5 Steps to a 5TM AP European History

(^186) › STEP 4. Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High
The so-called National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), or the Nazi Party,
began as a small right-wing group and one of the more than 70 extremist paramilitary
organizations that sprang up in postwar Germany. It was neither socialist nor did it attract
many workers; it was a party initially made up of war veterans and the unemployed. The
man responsible for its rise to power was Adolf Hitler, a failed Austrian art student and war
veteran.
Hitler used military attitudes and techniques, as well as expert propaganda, to turn the
NSDAP into a tightly knit organization with mass appeal. Hitler and the Nazis made their
first bid for power in November 1923 in the “Beer Hall Putsch,” when they tried to stage
a coup to topple the Bavarian government in Munich. It failed, but Hitler gained national
attention in the subsequent trial, during which he publicly decried the terms of the Treaty
of Versailles and espoused his views of racial nationalism. Years of reorganization and build-
ing of grassroots support produced significant electoral gains in the elections of 1930.
In the elections of 1932, the Nazis won over 35 percent of the vote. Hitler refused to
take part in a coalition government, and the German president, the aging military hero
Paul von Hindenburg, made the crucial decision to appoint Hitler chancellor of Germany
(the equivalent of prime minister). Early in 1933, the German parliament building, the
Reichstag, burned down. Hitler declared a state of emergency and assumed dictatorial
powers. He then used them to eliminate socialist opposition to Nazi rule. In the elections of
1933, Nazis won 288 seats out of 647. With the support of 52 deputies of the Nationalist
Party, and in the absence of Communist deputies, who were under arrest, the Nazis were
able to rule with a majority. By bullying the members of the Reichstag into passing the
Enabling Act of March 1933, Hitler was essentially free to rule as a dictator.
Fascist Dictatorships in Spain and Portugal
In both Spain and Portugal, Western-style parliamentary governments faced opposition
from the Church, the army, and large landowners. In 1926, army officers overthrew the
Portuguese Republic that had been created in 1910, and gradually António de Oliveira
Salazar, an economics professor, became dictator.
In Spain, anti-monarchist parties won the election of 1931, and King Alphonso XIII
fled as the new Spanish Republic was set up. When a socialist cartel won the election of
1936, General Francisco Franco led a revolt against the Republic from Spanish Morocco,
plunging Spain into a bloody civil war. Franco received support from the Spanish
monarchy and the Church, while Germany and Italy sent money and equipment. The
Republic was defended by brigades of volunteers from around the world (famous writers
George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway among them) and eventually received aid from
the Soviet Union. The technological might provided by the Germans allowed Franco’s
forces to overwhelm the defenders of the Republic. Pablo Picasso’s 25-foot-long mural
Guernica (1937), depicting the bombing of the town of Guernica by German planes in
1937, poignantly illustrated the nature of the mismatch. By 1939, Franco ruled Spain
as dictator.
Fascism in France
During World War I, France had essentially been administered by the military. At the war’s
conclusion, Parliament rushed to reassert its dominance, and France became governed by
moderate coalitions. But the elections of 1924 swept the Cartel des Gauches, a coalition of
socialist parties, to power, causing a reaction in the form of a flurry of fascist organizations,
with names like Action française (“French Action”), the Legion, and the Jeunesses Patriotes
(“Youth Patriots”). These organizations remained on the political fringe, but they provided
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