The Rise of Nazism

The NSDAP and Hitler’s Rise to Power

The party gained international attention after a failed coup attempt in Munich in 1923, which led to Hitler being sentenced to prison. While in prison, he wrote the book Mein Kampf, where he openly presented his ideas about nationalism, racial superiority, antisemitism, and German expansion eastward. Despite the book’s radical content, the world did not take it seriously at the time.

In 1932, the NSDAP became Germany’s largest party. After political unrest, Hitler was appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Shortly after, the Nazis used the Reichstag fire as a reason to introduce emergency laws, leading to the persecution of political opponents and Jews. The SA and SS, recently appointed auxiliary police, carried out arrests and abuses.

In March 1933, new elections were held, but the Nazis only received 44% of the vote and had to form a coalition government. By pushing through the Enabling Act, Hitler nonetheless gained dictatorial power, and all other parties were banned. With strong popular support, especially from those affected by the Treaty of Versailles and the depression, democracy was quickly dismantled.

Opponents were silenced, antisemitism institutionalized, and Germany transformed into a dictatorship. The world reacted weakly when Hitler broke international agreements, militarized the Rhineland, and annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia. Only with the invasion of Poland in 1939 did opposition become clear—but by then, the dictatorship was firmly established.

This period shows how dangerous ideas often grow in the shadow of crisis, and how passivity in the face of early warning signs can have devastating consequences.

The Press Reacts

Professor Julius Tomaseth wrote in Aftonbladet (12 February 1923), even before the coup attempt, that it was difficult to “trace any clear and sharply defined party program.” The weekly magazine Hvar 8 dag (issue 9, 1924) described the NSDAP as “right-revolutionary.”

The right-wing politician Erik Arrhén wrote in Aftonbladet (11 November 1930) that they were “a step to the left” of the German Social Democratic Party. The Norwegian left-wing politician Ragnar Vold argued in Provinstidningen Dalsland (August 19, 1930) that it was “the proletarianized middle class who had rallied around them.”

The signer C.R.P. wrote in Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning (18 December 1931) that “unclear and foggier basic principles could hardly be imagined” about NSDAP’s party program.

The socialist Herbert Tingsten dismissed the NSDAP’s socialism in the newspaper Tiden (28 October 1935) as “not binding at all” and said that for them, the word socialism only meant “comradeship, solidarity, national community, a sense of duty towards the public, Prussian spirit, national assertion.”