History Assignment- How did problems in Germany make people support Hitler in 1923?

Essay by KeirHigh School, 10th grade March 2006

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History Assignment- How did problems in Germany make people support Hitler in 1923?

Adolf Hitler was the 55th member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (a.k.a Nazi) when he joined in 1920, but his membership certificate wrote "member no. 555" just to make the party appear larger, the party never obtained any seats in the Reichstag from 1919 to 1920. After Hitler's advent, the member quantity of the Nazis increased in an astonishing velocity and reached to an approximate calculation of 35000 men in 1923, the Nazis also occupied 32 seats in May 1924. When Hitler failed to overthrow the government in November 1923, he was merely punished by being sentenced to prison for only nine months and had the opportunity to make speeches in the court during the trials, almost all the judges supported him there. But how can a single man affect the reputation of a party and make men of justice support the guilty man in the courts?

The most significant factor that made Hitler supported is the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles.

The Treaty of Versailles brought the postwar Germany into the abyss of despair; 13% of the German land (including significant areas such as Saar, the industrial area of Germany that produced metal) was shredded from Germany and given to other countries or create new ones, 132 million reparations was demanded from Germany which caused hyperinflation from 1919 to 1924 (1 US dollar=5.72 billion marks in 1923), army force was limited to a pathetic quantity of 100000 men after losing 2000000 from the war, and the most humiliating clause of all: Germany must be fully responsible for the war (clause 231). The clauses above made the Treaty of Versailles the most hated item in Germany for humiliating them and making their life miserable,