How important was propaganda in bringing Hitler to power

Propaganda was important in strengthening the image of Hitler and the Nazi party but not in bringing him to power.

Propaganda only exploited the events that created trouble for the Weimar republic. The Nazis were able to carefully manipulate events to their advantage, such as the signing of the Versailles treaty and the Wall Street crash. This was done through the persuasive and appealing speeches made by Hitler and by the captivating posters that the Nazis created. It is also important to consider the influence PR had on the success of the Nazi party and how the party targeted almost every part of society.

There is no doubt about the fact that the Nazi party knew how to use propaganda to it full potential through the media and other forms. However it is hard to measure the effects propaganda had on the public. It is obvious that without the damning events that shook the Weimar republic Hitler may have never got to power, their use of propaganda was not the main contributor in bring Hitler to power. The Weimar republic had a system of proportional representation that helped Hitler gain power more than the propaganda he used. This made the Nazi party's propaganda even more effective because for every vote they got a seat.Even though the party lacked a sense of unity and an image for itself, it still gained 32 seats in the Reichstag elections of 1924.

This can only be due to the events that had given the German people several reasons to lose faith in the Weimar republic, such as hyperinflation and the occupation of the Ruhr. When the Weimar republic failed public opinion soon changed to thinking that maybe an extremist party would be better in power. The proof of this in that the communist party also did well in the 1924 election and gained 62 seats in the elections.Therefore it can be seen that the events that passed in Germany had a bigger effect on the popularity of the Nazi party because it was an extremist party and not because of the image it projected or the propaganda it used. The so-called golden years of the Weimar republic provide further evidence to the argument that events helped Hitler to get to power more than Nazi propaganda.

While Stresemann helped the economy to recover and to cut the reparations that Germany had to pay, the German people began to have more faith in the Weimar republic.These times of economic stability prompted people not to vote for the Nazi party even though it kept producing more propaganda about the "November criminals" and singled out other groups as scapegoats. The evidence of this is in the number of seats the Nazi party won in the 1928 (at the end of the golden years), it was only 12. Once again it was the events in Germany that shaped public opinion of the nazi party not the propaganda produced by the party. The most influential event to the Nazi party was the Wall Street crash.

The wall street crash is the most important factor out of all the events the Nazis exploited.A large amount of Nazi propaganda is linked to the effects the Wall Street crash had on Germany. The Wall Street crash had a long term effect on Germany this meant that the Nazis could exploit it for longer. It had an undeniable effect on the Nazi party's popularity. The Nazi party capitalized hugely on the wall the street crash with a flurry of effective propaganda. However it may have not been the propaganda that caused the huge rise in vote in the 1930 election (12 votes - 107 votes) but the fact that Hitler was at last able to get the votes of the middle classes.

This was because due to the Wall Street crash they had lost a large amount of their savings, which were tied up in shares that became worthless. Therefore they to like the working class looked towards an extremist party to replace the failing Weimar republic. The devastation of the middle classes is reflected in a Nazi propaganda poster titled "our last hope: Hitler". The poster depicts a group of all classes, genders and ages all affected by the Wall Street crash.

This evidence proves how without the events or specific to manipulate Nazi propaganda would not have helped very much in bringing Hitler to power.The poster also mirrors how at the time the Nazis were targeting several different social groups at the time. The communist party at the time who were also using propaganda didn't target as many social groups and therefore did not get as many votes. An example of how the nazi part tried to appeal to all social groups lays in their name the social democrats. This evidence proves how propaganda was not very important in bringing Hitler to power but mostly because of nazi targeting and broken promises. Hitler himself was by far the most effective piece of propaganda the Nazis' used.

An example of them using him is the 1930 election poster. The Nazis confidently produced a strikingly effective black-and-white election poster. It consisted of an image of Hitler's disembodied head, set in stark contrast to a black background. Below the face, written in white capitals, was just one word - 'HITLER'. This is proof of how Hitler's speeches and the copious amounts of propaganda associated with him had turned him into a celebrity figure. Hitler had become the party the propaganda poster reflects this.

A further example of this is that when Germans voted in elections in the 1930s the ballot card referred not to the NSDAP but to the Hitlerbewegung ('Hitler movement'). The Nazis' made Hitler into the focus of the party this acted as a distraction away from the party and the policies it had. Hitler's effective and appealing speeches were a powerful tool. In conclusion with the evidence I have presented it can be seen that the damning and unfortunate events that happened during the Weimar republic and before it had a larger effect on Hitler's rise to power than the propaganda his party created.After all it was the events themselves that were exploited so without them the party would have found it hard, as it was an extremist party to go up against a popular Weimar republic.

It was not Hitler's experience of being in a cabinet that got him in to power, as he had no previous experience of being in a cabinet. Instead it was his celebrity like status that got him so well known. There is no doubt that propaganda did contribute to Hitler's rise to power but it was not the most important factor.