Hitler's Power

"Rise to Power" is the first episode of the three-part documentary "Hitler's Power". How could a nobody become a dictator, bringing down a democracy in just a few years? What were the crucial events that helped Hitler gain respectability and influence? Who were his supporters? Which moods in the populace were in his favor? Nazi propaganda stylized him as the visionary who would fulfil the so-called "German mission." Hitler himself was under the delusion of his own providence. In fact, he was a meaningless nobody after the end of the First World War. He did not enter politics of his own accord; rather, he came across as a vagabond opportunist, who maneuvered between left-wing and right-wing extremes.

How did Hitler succeed in transforming a republic into a "Führer state" in such a short time? How did the "enforced conformity" of society take place? How willingly did the Germans fall in line? How far did the unison of "Führer and people" extend? After Hitler was elevated to the office of Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933, he began the final destruction of democracy and the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship. "One people, one Reich, one leader" was the central Nazi slogan - claiming that only one power and one opinion should rule in state and society. It was followed by "enforced conformity " of the Federal States, of parties, media, trade unions, which often also meant "elimination". Even the military pledged allegiance to Hitler.

Hitler had outwardly emphasized his will for peace, yet once he came to power, he committed his top commanders to a war of extermination that would secure the German Reich’s supremacy in Europe and so-called "Living Space” in the East. Starving or killing entire populations in the conquered territories was part of the murderous plan. Even the non-aggression pact with Stalin served primarily to deceive. Just as every future campaign, the invasion of Poland was accompanied by the lie that Germany had only forestalled the enemy. In his megalomaniacal belief in his own infallibility, he increasingly usurped military planning.