History That Doesn't Suck - 184: The Rise of Adolf Hitler: From Failure to Führer of Nazi Germany or the Third Reich

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

“There will be no more mercy now; anyone who stands in our way will be butchered.” This is the story of Adolf Hitler and the collapse of the Weimar Republic.  A dropout. A failed applicant to Vienna’s prestigious Academy of Fine Arts. A decorated but low-ranking soldier who attempts to overthrow the state and is convicted of treason. But only a decade or so later, he’s the nation’s leader. Not just the Chancellor, not even a “mere” president. He’s Germany’s dictator. The “Führer.”  How on earth does such an underwhelming man rise to such an overwhelming position of power? With virulent nationalism, rabid antisemitism, fearmongering, and violence in an economically panicked, democracy-doubting, and defeated Germany. This is the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Reich.  ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. HTDS is part of Audacy media network. Interested in advertising on the History That Doesn't Suck? Contact Audacyinc.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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as 3,000 people, including government officials, influential conservatives, and plenty of average citizens, swig their beer, and listen to Bavaria's general state commissioner, Gustavita Fancar, speak about the future of Bavarian politics. But this night, is about to take a far more dramatic turn than the state commissioner realizes. Tell you what, let's step into a quieter adjoining room, grab a Bavarian brew, and I'll fill you in on the situation. Here's the deal. 1923 has been a year of crisis for Germany,

a crisis rooted in 1919's Great War-ending Treaty of Versailles. Per the treaty, Germany owes France, Belgium, and Britain massive reparations, and to pay the defeated nation's new Weimar Republic resorted to printing cash. Well, this caused inflation, so Germany stopped making payments. But in January, France and Belgium answered by sending troops to occupy Western Germany's mighty industrial region, known as the Rourer. The Rur's populace then refused to work. The Vimar Republic blessed their civil disobedience, but this state-sanctioned passive resistance

strike only kicked Germany's inflation into hyperinflation, as in people's life savings became worthless overnight, and workers' daily pay was worthless by the end of a shift. The government polled its support for passive resistance and declared a state of emergency on September 26th, but that hyperinflation has continued. In fact, the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and a German mark, which was $1 to 4 marks in change before the war, is now $1 to 4.2 trillion. Yes, with a T, 4.2 trillion marks. This economic crisis emboldened the far left's communists. Entering the state governments of Thuringia and Saxony, they envisioned a Marxist revolution in October. But as German chancellor Gustav Streisemann used his emergency powers to

boot them from office and put down their insurrection in Hamburg, the communists' so-called German October didn't lead to revolution. It led to scores of dead and wounded. Meanwhile, the crisis has also inspired the far-rights nationalists, including the man speaking in this very Munich beer hall tonight, Gustav Ritavankar. Yes, despite his appointment as state commissioner with near-dictatorial powers over Bavaria,

due to it likewise declaring a state of emergency on September 26th, he too wants revolution, a nationalist dictatorship. He and his triumvirate have advocated for this openly, inspired by Benito Mussolini's recent march on Rome. They want to march on Berlin. But Gustav's toned down his rhetoric in recent weeks, as it's become clear that his northern allies aren't willing to take the first step. Ah, but Adolf Hitler is willing. In fact, he has to act. See, Adolf's not only the leader of the 50,000 strong Nazi party, but the alliance of German nationalists and paramilitaries

known as the German Combat League, their Deutsche Kampfpunt, and after months of tough-talking speeches at rallies blaming Germany's ills on Marxism, pacifism, democracy, and, you guessed it, the Jews, he must act or lose control of his violent followers. But that's a problem, since Gustavs iced him out of late. Or it was a problem.

because this triumvirate versus confluent situation is ending tonight. And on that note, let's return to the hall. Oh, and don't forget your Zydel or a beerstein. It's now 8.30 p.m. Gustav's likely in the middle of denouncing Marxism when suddenly the beer hall's doors fly open. The heavy set, mustachioed commissioner, falls silent as he and his audience of 3,000

watch steel-helmeted Nazi stormtroopers enter and set up a machine gun. As they do, a man in a trench coat with two pistol-wielding bodyguards advances. Stepping on a chair, he begins addressing the room. But the excited and scared chatter

drowns him out. No problem. He pulls his browning pistol and fires into the ceiling. Terrified silence envelopes the hall as 3,000 sets of eyes turn toward the man in the trench coat, a 30-something man with brown hair and a toothbrush mustache. Yes, this is Adolf Hitler.

He announces that the Bavarian state government is deposed and makes the state commissioner and his two other triumvirate members, Army or Reichswehr commander, General Otto von Loso, and Bavarian state police chief, Hans von Saiza, join him in a nearby room. As they exit, Herman Gurring assures the room that, despite the guns, all is fine. They're all on the same nationalist side. Besides, he adds, you've got your beer. Now speaking privately, Adolf apologizes to the triumvirate, but explains that he had to do this, and that they have to carry out this revolution with him. Adolf envisions a new Reich with him at the head, but the three of them beside him.

And this, he says, is do or die. In fact, if they fail, his pistol has four bullets. Three for my collaborators, and the last one for myself. Leaving the triumvirate to ponder the situation, Adolf returns to the hall. He addresses the 3,000 attendees, assuring them that they are on the same side. Tonight's actions, he says, are aimed at the Berlin Jew government and the November criminals of 1918. And as Adolf continues, he whips the hall around magically transporting the crowd from fearful captives to frenzy supporters.

He calls upon them to assure the triumvirate that they support him. And as they do so, with furious acclamation, as his ally, Great War General Erich Ludendorf, arise. And as the triumvirate gets on board and joins him on stage, the toothbrush mustachioed nationalist wraps his rhetorical masterpiece by dramatically proclaiming. Either the German revolution begins tonight, or we will all be dead by dawn. Adolf's revolution is proceeding perfectly, until it isn't.

