The End of Democracy - The Gilded Reich
- Dillon Wall
- Aug 29
- 10 min read
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Adolf Hitler’s arrest and trial were supposed to crush his political career, but it instead made him famous. Just two days after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler was arrested at the home of a fellow Nazi, Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstaengl. He had originally wanted to flee the country, but his car swerved into a ditch. When he reached Putzi’s, he was welcomed by his friends American wife, Helene, who Hitler had an unmistakable fascination of. He was wounded, defeated and on the run.
The next morning, November 11, 1923, Helene was notified that the police were searching the nearby home of her mother-in-law. She told Hitler that he would be arrested, in which case, he exclaimed “Now all is lost- no use going on!” He picked up a revolver, but Helene grabbed it from him. Hitler didn’t resist as he sunk into a chair. Helene convinced him that he still had purpose and people that looked up to him.
Soon, the police arrived with dogs and surrounded the house. Helene answered the door where the cops told her they had to search the home. Helene brought them to Hitler and he was arrested. I tell you this to show Hitler’s mental state at the time.
The Trial (1924)
Fast forward a few months on February 26, 1924, the trial began in Munich. The judges were openly sympathetic to the nationalist cause. Hitler and 9 co-defendants were charged with high treason. Hitler took this opportunity to deliver long speeches attacking the Weimar Republic and Versailles Treaty, presenting his actions as ones out of love for Germany.
His famous line from the trial, which lasted just over four weeks, was, “I alone bear the responsibility. I am not a criminal because of that. I stand here as a revolutionary… against the revolution. There is no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918.”
The press spread his words across Germany elevating him to a national figure. On April 1, 1924, Hitler was sentenced to five years in the Landsberg Prison, of which he only served nine months. Ludendorff, the WWI general who marched beside him was completely acquitted.
Instead of being silenced, Hitler emerged from the trial with a larger platform and the prison time was spent working on Mein Kampf and rebranding himself to take power legally. Hitler also received thousands of letters from fans while serving his prison time, which shows that years before taking power, he already had many followers.
Mein Kampf
While in prison, Hitler dictated his book “Mein Kampf (My Struggle)” to Rudolf Hess, who was essentially Hitler’s prison secretary. The working title was “Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice.”
The book focused on racial hierarchy and antisemitism- Jews being the ultimate enemy. Lebensraum was also a focus, stating that Germany’s destiny was conquering territory in the East. The Führer principle also outlined a nation under one ruler, not democracy. Hitler believed that the struggle Germany was facing would unite the nation if handled properly.
Initially, the book was a flop selling about 9,000 copies by 1925. When the Nazis gained momentum, so did the book, distributing over 12 million copies by 1945. It became a common wedding gift for newly weds in Nazi Germany.
Rebuilding the Nazi Party (1924 - 1928)
Hitler was released in December 1924. The Nazi Party had been banned in Bavaria after the coup, but was re-legalized by February 1925. Hitler reasserted control, forcing rivals and splinter groups back under his authority. The new focus was to legally seize power. Elections, propaganda, and mass mobilization.
He established the Führerprinzip (leader principle), Hitler being the unquestioned head of the party and building a chain of command.
Hitler was banned from giving speeches in Bavaria and Prussia for a time, limiting his direct presence. But this fed into his mystique- a forbidden prophet.
The SA (Sturmabteilung) was rebuilt as the Nazi paramilitary “stormtroopers,” but were used less in reckless street fights and more political strategy. The SS (Schutzstaffel) was founded in 1925 as Hitlers personal guard. It was just a few hundred men at first.
By 1925-26, the Nazi Party was on the verge of splitting between the “Strasserites” in the North and Hitler’s southern base. Gregor Strasser was an early Nazi leader from Northern Germany who leaned more into the socialism aspect of the party. He pushed for breaking up large estates, nationalizing industry, redistributing land, and positioning the Nazis as a workers party to combat social democrats and communism.
Hitler called a conference in Bamberg (Feb 1926) to settle the conflict. He delivered a speech rejecting Strassers socialism and reaffirming that it was not the German capitalists or landowners who were the enemies, but the Jews, Marxists, and the Versailles Treaty.
