Many teachers, professors, and historians in today’s society are driven by researching and teaching about the reign of Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler can be described as many things, and the words that pop into most peoples’ heads right away are evil and genius; however, I would like to focus on a word that forces us to take on a different approach: controversial. Everyone at one point in their life has been, or will be, taught about the horrible events constructed by Hitler, the Nazi Party, and the Third Reich. For the most part it is agreeable that the monstrosities committed by Hitler and his nation are all very important for everyone to learn about at some point, but how come no one ever teaches or researches this topic to a further extent? We all know that Adolf Hitler is one of the most immoral and anti-Semitic figures in recent history; however, no one ever questions his reign, we just accept it since it’s in the past. Many theories have been pondered and drawn up concerning how Hitler actually gained the command of the entire German nation, but very few of these theories are correct. In order to further understand the intriguing life of Hitler and some horrific events such as the Holocaust, we need to ask ourselves this question: how did he manage rise to power? Through various divisions of study and analyzation, I have developed the perfect answer to this question. Adolf Hitler rose to power because the horrific state of post-World War I Germany, his obsession for anti-Semitism, and his unbelievable rhetoric skills all came together in perfect harmony to lead him towards his reign. MIXTURE OF ALL THREE

Through my research for this topic I have found many sources that support, oppose, and further my stance, and they will all be incorporated together in order to ensure the credibility of my claim. Like almost all other candidates around the world, Hitler had to first be elected into a position of power. My first source embraces that mindset by analyzing who exactly voted for him while he was running for office. This is critical to advancing my stance because the origin of this argument stems from generalizing what type of citizens voted for him in the first place. The author of this scholarly article, Richard Hamilton, takes an approach to Hitler’s rise to power that no one ever had before him. Instead of focusing on peoples’ opinions on Hitler, he looks into the urban voting records from when Hitler was elected into office.

The next step to developing this argument is to come to a conclusion of how Hitler was generally viewed around the world by the media inside and outside of Germany, and I found two references that do just that. The first source pertaining the media’s views is another scholarly article that is written by Katherine Blunt, a journalism and history professor at Elon University in North Carolina. Blunt uses newspaper coverage of Hitler written back in the early 1930s to see how American media, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, portrayed Adolf Hitler and his advancements towards power. The evidence is in this source is relevant to this portion of the topic and since the article was written in 2015, it ensures us readers that the researcher took advantage of modern day information and technology to improve and verify the study. My second reference that concerns the media is an article from a TIME Magazine written in 1939. The well-known journal awarded Adolf Hitler with their renowned “Man of the Year Award” for the preceding year, 1938. Along with the award, they wrote a supplemental article explaining and praising his actions throughout that year. Both of these articles provide great insight on the how the media portrayed Hitler before and during his rise to power. 

Another area of this argument that needs to be analyzed is Adolf Hitler’s life leading up to right before he ran for office. Already having a decent amount of previous knowledge of his early life, I only gathered one contemporary source for this portion of the dispute. The article containing this information is centralized around the claim that the smaller, minor events of Hitler’s life played a role similar to pieces of a puzzle. They all had small contributions that came together and ultimately provided him with the opportunity to rise to power in Germany. Jeremy Noakes of BBC, the author of this article, focusses mostly on events in his life such as his education and service in the military. 

As stated in my thesis, one of the major contributors to Hitler’s reign was his fantastic rhetoric talent. During his time and even today, Adolf is referred to as one of the most moving and persuasive speakers ever. Another scholarly article I found is written to highlight Hitler’s many traits that made him a successful leader, the one characteristic that Stacie Goddard focusses on the most is his rhetorical ability and the skill to sway a crowd in his favor. Adding to this topic, there is another source that goes in depth examining Hitler’s speaking capability and explaining why he was so successful at persuading his audiences.

To defend my claim even further there is a YouTube video made and directed by TED-Ed that takes a very similar path to my thesis. On the other hand, to oppose my argument a scholarly article found on The Historical Journal takes a more literal approach to the debate and credits Adolf Hitler’s rise to power to more external forces. The author, J.S. Conway, references factors such as the economic state of Germany, the political climate of the time, and the candidates and ideals of the other competing political parties. 

The first cause for Adolf Hitler’s rise to supremacy was the horrific economic state of Germany after World War I. After losing the war, Germany had to concede to paying all of the costs of from the war, leaving them in tremendous debt. The Germans were in desperate need for some sort of renaissance to help them bounce back from their defeat, and a common first step to moving in that direction is to elect a new leader or a new form of government. Adolf Hitler realized this opportunity and took advantage of it. He embraced the mindset that in order to get to the top, he had to first get elected into some sort of position of power. When Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany in 1933 he had most of the nation by his side. A large part of his campaign strategy with the Nazi Party was to publically denounce and dehumanize Jews; so how and why did someone with such dreadful morals get elected Chancellor? Who actually voted for Adolf Hitler? Richard Hamilton answered these questions by analyzing the statistics of the urban voting records from that time period. The Nazis were viewed mainly as a minor and declining across Germany in the late 1920s, but that changed relatively quickly. “In only a little more than two years their (The Nazi Party’s) share of the total vote increased from 2.6 to 18.3 percent,” (Hamilton 3), and then in 1932, “Hitler’s party took 37.3 percent of the vote,” (3) which was their highest percentage prior to becoming the controlling party in Germany. With these numbers trending upward, we must ask ourselves: which types of German citizens were starting to support Hitler and the Nazis? By looking at the voting records, Richard Hamilton concluded that the majority of Germans that voted for Hitler were lower-middle class citizens. 