His brown shirts and other Kampfboomte paramilitaries meet with mixed success, then begin failing outright to take over their government, railroad, and media targets. Adolf goes to personally check on one failure, and in his absence, General Erich Ludendorf makes a critical error. He trusts the Triumvirate is really with him and Adolf and lets them leave the beer hall. Big mistake. At 255 a.m., Reichs Vair commander, General Otto von Loso, makes it known via the radio that he, the triumvirate, and their combined police and military forces oppose this coup. As morning dawns and despair washes over the Nazis and their allies,

Erich Schlunddorf suggests they march into central Munich, with the hope that they'll inspire the people and armed forces to rally behind them. It's now a little past 12 noon, the next day, November 9th. Bystanders, both jeer and cheer, as Adolf and some 2,000 men from his confluent, approach Munich's large open square, known as the Odiansplatz. They're armed, some with weapons taken from the state police that they overpowered at the Ludwig Bridge. They lucked out there, though. Police sympathies with their cause eased that first fight, but now they're about to contend with a much larger police court.

Suddenly, a gunshot rings out, but from which side? No one knows. All that we know for certain is that the confluence breaks, and after a few minutes of furious shooting, The only would-be Nationalist Revolutionary still at the Odeans class are either wounded or dead. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. Adolf Hitler had hoped to take over the Bavarian state government, and from there, to goose step in the boots of his fascist role model, Benito Mussolini, by marching on Berlin, just as Il Duce marched on Rome last year, as we know from the last episode.

Instead, Adolf's Beer Hall-Putch, as his November 1923 insurrection in Munich is known, was a failure. It left 18 dead, four police officers and 14 members of the Kampfbunt, dozens wounded, and landed Adolf in prison for high treason. Nonetheless, he manages to end Germany's democracy and emerge as the nation's dictator over the next decade or so. How on earth does that work? Well, that's what we're here to find out. Today is the tale of Adolf Hitler's rise and his brand of fascism, commonly known as Nazism. Let me start by noting that Adolf's Nazism differs from Benito's version of fascism in Italy. Now, I won't redefine fascism, as we did that at length in the last episode, but I'll remind you that a challenge in defining fascism is that, as a form of extreme nationalism, it emerges uniquely in every nation it infests.

Thus, we'll see commonalities as Adolf's brand of fascism will be every bit as nationalistic, militaristic, expansionist, authoritarian, dictator-worshipping, and Marxist-Hating as Benito's fascism. But Nazism will also be uniquely German and uniquely reflect Adolf himself. That's going to make Nazism, that is, Adolf's national socialism, and yes, I'll explain his intentional use of a Marxist term in his nationalist movement. uniquely and incredibly anti-Semitic. In short, the Nazis will cast the Jewish people as their ultimate scapegoat, blaming them for Marxism and every ill suffered by the German people, and therefore the ultimate enemy. That note or definition of Nazism made,

let me clarify further that, we'll only begin to interrogate Adolf's anti-Semitism today. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of it in this episode, but the Nazi regime's hatred for the Jewish people is such a deep chasm of darkness with such large ramifications to come that it deserves its own episode. It will be our next one, in fact.

That delineation will give us the time we need today to witness Adolf's evolution from uninspiring Austrian artist to Bavarian slash German soldier of the Great War. And from there, into the leader or furor of a fringe far-right nationalist party that ultimately exploits interwar Germany's dire economic conditions, painful political polarization, and apathy, if not disdain for

the democracy of the Weimar Republic to become that republic's chancellor and cause of its death in 1933. We'll then see how, with the help of men like Herman Gurring, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler, the chancellor solidifies his power over the next year to become the dictator, the furor of the Third Reich, or Reich, also known as Nazi Germany. Finally, we'll end our tale in 1935, with the disturbing brilliance of the Nazi propaganda machine as we attend the Berlin premiere of the Adolf glorifying film, The Triumph of the Will. It probably goes without saying that some of the tales ahead are unsettling. But please indulge my reminding you of that, and that they're also important, as they help us all

recognize the dark places people, and indeed, whole societies can go. So, if you're ready to face this first chapter of the insidious rise of Adolf and Nazism, let us begin. And we do so by meeting the Hitler family in 19th century Austria. Rewind. In early 1876, Johann Nippelma Kiddler, or Hewtler, to use another variation of the careless ways family names get recorded in this era, took three witnesses with him to a notary office in the small Austrian town of Vaitra. There, Johann Nipumuk officially declared that his foster son, Aloise Shiklgruber, is in fact his nephew.

That although Alois has carried his deceased mother's family name of Shikulgruber through nearly four decades of life, the long-hidden identity of his father is none other than Johann Nipumukhiedler's brother, Johann Georg Hitler. Hmm, an odd record to set straight this late in Alois' life, might it have something to do with inheritance tax? No matter, three witnesses do the trick. The record is updated, and still in this era of careless spelling, the notary writes Alois's new last name, not as Hitler or Hudle, but Hitler. Nearly 40-year-old Alois does indeed take the new last name with Hitler,

and following the death of his first wife, then second, he makes his own. mistress, Clara Pulzel, his third bride. They marry in 1885. Four years later, on April 20th, 1889, Clara gives birth to their fourth child and first that will live past infancy on the second floor of an inn in Brownow, Austria. That child is Adolf Hitler. Ironic, isn't it? Young Adolf Hitler, the future German nationalist who will obsess over quote-unquote racial purity and heritage, owes his own family name to a misspelled alleged clarification of his grandfather's identity. And I say alleged because this entirely questionable situation only makes historians wonder, was Johann Georg really Alois Hitler's father?

Or was it perhaps Johann Nepomouk using his dead brother's name to legitimize his own son with his sister-in-law even if she wasn't his sister-in-law when she gave birth to Alois back in 1837? A third paternal path that some have wandered down is speculating that Alois's father, that is Adolf's grandfather, was Jewish, but historians consider that one untenable. The fact is, we'll never know exactly who Adolf's grandfather was, only that his family name change from Schicklgruber to Hitler was most unfortunate. As more than one of his biographers have joked, Hire Schiegelgruber would likely have elicited only laughter.

