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The Rise Of Hitler And The German National Socialist Party

THE RISE OF HITLER AND
THE GERMAN NATIONAL SOCIALIST PARTY
The explanation of the rise of Nazism cannot be restricted to one specific time period or one specific event - the source of many Nazi ideologies are found before WW1.Many pre-war conditions(but especially the gradual 'collapse of liberalism', of which I will write later) helped to prepare the public psyche for National Socialist policies. Equally, I disagree with Historians who, for their own reasons, disregard specific events perhaps caused by their own social/political groups which inadvertently aided Hitler (I refer to Marxist historians who hold that the brief reign of the communists was an insignificant aid to the middle-class flood to Nazism, since the reactionary right had 'already decided' that fascism should be wheeled out to stop the (according to Marx) inevitable, shut-down of Capitalism).
In the days following the November ceasefire, Germany was left without a leader of any description since the Kaiser had fled to Holland. Heavy industrialists like Fritz Thyssen, arrested and subjected to all kinds of humiliation by the communists in the immediate aftermath of the armistice, funded the early National Socialists partly because" the impression which those agitated days have left upon me[Thyssen]were never blotted out"(1).Indeed, many of Germany's prominent businessmen experienced the same if not worse treatment at the hands of communist 'policemen' and, as James Pool reveals (2) ,the friends of those killed were to become some of Hitler's first major financial backers.
Apart from the personal humiliation which Industrialists had endured, there was also the small matter of rising costs due to the concessions ceded to the workers during the brief reign of the Communists. These included the 'eight hour day', the extension of universal suffrage to both sexes, general recognition of union agreements etc. "Every eight hour day is a nail in Germany's coffin!"Was one of their favorite laments?...