Rise Of The Nazi Party Through Propaganda

Germany was left weak after World War I. The Weimar Republic was slow in addressing Germany's economic problems and when the Great Depression hit in 1929, Germany became even more desperate. Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Germany Worker's (NAZI) Party effectively gained the support of the German people by condemning the Treaty of Versailles, promising them work, and creating feelings of national and racial supremacy.

The Treaty of Versailles had punished Germany severely after World War I and this helped the NAZI party gain support. Germany was forced to admit responsibility for causing the war and had its army limited to one hundred thousand men. This embarrassed the German people and hurt the country economically because Germany was forced to pay the Allied countries war reparations that Germany couldn't afford. The NAZI party used the Treaty of Versailles as propaganda by convincing the German people that they weren't safe with their limited army while the rest of Europe had strong militaries The NAZI party did not consider the treaty "as a law, but as something forced upon us". Adolf Hitler promised to fight against the Treaty of Versailles.

The NAZI party also exploited the severe economic problems Germany was experiencing in the early 1930s to gain support. German had been depending on loans from the U.S. to pay off its war reparations. When the U.S. stock market crashed in 1929, the U.S. called back its loans and the German economy suffered greatly. From 1928 to 1933 unemployment increased from 650,000 to 6,100,000. In 1933 Adolf Hitler promised to overcome unemployment within 4 years. NAZI membership in the Reichstag increased from 32 in 1924 to 288 in 1933. NAZI support increased because they promised to fix the massive unemployment problems of Germany.

Another way the NAZI party came to power was by telling the German people that they were a superior race and that their problems were the result of inferior people. NAZI propaganda explained that a "genetically ill" person would cost 60,000 marks over their lifetime. This made many