The mystery continues, as we consider Adolf's youth. This is because the narrative crafting furor will later order documents about his childhood destroyed, leaving us mostly with sources that historian Richard Evans calls, quote, highly speculative, distorted, or fantastical, close quote. Some aspects, like his love of drawing and cowboy westerns, or his leadership over a gang of six-year-olds, we can entertain, but others, like Adolf's claim about growing up impoverished, are demonstrably lies.

After all, his father, Alois, is an ambitious man, building a successful career as a customs bureaucrat for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It's his work that takes their small family to Passau in the German Empire in 1892, where some say that Adolf adds the lower Bavarian accent to his native upper Austrian German. But while the Hitler's are solidly middle class, and Alois is able to retire in the quaint village of Lyondim

just outside Linz, Austria in 1898, home life is complicated for Adolf, his two older half-siblings and younger siblings, or sibling, as little Edmund dies from the measles in 1900. Adolf and Paula are now the only surviving children that Clara Hitler has brought into the world. Alois is at best distant toward his children, at worst abusive. He's quick-tempered, prefers beekeeping to spending time with the kids, and it gets frustrated that Adolf, whom he wants to follow in his professional footsteps, performs terribly at school. Conversely, Clara Hitler is the doting mother. Understandable, she has lost four of her six children.

Adolf will later say of his parents, I had to honor to my father, what's loved to my mother. On January 3rd, 1903, Alois dies. No longer pressured by his father, Adolf does even worse in school, and at 16 years old in 1905 drops out. For the next two years, Adolf lives in an apartment in Linz with his mom, sister, and an aunt, doted and waited upon as he draws, paints, and enjoys Richard Wagner's operas with their heroic depictions of a mythic and glorious German past.

Adolf will later describe these two indolent years as being, like a beautiful dream. In fact, Adolf's interest in art has really taken off. He dreams of becoming a famous artist, but that means studying. Does he dare go away to study while his mother is suffering from breast cancer? For her part, his mother, Clara, is likely glad to see her aimless dropout and unemployed son find a path. Whatever the family discussions are, Adolf decides to go for it. He'll apply to the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts. It's an unspecified day in September 1907.

We're in the Austro-Hungarian capital of Vienna. an 18-year-old Adolf Hitler, lugging his paintings and drawings, is just stumbling onto the open space of the Schillerplatz. And that's when he sees it. Looking past the impressive statue of Friedrich Schiller, he takes in a three-story building, the upper two levels of which are covered with niches, each housing a breathtaking, godly sculpture. Yes, this is the Academy of Fine Arts, and as he ascends its steps toward the columned entrance, Adolf is sure that this is but his first step to a glorious career that will launch him to artistic greatness. All the remains is to pass the exam. A cake walk. Sitting with 112 other candidates inside the academy, Adolf's brush

glides across the canvas. Is he painting the expulsion from paradise of Adam and Eve? Perhaps Cain killing Abel. Both are options, among a few others. But whatever his subject, Adolf has three hours to paint his masterpiece. And it works out. While 33 of the other candidates are booted, Adolf is invited back for round two tomorrow, at which point the paintings he brought will be examined. All is going just as the confident Austrian expected. Adolf returns the next day with his portfolio, but this is as far as his application goes. The examining professor concludes that his examples have, quote, inadequate few heads. quote.

Adolf presses for more feedback, and the rector tells him that he really doesn't have the chops to be an artist. There's no feeling in his soulless work. But his urban scenes are proficient, so he should consider architecture. Maybe, but that would be a lot of work for a dropout. Deflated, the formerly confident artist will later recall that this rejection, Struck me as a boat from the blue. And future generations will long wonder if the whole world would have been better.

or off if the Academy had accepted him. Worst news brings Adolf back to his mother's bedside in Linz. By the end of October, Dr. Idua Bloch has to tell the teenager that his mother's breast cancer is terminal. Adolf stays by her bedside until she passes on December 21st, 1907. The loss hits him hard. As Dr. Broch later recalls, I have never seen anyone so prostrate with grief. One theory about Adolf's rabid anti-Semitism will later posit that he blames Dr. Bulk,

who is Jewish for his mother's death, but that doesn't hold up. Adolf is actually grateful for the doctor's exceptional care and will ensure that he receives special protection when the Nazi machine annexes Austria in 1938. But now, in December 1907, orphaned Adolf is again rudderless. He returns to Vienna and lives off his inheritance and his aunt's money while living in easy and making a second failed attempt at the Academy of Fine Arts. By the end of 1909, he's broke, renting a cheap room in a men's home, essentially a shelter, and forced to work for the first time in his life. The failed art student copies postcards depicting local

Viennese architecture to canvas, then sells them. Is this when his anti-Semitism takes off? He'll later claim that, and he's certainly exposed to anti-Semitic ideas in Vienna's newspapers. Mayor Karl Lugar is terribly anti-Semitic. These influences only add to the earlier influence of Austria's deeply anti-Semitic German nationalist, Georg Rietta von Schooner, who would prefer to see ethnically German Austria dissolve its multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire

to merge with the German Empire. This idea is nothing new. You might recall this Grosse-Deutsche vision of German nationalism from episode 128, but it goes to show how ubiquitous anti-Semitism is in Adolf's early years. Nonetheless, Adolf still has some Jewish acquaintances. The depths of his anti-Semitism are yet to come. In May, 1913, Adolf leaves Vienna for Munich.

The capital of the Bavarian kingdom within the German Empire, Munich fits much better with Adolf's ideas of a Germanically pure life, even if that life still consists of little more than a cheaply rented room, and painting architectural scenes. Yet, that life is briefly interrupted. Adolf's failure to register for military service in his native Austro-Hungarian empire has caught up with him. Fearing jail time, he reports to Salzburg, Austria, where he's quickly deemed too weak to serve.

