General Discussion

Hitler came to power as an appointee of von Hindenburg in 1933, when he was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Hindenburg died less than a year later. By then Hitler had already become Führer (Leader) of Germany and had declared martial law, which meant there would be no more elections.

As leader of the Nazi Party, Hitler never ran for office himself, but he succeeded in getting other Nazis elected. This was helpful when those elected Nazis supported Hitler once he became Chancellor.

The truth of it is that there was chaos in Germany, France, Italy and other European countries during the 1920s and 30s. They were still trying to recover from World War I and the flu epidemic, and then they were overtaken by financial crashes and hyperinflation. Banks closed, people were out of work and starving. People's homes were being confiscated, and Germany was still paying terrible fines for losing the World War.

It seemed like things were bad here in the US, but they were 10 times worse over in Europe. A tough-talking guy like Hitler looked like a real leader when he said "We're not paying France any more war reparations." He told people that banks were failing because it's all the fault of the Jews. It was just one lie after another and people believed him. It's easy for us to see in retrospect what a slippery slope it was, letting Hitler have all that power. But at the time a lot of Germans believed that Hitler had the answers, and Hitler knew what he was doing. Mostly it was based on lies.