At the conference, a man named Joseph Goebbels was still leaning toward Strasser until he was personally courted by Hitler. In Goebbels diary, he describes this almost as a religious moment. This meeting convinced Goebbels that Hitler was the man chosen to save Germany. He was appointed Gauleiter, or a political official governing a district under Nazi rule, of Berlin and used propaganda, rallies, and newspapers to spread the Nazi messaging in the capital.
He framed Hitler as a messianic figure.
Despite the organization, the party did not find much success in the 1928 election, winning 2.6% of the vote and securing 12 Reichstag seats. The party was mocked as extreme and Germans saw Hitler as a loud agitator who had already failed.
The Great Depression (1929)
October 1929. The U.S. stock market crashes. And like dominos, the rest of the world feels the sting. But, Germany is hit harder than anyone because of its reliance on American loans and credit from the Dawes Plan. Germany finds itself in another economic collapse with banks and industry failing and unemployment skyrocketing.
In 1929, unemployment was at about 1.3 million. In 1932, it was sitting at 6 million, which accounted for a third of workers. Businesses closed, savings vanished and people relied on bread lines and soup kitchens. The Golden Twenties came to an abrupt end.
With Germany depending on American money that was no longer available and still obligated to pay reparations, Chancellor Heinrich Brüning had to make changes. He cut spending, wages, and raised taxes. The goal was to show the Allies that Germany was financially disciplined and trying its best to control the crisis.
Unfortunately, this didn’t work at all and people lost what little faith they had in the Weimar Republic. The one thing that did come of Brünings austerity (after he resigned) was suspension of reparation payments at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. But, this didn’t matter because German society was in shambles.
Nazi Opportunity (Early 1930s)
Hitler and the Nazi party capitalized on the situation perfectly. They used propaganda and slogans like “Work, Bread, Freedom (Arbeit und Brot).” They promised to restore national pride, create jobs and break the Versailles Treaty. They used the Jews, Marxists and Weimar “traitors” as scapegoats.
While the government was paralyzed, the Nazis were a symbol of strength, action, and unity. They went from 12 seats out of 491 in the 1928 election to 107 seats out of 577 in the 1930 election.
The Reichstag is kind of confusing because they had inconsistent elections with changing number of representatives based on voter turnout. In theory, they would have an election every four years, but they had 8 elections from 1920 to 1933.
In the July 1932 election, they reached 230 seats out of 608- jumping from 18.5% of the seats to 38%. In just four years, the economic crisis had allowed the Nazi party to go from having barely any representation to being the largest party in the Reichstag.
To the desperate and unemployed, Nazis looked like a way out of the crisis. To the conservatives, they looked like a counterweight to communism. These weren’t votes for extremism or hatred. It was votes for stability.
In 1932, Hitler went on plane tours across Germany called “Hitler über Deutschland.” This modernized Hitlers image and made him seem tangible compared to the distant politicians who tended to stay in the capital. Hitler was portrayed as the man destined to save Germany. And the curator of this image was Joseph Goebbels.
Posters, films, newspapers, rallies, speeches; the Nazis mastered aesthetics to display themselves as the image of order and power. The SA were seen everywhere, whether it was brawling with Communists, marching in uniforms, or guarding the rallies.
Politics and Puppetry
Even though the Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag (38%), they still didn’t have majority to govern outright. Hitler demanded chancellorship, but President Paul von Hindenburg despised him. He called him “that Bohemian corporal.” This was a jab at Hitlers Austrian origins and lack of social rank.
The elites of Germany saw Hitler as a leader they could use to stabilize the country and neutralize communism. This is where former chancellor, Franz von Papen changes Hitler’s trajectory. He served about 5 months as chancellor and then fell out of favor, despite being well connected to Germany’s old elite.
After being pushed out as Chancellor, Papen was bitter towards his fellow conservative successor, General Kurt von Schleicher. Papen wanted revenge, and saw Hitler as a tool to get it. He planned to make Hitler Chancellor, but fill the cabinet with aristocrats and conservatives, keeping the real power in Papen's hands as Vice-Chancellor. He was heard saying “Within two months we’ll have pushed Hitler so far into a corner that he’ll squeak.”
And although President Hindenburg distrusted Hitler, he did trust Papen, who argued that Hitler could be controlled and be useful. By January 1933, Papen convinced Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor with Papen as Vice-Chancellor to keep him in check.