He returns to Munich, deeply embarrassed. But in 1914, the Great War gives the dropout, failed art student, and never to be architect, what he's always lacked. purpose. Accepted into the Bavarian army, he fights at the Battle of Ibrch that first year. He will otherwise serve as a trench messenger. Not that this is without risks. He's wounded in 16 and twice decorated for bravery. Ironically, his second award, the Iron Cross first class, is thanks to the recommendation of a Jewish officer. And as you may recall, from episode 147, Adolf is hospitalized after a gas attack, though scholars believe his temporary blindness is likely psychological. Either way, it's while hospitalized with the rest of the gas-attacked

16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry in November 1918 that Adolf learns of the war-ending armistice, and that a revolution ending the German Empire, the Second Reich, is underway. Corporal Hitler is devastated by the news. He feels betrayed, and he's not alone. Indeed, Germany changes dramatically with the end of the Great War. You can revisit episodes 146 through 150 for the details, but as the Treaty of Versailles imposes a harsh post-war world on Germany, as the empire is replaced by revolution, flirtations with Marxism, then ultimately parliamentary democracy in the form of the Weimar Republic, the far right becomes convinced that the Jews and socialists are to blame for the loss of

the war and the empire. This so-called stab-in-the-back myth is utterly false, but between the rise of Bolshevism in Russia and the attempt at Bolshevism in the Bavarian capital of Munich, the information office of the Bavarian military administration is determined to stand against Marxism in 1919 by rooting out any leftist sympathies among the troops through far-right re-education and by gathering intel on political parties in Munich. And this is where Adolf Hitler finds belonging in the post-war world. Having nothing else going for him, he stays in the Bavarian army, and if he wasn't already sold on the stab-in-the-back myth, his re-education does the trick.

His passionate hatred for Marxism and the Jews is obvious, and he proves a gifted orator. He's soon teaching re-education classes himself. It also sent to a meeting of the Deutsche Abbaatar Patae, the DAP, or in English, the German Workers' Party. This Small Potatoes Party was founded on January 5th, 1919, by toolmaker Anton Drexler and journalist Carl Harer, their second attempt at a party. It's August 1919 before Adolf is sent to spy, but rather than simply gather intel, he is taken with their anti-Treatia Versailles, nationalist, and anti-Semitic goals. He soon joins the party. He'll later claim he's the small group's seventh member, but in reality his members, his members number is 555. Though that number is an exaggeration too. The DAP started counting at 501 to look

bigger on paper. His first official speech for the party is on October 16th, 1919. It goes so well that he continues to speak for them, particularly as they make a first attempt at drawing a real crowd. It's 7.15 in the evening, February 24th, 1920. Adolf Hitler is just stepping into Munich's historical beer hall, known as the Hofboy House. Pushing past patrons, he makes his way to its enormous banquet hall, the Festall. And as he enters, he couldn't be happier. A massive crowd, 2,000 by his estimate, fills the space. Some are members of the German Workers' Party, but many are not. Some are even

communists. Following the first speaker, Adolf takes the floor. Standing in his army uniform before this rough, slightly inebriated, laterhosen-clad crowd, Adolf feels the pressure knowing that if he botches this, the German Workers' Party may shrivel up like so many others have before. So he hits his favorite points, the ones that always prove popular. Adolf attacks the bespectacled politician. We met in episode 146 who signed the November 1918 Armistice. Matthias Erzberger, the Treaty of Versailles, And of course, the Jews.

To quote Adolf and police notes, detailing the crowd's enthusiastic response to his anti-Semitism. First, chuck the guilty vans, the Jews out, and then we'll purify ourselves. Monetary fines are no use against the crimes,

offencing, and usury. How shall we protect our fellow human beings against this band of blood-suckers? With the crowd reveling in their shared bigotry, Adolf proceeds to share the German Workers' Party's manifesto. Point one, the creation of a greater Germany, that includes all ethnic Germans.

Point two, the revocation of all great war treaties. Jumping ahead, point four expressly excludes Jews from German citizenship. and anti-Semitism is laced through many of the points that follow. Ultimately, the manifesto calls for an expanded, ethnic, anti-Semitic German nation under a quote-unquote strong central power, not parliamentary democracy. Leftists in the room shout down some of his points. Far-right followers fire back. But by the time Adolf's done, the room is largely with him,

and later he'll romanticize this barely noted by the press meeting of February 24. in his reading of the party's 25 points as the moment that a fire was sparked from whose embers the sword would necessarily come which would restore freedom and life to the German nation. The Deutsche Arbata Parthai, that is the German Workers' Party, marks this allegedly monumental meeting by soon adding Nacional Socialisticia or National Socialist to the are their name, making them the NSDAP, though you and I will know these so-called national socialists by another abbreviation. Nazi. National socialism. An odd name for a far-right fascist movement that hates socialism.

socialists, and yet it's quite intentional. The term nationalism speaks to the far right, while socialism piques the interest of Marxists, whom Adolf Hitler sees as potential converts. After all, fascism embraces some state ownership, and Adolf still offers an authoritarian state, though his is built on race rather than the proletariat. But even if the left shows up to a meeting angry, the Nazis don't mind a fight. Adolf has learned from the far left's communists how to control and intimidate in meetings. Moreover, he has organized squads, which soon develop into the strumap talong, that is, the assay, or stormtroopers, or even brown shirts.

Yes, like Benito's paramilitary, Adolf is also known for the color of its attire. Pulling from other nationalists already using the Hindu sun symbol called the swastika as an emblem of the quote-unquote unconquerable Germanic hero. It also provokes with a flag that depicts this arm-bent cross in black on a circle of white and centered on a red banner. It's an eye-catching logo that angers the red flag waving left while simultaneously incorporating the three colors of the former German Empire's flag. And indeed, it's not long after he read those 25 points on February 24th, 1920, that the Nazi party becomes Adolf's party. Party. Discharged from the army a month later, he starts giving the party his full-time attention.

