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Why Nazis are not Socialists #8: Conservatives Put Hitler in Power
To answer people with a superficial understanding of history and politics who insist Nazis are socialists, I wrote Seven reasons why Nazis are not Socialists. I didn’t intend to the list to be complete, but I am embarrassed that I missed an important bit of history that’s mentioned in Germany 1933: From democracy to dictatorship:
…in November 1932 the [Nazi] party seemed to be past its peak. The economy was recovering, and the NSDAP [the Nazi Party] received 11% fewer votes than in the July elections earlier that same year.
The conservative parties did not manage to win enough votes. They pressured president Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler chancellor. They hoped to form a majority cabinet with the NSDAP. The fact that they expected to use Hitler for their own agenda would turn out to be a fatal underestimation.
30 January 1933 was the day: Von Hindenburg gave in and appointed Hitler chancellor. ‘It is like a dream. The Wilhelmstraße is ours’, Joseph Goebbels, the future Minister of Propaganda, wrote in his diary. So, although Hitler was not elected by the German people, he still came to power in a legal way.
This cannot be stressed enough: Hitler came to power in a legal way thanks to the conservatives who knew the “socialist” in the Nazi name was…