Death of the Weimar Republic (1933)
On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor with his cabinet containing only three Nazis (Himself, Wilhelm Frick, and Hermann Göring). Papen boasted, “we have hired Hitler.” He saw himself as the real power and Hitler as the front man. Within weeks, Hitler was able to outmaneuver Papen.
On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin caught fire. A young communist was arrested and admitted to setting the fire. Hitler and Goebbels immediately portrayed this as a communist uprising and declared that they must not wait a minute. The next day, Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended freedom of speech, press, and assembly, allowed detention without trial, and essentially stopped democracy.
Thousands of Communists, Social Democrats and critics were arrested within days. Some argue that the fire was orchestrated by the Nazis as a false flag. Either way, it worked in the Nazis favor.
Less than a month later, the Nazis developed a “Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich.” It would give Hitler the power to pass laws without the approval of the Reichstag even if they violated the constitution. It would last four years. By this point, the Nazis had 44% of the Reichstag seats after the March 1933 election. All the law needed was a two thirds majority to pass.
On March 23, 1933, SA stormtroopers lined the hallways of the Kroll Opera House where the Reichstag held the vote. This was to intimidate the Reichstag. And it worked. The final vote was 444 in favor and 94 against. The votes against the law were all Social Democrats.
With the Enabling Act now passed, the Reichstag essentially voted themselves out of power and Hitler could now rule by decree. This act is known as the death of the Weimar Republic.
Consolidation of Power (1933-1934)
The communists were neutralized after the Reichstag Fire. They were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps like Dachau, which opened in March of 1933. The camp was opened just weeks after Hitler came to power after Heinrich Himmler announced its opening as a clean and orderly system to house enemies of the state.
This is the start of concentration camps. They weren’t framed as death camps or prisons, but facilities to re-educate political adversaries, protect society, and deter resistance. The camps themselves already set the standard of violence and punishment that would later escalate even more. Prisoners were beaten, forced into labor and punished. Deaths occurred, but often from beatings and not on a massive scale. Dachau was brutal, but not designed for mass murder.
By July 1933, Germany is officially a one-party state. The press and media were shut down or under control of the government for propaganda. Schools taught the Nazi ideology and teachers were forced to join the Nazi Teachers’ League. The Reich Chamber of Culture, under the leadership of Joseph Goebbels, dictated what could be written, painted, and performed.
States were stripped of power and assigned Nazi governors. The SA was used for intimidation, but the SS, Hitlers loyal guard, began to take over policing actions. The Gestapo was formed in April 1933 under Hermann Göring.
By mid-1934, Ernst Röhm’s SA had amassed over 2 million soldiers (some say upwards of 4 million) threatening to overshadow the army, which was limited to 100,000 men by the treaty of Versailles. Conservatives stressed to Hitler that the SA would destabilize the country. By spring of 1934, army leaders told Hitler they would not support him as long as the SA remained unchecked.
Hitler faced a choice. He could stick with his long time ally, Ernst Röhm, or side with the army and elites.
The Purge (June 30 - July 2, 1934)
On June 30, Hitler made his decision. He confronted Röhm at a hotel in Bad Wiessee, where SA leaders were gathered. Ernst Röhm was arrested. Squads of SS and Gestapo arrested or executed hundreds. Targets were SA leadership, Gregor Strasser, former left-wing of the Nazi party, former chancellor, Kurt von Shleicher and his wife, conservative critics, journalists, and rivals of the Nazi party.
Röhm was given a pistol in his cell to kill himself. When he refused, he was shot on July 1. The Nazis claimed 77 were killed, but main estimate 150-400 people were killed with many more being arrested.
This wasn’t just about the SA. It was also about settling rivalries and eliminating potential challengers to Nazi power.
On July 13, 1934, Hitler addressed the Reichstag. He states, “If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became supreme judge of the German people.”
The Reichstag responded to this by declaring the murders as “self-defense by the state.” This set a precedent. If you opposed the Nazi party, you may find yourself killed.
The Reichswehr swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler and the SS rose in power while the SA’s role was reduced to auxiliary functions. Many Germans saw Hitler as the man who would go to any lengths to protect his people. Others were now silenced by fear.
And so Hitler’s reign began.
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