By mid-1921, he shouldered out all competition among party leaders, and on August 1st of that year, he reorganizes the party with himself holding complete supremacy. He is the Nazi Party's leader. It's furor, or anglicized, it's furor. Meanwhile, Ernstchum and Herman Goering firm up the brown-clad SA, and in 1923, with a party of some 50,000-plus members, the command of a nationalist paramilitary combat league, or Kampfbunt, as well as crisis, communist insurrections, hyperinflation, and internal division weakening the Bavarian government and the Vimar Republic, Adolf sees his moment. That November, he launches his beer hall putch to seize the Bavarian government, then Polo Benito Mussolini by marching on the national capital. But as we know from this episode's

opening, Adolf's putch fails and he's imprisoned for high treason. His sentence is five years. Yes, insane lenience for high treason. But let's recall that Bavaria's nationalist politicians have been cozy with Adolf and talked about revolution. They can't have Adolf talking, so they make sure a sympathetic nationalist judge oversees Adolf's and other putch participants' trials. Sent to a Kush prison in Lambsburg-om-leich, Adolf welcomes a constant flow of gift-bearing visitors, reads, and writes. Specifically, he writes his autobiography, Mein Kampf, or My Struggle. As incoherent as bad social media rant before others edit it, Mein Kampf hits on the imperial or expansionist component of fascism, which Adolf frames

as the German people needing Lieben's realm or Living Space. Adolf also elaborates on his anti-Semitism. He'll hit this particularly in his later Volume 2. But in his view, Marxism is a Jewish idea, and the Bolsheviks in Russia are simply the military arm of a Jewish conspiracy. Thus, Adolf claims that, once his Nazis sweep Jewish Bolshevism from Russia, they'll have Lieben's realm for his master race. Mein Kampf doesn't sell well, and it won't until Adolf is in power. And just how does an incarcerated traitor whose party is banned come to power, especially since 1923's government destabilizing hyperinflation is over. Yes, the German economy is booming by

1994. That is in no small part thanks to U.S. Vice President Charles Dawes, as we know from episode 156's coverage of the banker VP's DAWS plan, which uses U.S. loans to stabilize Germany, even as the latter returns to paying war reparations. Anyhow, it sounds like Adolf's dream of a the Nito Mussolini-style rise in Germany is toast. So how does he turn that around? First, Adolf is paroled in December 1924. That's right. He did less than a year for treason. Second, a sympathetic judge lifts the ban on Adolf's Nazi party and his newspaper, the racial observer, as Bavaria's state of emergency ends in February 1925. Third, he gets the band back together. Although the Nazi party withered during his incarcerated absence,

Adolf quickly rebuilds, and ironically, he's helped by his Beer Hall Putsch, particularly because he took the fall for it. He's got hero status among far-right nationalists. Adolf also now understands that his Nazi party can't ignore legalities. It must compete in elections. Painful for an anti-democratic party, but to quote Adolf's new friend in Berlin organizer, Joseph Goebbels, or Dr. Goebbels, as the Ph.D. in literature is often called. We are going into Parliament to arm ourselves with weapons from democracy's arsenal. If democracy is stupid enough to give us free tickets and allowances for this disservice, that is its own business.

We will use any legal means to revolutionize the current state of affairs. But even as the party grows its paramilitary organizations within the SA, they add bodyguards for Adolf known as the Schutstaffel or SS in 1925. and reorganize their adolescent indoctrination program, Hitler Youth, in 1926, and better organize across the nation. Their democratic aspirations are not working out. The Nazis are a blip on the Weimar Republic's political map without a crisis to push radical politics. They earn between 1.6 and 2.5% of votes in state elections in 1926 and 1927

and only 2.5% in the elections for the Reichstag, or national parliament. in 1928. Following that embarrassment, they switch from focusing on the working class to rural and middle class voters and downplay their anti-Semitism to push unity through nationalism. This helps, but as we enter the year 1929, the same year that 40-year-old Adolf meets a slender, athletic, 17-year-old blonde working as photographer's assistant in Munich named Eva Brown. The Nazis get a leg up thanks to the Great Depression. Revisit episodes 170 and 172 if you need a refresher on the stock market crash and the subsequent early Great Depression. But as we learned in 172, the Great Depression spreads to Europe.

Germany feels it as the Dawes' plan's successor, the Young Plan, collapses like a financial house of cards without U.S. banks able to continue making loans. In 1930, Germany's unemployment shoots to 15%, about 2 million people. Suddenly, parties saying that the Weimar Republic needs to go, which includes several far-right parties, as well as the far-left's communists, are making more sense. That's even the case as Chancellor Hermann Mueller resigns, along with his fellow Social Democrats, after failing to win emergency powers in March 1930. That leaves the Great War hero, the former Field Marshal, turned president of the Weimar Republic, 82-year-old Paul von Hindenburg, to solve the crisis.

A staunch conservative, Paul makes the center-party chancellor, Heinrich Bruning, form a government without the social Democrats, leaving him without a parliamentary majority. Little surprised, then, that when Paul makes his own play for emergency powers to bypass Parliament through the Vimar Constitution's Article 48 in July, Parliament overrides him. Fine. Paul dissolves Parliament and calls for new elections.

The Nazis jump into action. Led by propaganda head Dr. Joseph Goebbels, they run a nationwide campaign with Adolph theatrically shouting at every event possible. That September, the Nazis get 18% of the vote, taking them from 12 to 107 seats, making them the second largest party in the multi-party parliament. Nonetheless, the Chancellor wisely excludes the Nazis from his coalition government. Banks closing unemployment, rising, the economy crashing.

The Nazis point the finger at communists as the two parties' respective paramilitaries clash, leaving scores, if not hundreds, dead in the streets between 1930 and 1932. President Paul von Hindenburg responds by banning the Nazis' SA and SS thugs in hopes of ending the bloodshed. Meanwhile, in March's 1932 presidential election, Paul wins 53% of the vote, but Adolf comes in second with just less than 37%.

