At his trial Hitler violently denounced the Weimar Republic and attracted enormous publicity. From the unsuccessful revolt, Hitler concluded he had to gain power legally through electoral competition. During his brief prison term he dictated Mein Kampf (My Struggle), in which he expounded on his basic ideas on race and anti-Semitism, the notion of territorial expansion based on “living space” for Germans, and the role of the leader-dictator, called the Führer (FYOUR-uhr).

In the years of relative prosperity and stability between 1924 and 1929, Hitler concentrated on building his Nazi Party. The Nazis remained a small splinter group until the 1929 Great Depression shattered economic prosperity. By the end of 1932 an incredible 43 percent of the labor force was unemployed. Industrial production fell by one-half between 1929 and 1932. No factor contributed more to Hitler’s success than this economic crisis. Hitler began promising German voters economic as well as political and international salvation.

Hitler rejected free-market capitalism and advocated government programs to promote recovery. He pitched his speeches to middle- and lower-middle-class groups and to skilled workers. As the economy collapsed, great numbers of these people “voted their pocketbooks”18 and deserted the conservative and moderate parties for the Nazis. In the 1930 election the Nazis won 6.5 million votes and 107 seats, and in July 1932 they gained 14.5 million votes — 38 percent of the total — and became the largest party in the Reichstag.

Hitler and the Nazis appealed strongly to German youth. Hitler himself was only forty in 1929, and he and most of his top aides were much younger than other leading German politicians. “National Socialism is the organized will of the youth,”19 proclaimed the official Nazi slogan. In 1931 almost 40 percent of Nazi Party members were under thirty, compared with 20 percent of Social Democrats. National recovery, exciting and rapid change, and personal advancement made Nazism appealing to millions of German youths.

Hitler also came to power because of the breakdown of democratic government. Germany’s economic collapse in the Great Depression convinced many voters that the country’s republican leaders were stupid and corrupt. Disunity on the left was another nail in the republic’s coffin. The Communists refused to cooperate with the Social Democrats, even though the two parties together outnumbered the Nazis in the Reichstag.

Finally, Hitler excelled in shadowy backroom politics. In 1932 he succeeded in gaining support from key people in the army and big business who thought they could use him to their own advantage. Many conservative and nationalistic politicians thought similarly. Thus in January 1933 President von Hindenburg legally appointed Hitler, leader of Germany’s largest party, as German chancellor.