Another method that can be used to figure out who supported Adolf Hitler during his rise to power is to examine how the media of the time portrayed him around the world. Katherine Blunt analyzed how popular, American news outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post depicted Hitler. She discovered that between 1930 and 1933, “Nearly 3,500 articles appearing in three papers contained at least brief mentions of Hitler,” (Blunt 1). By studying these 3,000-plus mentions of Hitler in American press, Blunt came to the conclusion that the portrayal of Hitler indicated that, “many of their readers would have had little reason to believe his growing popularity and eventual appointment as chancellor would result in the end of the Weimar Republic and the relative peace it ensured,” (2). This conclusion tells us that American media underestimated the potential of Hitler and the Nazi Party, which is an assumption that could contribute to how successful he was in rising to power. 

The second main contributor to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power was his obsession over anti-Semitism. Based on research and prior knowledge, I can conclude that Hitler would have never become an anti-Semite if his early life had gone any differently. Since his hatred for Jews was such a major component to his campaign strategy, I can also conclude that he would have never gotten elected to become chancellor if he was not anti-Semitic. As odd and twisted as that may sound, it is actually true. During this post-World War I era when Germany was basically in a depression, they needed something, anything to lift their spirits. By blaming the Jews for all of Germany’s problems, Hitler gave the German citizens the scapegoat they needed in order to develop a more positive mindset. Now that they had generalized that the “problem” for their country derived from the Jews, all they needed to do was take care of this “Jewish problem” and they would begin their rebirth. 

During Adolf Hitler’s early life, it seemed that he was failing at every opportunity he was given. In telling us all about Hitler’s life, Jeremey Noakes, the author of the BBC article, tells us that Hitler’s first failure occurred in educational field, when he had dropped out of high school. Then his father passed away, and that had, “removed the pressure on him to get a job,” (Noakes 1) so Hitler never had the motivation or the encouragement to pursue further education or a proper career. He then started to pursue art, but he was unfortunately not a very talented artist. Eventually, Adolf was a failed artist too and he had to start to pursue a different life path, and this is when his life started to drastically changed. Without anywhere else to turn, Hitler went back to his home country at Vienna, Austria. During this period, Vienna was one of the most anti-Semitic areas in the whole world, and this is where and when he was first exposed to discriminating against the Jews. Jeremey Noakes explains that over time Hitler eventually, “absorbed the racist and anti-Semitic discourses that so shaped the Viennese political and intellectual climate,” (1). These events are what ultimately made Adolf Hitler realize what he viewed as his purpose in life, and he built on from that mindset to become the infamous man he is known as modernly. 

The final pillar to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, and perhaps the most important, was his incredible rhetoric skill. His unbelievable ability to speak in front of crowds made him into the successful leader that he ended up being. No matter the circumstances, Hitler always seemed to manage to sway the audience in his direction. This characteristic was a main reason why Hitler was acknowledged as the primary spokesperson of the Nazi Party. The Nazis loved how he spoke with a ton of emotion and passion all the time, and the German citizens were easily persuaded by it as well.

To support my claim further, I cited a YouTube video directed by TED-Ed. This video embodies the claim that Hitler became obsessed with ideas based off of anger, fear, and bigotry rather than factual information.  Those three qualities are absolutely the emotions that caused Adolf Hitler to become consumed with the anti-Semitic mentality that he embraced so dearly throughout his whole political career. The directors of the video also support my stance on Hitler’s rhetorical skills. They also claim that once he was elected as chancellor, his speaking abilities are what ultimately helped him survive in politics and continue his road to even more authority. To finalize the video, the directors reference the depression-like state of Germany after their World War I defeat too. They say that the horrific state of the economy gave Hitler the perfect chance to take the nation by storm. 

An opposing argument that often comes up in this debate is the more literal approach to Hitler’s rise to power. Some historians and professors credit Adolf Hitler’s success to more external forces. An article in The Historical Journal written by J.S. Conway supports this side to the argument and claims that the main reasons for his success were, “the economic state of Germany, the political climate of the time, and the candidates and ideals of the other competing political parties,” (Conway 3). This argument is not completely false nor completely true. The components of this thesis all technically contribute to Hitler’s rise to power, but it misses a large portion of the explanation. These researchers say that the political climate was so unstable and the rivaling competition was so weak, that Hitler and the Nazi Party had a clear path to the top, which is not entirely correct. Yes, the climate was unstable due to their loss in the previous war, but these researchers don’t factor in the fact that the Nazi Party was one of the smallest parties in Germany before Adolf Hitler took them to new heights. He was a political genius that did not encounter weak competition, but he just flat out overcame all of the other parties in all areas. He outsmarted them, out spoke them, and campaigned a lot more aggressively than the others. Adolf Hitler was definitely a political genius, he just happened to use this genius in a very negative and immoral fashion.

All in all, it is fair to say that Adolf Hitler was an incredibly talented politician and leader. Even though he used his superior intellect in the most sinful and wicked ways possible, we must give some credit where it is due. Those affected by this research should most definitely share it with others for the sake of education. Events as unforgettable and infamous as the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich should be taught to everyone, and it should be taught correctly. Adolf Hitler ultimately rose to power because the horrific state of post-World War I Germany, his obsession over anti-Semitism, and his incredible rhetoric abilities all came together in perfect harmony to lead him towards his reign. 