Parliamentary elections that summer give the Nazis 230 seats, making them not the majority, but nonetheless the largest, party in parliament. That same summer, Paul asks his thickly moustachioed buddy, Franz von Pappen, to serve as chancellor. A center-party conservative, Franz is not a fan of parliamentary democracy. Lifting the ban on the S.A. and the SS to woo the Nazis, he has sufficient support to use Article 48 and rule by decree.

Until November's election returns a slightly less Nazi parliament that then boots him from power. Ah, but Franz won't go down so easily. He convinces his dear friend, Paul von Hindenburg, to make Adolf Hitler Chancellor. They think that if Adolf is Chancellor and two more of the total 12 cabinet posts go to other Nazis, France can serve as Vice-Chancellor and keep the Nazis in check. So convinced, Paul appoints Adolf as Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Yes, Adolf is now Chancellor of the Weimar Republic,

and for many historians, this is the day that the Vice-Rourer, Weimar Republic dies. After all, with the Great Depression pushing radicalization in a nation where political parties have paramilitaries and democracy is often viewed with apathy, if not outright contempt, Adolf is just one crisis away from killing parliamentary democracy. It's 930 at 9th, February 27, 1933. The president of Weimar Germany's parliament, that is, the Reichstag, Herman Goring, is in his office. office at the gorgeous Baroque 18th century-built Reich Palace on the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin.

He's working late, not unusual for the Nazi Reichstag president. He's been with Hitler since the early days. A great war pilot who soared in the Red Baron's Flying Circus, Herman numbered among the wounded at the Beer Hall Putsch. He took a bullet to the groin, a wound that led to years of opium addiction. He's cleaner now, functional, and in no small part. thanks to the support of his beloved late wife, Karen, who passed on two years ago. If only she could see him now in his suit, his black hair slicked back, and president of the Heistag. But no time for daydreaming. Right now, Herman needs to focus on next month's elections and ensure that the national socialists defeat the great enemy, the communists. They must do so if they're to kill parliamentary

democracy and move closer to establishing a decidedly nationalist and not Marxist dictatorship. Suddenly, his work is interrupted with a distressing report. Across the street, the parliament building, the Heistak building, is on fire. Throwing on his coat, Herman races outside to see flames leaping from the Heikstegg's glass cupola. The nearly 50-year-old neo-renaissance home of the German government belches smoke as firefighters strive to stop the inferno within, worried about family heirlooms in his Reichstag office and the tapestries from an entrance to building through an underground tunnel. And that's when the cupola comes crashing gang. On the other side of Berlin, Adolf Hitler and the deposed emperor's son,

Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, are enjoying dinner with Dr. Joseph and Magda Goebbels when a friend calls with the news. Dr. Goebbels doesn't even believe it at first, but soon he and Adolf are in a car, racing to the scene. They find Herman Goring back in his surviving Reichstag office, the chief of the Prussian secret police, or chief of the Prussian Gestapo, as it will soon be known, Rudolph Deals, and Vice-Chance Franz von Poppin joined them, and soon they learned there's a suspect for this great crime of arson against Germany. Found shirtless and sweaty while trying to flee the burning building, 24-year-old Dutch bricklayer, Marinus von der Luva, has all but admitted he started the blaze with fire starters and his own shirt in protest of the government's oppression

of workers. And he's a communist. Marinas isn't German, nor is he associated with German communists, but no matter. Adolf knows they have more than enough to spin this in the press to their purposes. He calls it a got-given signal and predicts that same night. There will be no more mercy now. Anyone who stands in our way will be butchering. it. Adolf goes with Dr. Goebbels to the Berlin office of the doctor's newspaper, the Volkerche, where a new front page is prepared and made as inflammatory as the fire that nearly consumed the whole Reichstag.

And as those papers hit the streets of Berlin the next morning, February 28, 1933, the Reich minister of the interior, Wilhelm Frick, has whipped up a decree called for the protection of people and state, commonly known as the Reichstag fire to go. decree. It ostensibly empowers the state to protect and restore order after this act of arson, but in reality, its suspension of all sorts of personal liberties and civil rights, including the freedom of speech and warrants for searches or arrests, gives Adolf the power to sweep up and mistreat his Marxist foes without so much as a pretext. With Podfan-Hindenburg's consent, the Heistagg fire decree takes effect that same day.

For all intents and purposes, the reign of the Third Reich, or Nazi German, has begun. The Nazis did not set the Reichstag fire, but the sure made good use of it. The March 5th, 1933 election hands them to 288 of Reichstag's 647 seats, or 43.9% of parliament. It isn't the outright majority that Chancellor Adolf Hitler wanted, but with the 8% taken by its nationalist coalition partners, that makes a majority. Hmm. Still not big enough to guarantee Adolf can get the two-thirds majority vote of the Reichstag's deputies needed to constitutionally amend the Weimar Republic's already dead democracy completely out of existence, though. Or is it?

The weak-old Reichstag fire decree makes it so easy to arrest Marxists, even those elected to the legislature. Indeed, two weeks after the election, on March 20th, Virhal-Putsch veteran and Reisfeuhrer SS, or SS commander, Heinrich Himmler, announces the creation of a camp to house communists and, if needed, socialists, particularly either group's paramilitary members. In short, Marxist troublemakers, or really any other political opposition to the Nazi regime. The camp is just outside the Bavarian town of Dachau. Two days later, on March 22nd, the first 200 prisoners arrive. Within an initial capacity for 5,000, this camp will nonetheless

fill quickly. 10,000 Bavarian communists and socialists will be arrested by the end of April alone. Meanwhile, just one day after this first and later notorious Nazi concentration camp at Jackow opens, Adolf makes his final and biggest Reichstag fire-related power grab. On March 23rd, 1933, as the temporarily displaced legislature, the Reichstag, meets in the nearby Kroll Opera House. The toothbrush mustachio chancellor gives a two-and-a-half-hour speech in which he claims Germany's dire situation. Its need for, quote-unquote, moral renewal, requires amending the Constitution to enable the cabinet to make laws. In other words, Adolf wants the Reichstag to hand the executive branch, which is effectively him, their legislative

