting to Nazi officials the activities of any critics or dissenters. Most ordinary Germans, happy with the improving economy and better standard of living remained obedient and quiet, but many political opponents, especially communists and socialists, were reported by omnipresent eavesdropping spies, and put in prison camps where they were severely mistreated, and many tortured and killed. Estimates of political victims range in dozens of thousands dead and disappeared in the first few years of Nazi rule.
Social policy
The Nazi regime was characterized by political control of every aspect of society in a quest for racial (Aryan, Nordic), social and cultural purity. Modern abstract art and avant garde art was thrown out of museums, and put on special displays of "Degenerate art" where it was ridiculed. However, the crowds attending these displays of "decadent art" frequently eclipsed those attending officially sanctioned displays. In one notable example on March 31, 1937, huge crowds stood in line to view a special display of degenerate art in Munich while a concurrently running exhibiton of 900 works personally approved by Adolf Hitler attracted a tiny, unenthusiastic gathering.
The Nazi Party pursued its aims through persecution of those considered impure, especially against targeted minority groups such as Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.
By the Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935, Jews were renounced from the German citizenship and denied government employment. Most Jews employed by Germans lost their jobs at this time, their jobs being taken by unemployed Germans. On November 9, 1938, the Nazi party incited a pogrom against Jewish businesses called the Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass"); the euphemism was used because the numerous broken windows made the streets look as if covered with crystal. By September 1939, more than 200,000 Jews had left Germany, with the Nazi government seizing any property they left behind.
The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" members of their own population as well, such as the T-4 Euthanasia Program which killed off dozens of thousands of disabled and sickly Germans in an effort to "maintain the purity of the German Master race" (German: Herrenvolk) as described by Nazi propagandists. The techniques of mass-killing developed in these efforts would later be used in the Holocaust. Under a law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the compulsory sterilization of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary defects, ranging from mental illness to alcoholism.
Economic Policy
The Reichsmark gained significant value under the Third ReichThe economic management of the state was given to respected banker Hjalmar Schacht. Under his guidance, a new economic policy to elevate the nation was drafted, limiting imports of consumer goods and focusing on producing exports. Massive loans and credits were issued by the Reichsbank to industries and the individuals. Under the leadership of Fritz Todt a massive public works project was started, rivaling the New Deal in both size and scope; its most notable achievement was the Autobahn. Once the war started, the massive organization that Todt founded was used in building bunkers, underground facilities and entrenchments all over Europe. Another part of the new German economy was massive rearmament with the goal being to expand the 100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions.