In retrospect there can be no minimising the
importance of one historical date – 30 January
1933, when Adolf Hitler was appointed chan-
cellor of Germany by President von Hindenburg.
Within eight years of his coming to power,
Germany had conquered continental Europe from
the Channel coast to the gates of Moscow. It was
not a conquest and occupation such as had
occurred in the Great War. In German-occupied
Europe some 10 million people, including 2 mil-
lion children, were deliberately murdered. Hitler’s
Reich was a reversion into barbarism. Racism as
such was nothing new, nor was it confined to
Germany. These doctrines attracted groups of sup-
porters in most of Europe, including France and
Britain, in South America and in the US. But it was
in Germany that the resources of a modern indus-
trial state enabled criminal leaders to murder and
enslave millions. Until the concentration camps
revealed their victims the world was inclined to
believe that a country once in the forefront of
Western culture, the Germany of Goethe, could
not so regress. This faith in civilisation was mis-
placed. How was it possible? For just one of the
more easily discernible parts of the explanation we
must turn to the politics of Weimar Germany,
which failed to provide stable governments until
political democracy ceased to function altogether
after the onset of the economic crisis of 1929.
From 1920 to 1930 no party was strong
enough on its own to form a government and
enjoy the necessary majority in parliament. Butuntil 1928 a majority in parliament either
favoured or at least tolerated the continuation of
the parliamentary system of government. The
Communist Party was too weak in its parliamen-
tary representation to endanger the Republic dur-
ing the middle years of Weimar prosperity from
1924 to 1928; its strength was appreciably smaller
than that of the deputies of the moderate Socialist
Party. Indeed, the Socialists steadily gained votes
and deputies in the Reichstag. From 100 in May
1924 their representation increased to 153 in- Significantly, the Communist Party fell in
the same period from 62 to 54 Reichstag deputies.
On the extreme anti-democratic right the Nazis
did even worse in parliamentary elections; in May
1924 there were 32 Nazis elected to the Reichstag
and in 1928 only 12. Even the conservatives, the
Nationalist Party, who formed the opposition for
most of the time from 1918 to 1930, declined in
number from 95 to 73.
Weimar Germany appeared to gain in strength.
This was not really so. The Nazis were winning
adherents wherever there was distress. Even during
the years of comparative prosperity, many of the
farmers did not share the benefits of industrial
expansion. Then governments were discredited by
their short life-spans – on average only eight
months. Parties appeared to be locked in purely
selfish battles of personal advantage. The Social
Democratic Party must share in the blame for the
instability of the Weimar coalition governments.
It preferred to stay in opposition and not to
(^1) Chapter 17
THE FAILURE OF PARLIAMENTARY
DEMOCRACY IN GERMANY AND THE RISE
OF HITLER, 1920–34