Was The Nazi Party Democratically Elected?

“The repeated claim before the ‘seizure of power’ – that the NSDAP, as a national social-revolutionary movement, and not simply another political party… would create new bonds of unity through its elimination and transcending of the party system, was highly attractive and conveyed much of Nazism’s dynamic appeal.”
Ian Kershaw, author of The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich

In seeking to understand the world we often fall prey to the desire to simplify it.

To make it black and white – like water and oil – and cast judgement on how best to tell the difference. Nowhere is that more self-evident than in how we view the past.

Without a doubt, on the scoreboard of villainy, Nazi Germany ranks highly – as one of the most dreadful regimes in human memory. Even the terminology of its era has been transformed into a collection of bywords for evil. The black and white are distinct and the water and oil inseparable.

Almost a century later, it is still widely assumed that there is no greater social – or political – death than to be branded a ‘Nazi’ or ‘like Hitler’.

But who were these people that enabled this great evil to triumph?

For some time following the end of the Second World War it remained en-vogue to inscribe upon the German population a sense of collective responsibility. The interchangeability of the terms ‘German’ and ‘Nazi’ an affirmation of the continued need for vigilance against the Teutonic spirit – lest it once again thrust the world into war. The story of Nazism, like the bywords it has gifted us, constantly referenced as the ultimate warning from history. That which facilitated what should ‘Never Again’ happen.

To understand how the Nazi Party came to power – and comprehend the swamp from which the monster rose – we must confront one of the major contradictions to have come out of the Second World War.