powers. As Adolf speaks, it isn't the nation's flag, but a massive Nazi swastika that hangs behind him. It isn't the nation's police, but armed SA and SS thugs who menacingly fill the opera house and surrounding streets. Nor are the Reichstag's 81 elected communist deputies here. They've fled or been arrested. With assurances that Christianity will be respected, and their positions will remain. The conflicted and scared Catholic center party ultimately folds. Only the socialists dare to say no. Thus, with 441 deputies in favor and 94 against,

the Reichstag votes for the so-called Enabling Act. In doing so, the national legislature has voted to make itself pointless, to destroy any remaining semblance of checks and balances, and to drive the nail in the coffin of the Weimar Republic. The next month, April, 1933, it becomes legal to fire civil servants for their politics or for being Jewish. A little over 400 judges, prosecutors, and other officials are swept aside. In May, state parliaments are dissolved as Reich governors are established, thereby eradicating

any degree of state sovereignty and killing German federalism. In July, all other political parties, apart from the Nazi party, are outlawed. Books burn. The Nazi approved. German labor front replaces labor unions, Germans with certain hereditary health conditions are sterilized, all this and more as Adolf tightens the screws through 1933. Meanwhile, the brown-clad S.A. is having a grand old time attacking, robbing, and sometimes murdering dissidents and Jews. But are the brown shirts, the very thugs who've been the muscle

in this revolution, becoming too powerful? The number three to four million as we entered the year 1934, and the Stabbschev, Ernst Röhm, is spouting off about Adolf's stupid and dangerous advisors. In fact, word has it that Ernst and his S.A. want a second revolution to purge the nation of non-Nazi elites and to see the essay itself evolve into a genuine militia, or real military. Well, Adolf knows that threatening old-school right-wing non-Nazi elites and the German army, or Ryswehr, is a terrible idea. After all, the Reichauer is the one entity still able to possibly stop him. This Second Revolution talk and any threat Ernst and his S.A. pose all have to end.

And shortly after his dismal June visit with Italian dictator, the Nito Mussolini, that we heard about in the last episode, Adolf decides to cut the head off the snake. It's just past 6.30 in the morning, June 30th, 1934, and 3rd. Three cars are pulling up at the Hotel Hanselbauer and Bad Vise. It's a gorgeous little upper Bavarian spa town nestled at the foot of the Alps in southern Germany. But the scenery is the furthest thing from Adolf Hitler's mind as he, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, and an entourage of SS police burst out of their cars and charged into the hotel. Dashing into one room after the next,

Adolf and his cronies ripped groggy hung over brown shirt-wearing essay leaders from their beds, all conveniently gathered at this hotel for a meeting with the Reich Chancellor, though this isn't the meeting they expected. Pistol in hand, a frothing, frenzied, raging Adolf charges in the Stabchev Ernstchum's room, declaring to this long-time ally

and party builder, Ruhm, you are under arrest. Utterly shocked, the brown shirt commander's simply answers, Hald Hitler! Breslo's S.A. Division Chief, Edmund Heinz, is found in bed with a blonde 18-year-old troop leader,

that is, an 18-year-old man. Dr. Goebbels takes note to later make use of this and Ernst's own barely secret homosexuality to help justify today's attack in his propaganda. Ernst Hume and his men are arrested and taken to Stadlheim prison in Munich. Adolf Marks 6 of Ernst's men for immediate execution. Without a trial, SS officers seize them,

take them outside, and declare, You have been condemned to death by the Fuhrer. Heil Hitler! They've been gunned the sixth down on the spot. Meanwhile, Dr. Goebel's telephone's Reichstag president, Herman Goring, in Berlin, with the password, Kolibri, that is, hummingbird. With that, Herman has Reis-Fueur SS.

Heinrich Himmler put his SS officers and Gestapo murder squads in action. They take out brown shirt leaders and Nazi regime foes, old and new, across the country. As for Stabstschev Ernst Chum, he's provided with a newspaper the next day, July 1st, announcing his alleged revolt against Adolf, dubbed the Chum Putsch, and give in a pistol to kill himself. But Ernst won't go along with the false narrative. He refuses. So, Dachau concentration camp commander, Teodor Aika, and his deputy, shoot the man dead.

or in English, Night of the Long Knives. That's what this Adolf-sanctioned SS and Gestapo murder spree of June 30th through July 2nd, 1934 is called. It certainly curved any threat the semi-autonomous SA posed, including Stabstchm, about 50 of their brown shirt-wearing leaders met their end, and over the next year, the group's million's strong membership will drop by 40% as the mighty paramilitary doesn't die but definitely devolves. Nor does the S.A., which is now run by Viktor Lutza, continue to house the SS. Instead, the Heinrich Himmler run and Adolf Hitler loyal SS is detached

and will continue to evolve into an increasingly powerful and elite Nazi force. But the night of the long knives didn't just bring the brown shirts to heal. From Weimar Republic leaders to the Bavarian leader whose speech Adolf interrupted with his beer hall push over a decade ago, as many as 150 others were sold. summarily executed. Still more were put on notice, like Vice-Chancellor Franz von Poppen, who's placed under house arrest. And it all pays off. Most Germans are happy, as is the Reich Verre and Adolf's inner circle, which is pleased to know that Adolf's and therefore their power are in no way threatened by the essay. In fact, the night of the long knives only cemented the

army's ties to Adolf and his Nazi machine. Only a month later on August 2nd, 1934, Adolf's last step to solidifying his power comes with the passing of the Weimar Republic's 86-year-old president, Paul von Hindenburg. Even as Adolf publicly mourns the decades-long public servant and war hero of several regimes, he exploits him, saying that, in Paul's honor, the office of president should be retired. And it just so happens that Adolf has a new law already prepared. the law on the head of state of the German Reich that merges the president's powers with that of the chancellors.

The law takes effect that same day, making Adolf not only the Fuhrer of Nazism, but the Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor, or the Fuhr and Reich Chancellor. Adolf is now the dictator that he dreamed of being back in that Munich beer hall. In fact, he's so confident that he lets the German people vote on it in a referendum that same month.

With a 95.7% voter turnout, it passes with 89.9% in his favor. Okay, most of Germany is indisputably with him. But did voter intimidation juice that number? Absolutely. The long anti-democratic dictator wouldn't actually leave this decision up to the people. But you know what pairs well with intimidation? Propaganda. And Adolf has a new film to help with that.

It's the evening of March 28, 1935, riding in one of his favorite convertible Mercedes. Viewer Adolf Hitler sits beside his dear friend and chief propagandist, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, as they waved to the crowd while pulling up at one of Berlin's finest cinemas. The Ufa Pallasamso. The theater's exterior is adorned with several huge swastika flags, while a massive, spotlighted, golden Reich eagle spreads its wings over the entrance. All this is to say one thing. Tonight is significant for them, and it is.

This is the premiere of the film Triumph des Villens, or Triumph of the Will. Come on, I'll fill you in as we find our seats. Here's the deal. Triumph of the Will is billed as a documentary, but it's pure propaganda. Even Dr. Goebbels would tell you that, and with pride. It was filmed at last September's Nazi rally in Nuremberg. and is the work of the talented director Halina Amalia Bertha Riefenstahl, or just Lenny. Lenny made a solid propaganda film for the Nazis out of a 1933 party rally,

but it's no good now because Stab's chef Ernstchum is in it. In fact, he's next to the furor in it, and after the night of long knives, well, the first film is now as dead to the Reich, as Ernst literally is. So here we are with a new film. Oh, and here are our seats. I know we're usually up front, but I thought the back row would do just fine for this one. Sitting, waiting. Finally, a beautiful brunette in her early 30s dashes into the theater.

Ah, that's Lenny. Yeah, they held the start for her. Well, let's see how her propaganda turned out. With a powerful brass swelling, jagged white letters against a black background appeared declaring. Twenty years after the outbreak of the world, war, 16 years after the beginning of Germany's suffering, after the beginning of the rebirth of Germany, Adolf Hitler flew to Nuremberg to review his faithful followers. The film then cuts to the point of view of the airplane in flight. It's exhilarating to see clouds from this

view, sweeping past us and below us, so few of us have experienced flying. Then, suddenly, the sun shines through and our heavenly descent toward Nuremberg begins. swastikas decorate the idyllic towns medieval towers and the troops below wave while marching in perfect columns in a show of brilliant camera work we now cut between the airplane descending and panning views of the mince crowds as the plane lands this sea of people gives way to a tidal wave of right arms rising at a slight angle and shouts of hale hale that builds then erupts into a thunderous chorus of hale hitler then the furor himself emerges from the aircraft. Following Adolf into Nuremberg, the camera constantly shows Adolf standing tall and his Mercedes, low against the sun, to create a halo. It gives a

messianic, godlike feel, and Lenny did this on purpose. The director is intentionally invoking Christ's arrival in Jerusalem as she builds the cult of Adolf. We see close-ups of adoring fans, particularly smiling, blonde children and mothers, and smartly stepping soldiers. whose very steps move in time with an orchestral score that rises and falls to convey triumphant militarism with peace and prosperity all at once somehow. The message is clear. Germany loves their furor.

The furor loves Germany. To use a phrase often repeated in the film, one people, one leader, one Reich. Triumph of the will is the enormous success and not just for Lenny, who faints when Adolf presents her, with a bouquet of flowers and a kiss on the hand. It sells more tickets than any other film in Germany in 135, and it will go down in history for its groundbreaking editing and camera work,

and of course, for its true purpose, for being Nazi propaganda that depicts Adolf as the god he so desperately wants to be. And so, we've witnessed the death of Germany's Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, a transition that was effectively done the day Adolf became Chancellor in 1933 and solidified when he subsumed the powers of the President in 1934. But you know, I'd hardly call his rise a triumph of the will as Adolf's beloved propaganda frames it. He didn't have an original thought. The world he grew up in was steeped in anti-Semitism

and German nationalism. The anger and since a betrayal he felt at the end of the Great War wasn't unique in the slightest. He merely exploited it. Nor could he have succeeded without a crisis. It's telling how his popularity skyrocketed amid the Weimar Republic's early hyperinflation, but failed harder than his art school application once the Dawes plan stabilized the German mark. Only with the Great Depression and the return of dire economic conditions did his fringe, far-right politics managed to win a plurality, and still not a majority of Germans. Even then, Adolf needed help.

He benefited from Germany's brief experience with and underwhelming commitment to democracy. He exploited the people's fear of Bolshevism, particularly after the Reichstag fire, and he never could have done it without allies who, if you'll forgive the term, served as useful idiots. Those traditional elites like Paul von Hindenberg and Franz von Pappen,

who thought they could control him. And frankly, these are, are all things that we could broadly say about the rise of Adolf's hero to the south, Benito Mussolini. But even as we close the tale of Adolf's rise preparatory to his 1936 Treaty of Friendship with Idli's Ducce and empire building in the name of Liebenzegro, were a far cry from taking in the full enormity of what the Fuhr is unleashing, particularly against his ultimate scapegoat, the Jewish people. next time we'll go far deeper into the history of anti-Semitism and follow that history into the shattered glass-strewn streets of 1930s Nazi Germany and the early years of the

Holocaust history that doesn't suck is created and hosted by me Greg Jackson episode researched and written by Greg Jackson and Will King production by airship sound design by Molly Boff. Theme music composed by Greg Jackson. Arrangement and additional composition by Lindsay Graham of Ayrshire. For a bibliography of all primary and secondary sources consulting in writing this episode, visit htbspodcast.com. HATDS is supported by fans at htbspodcast.com slash membership.

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