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'Nazi Consolidation of Power in 1933 Was Primarily Due to the Use of Terror and Violence.' How Far Do You Agree with This Judgement?

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'Nazi Consolidation of Power in 1933 Was Primarily Due to the Use of Terror and Violence.' How Far Do You Agree with This Judgement?
'Nazi consolidation of power in 1933 was primarily due to the use of terror and violence.' How far do you agree with this judgement?

The potential limits to Hitler's power were considerable. it must be remembered that Hitler was appointed as chancellor of the Weimar republic and as leader of a cross-party cabinet that included only three Nazis: Hitler as chancellor, Wilhelm frick as minister for the interior and hermann goring as minister without portfolio. the vice-chancellor was to be Franz von papen and other parties of the right were well represented. Hugenburg of the DNVP was put in charge of the Economics Ministry and Franz Seldte of the stalhelm was made minister of Labor. The establishment that had brought Hitler to power held the reins of power and did not expect to lose control. the most powerful politician in Germany in 1933 was president Hindenburg, and Hitler had to work with a number of powerful establishment figures from the newly appointed vice-chancellor von papen to the soon to be president of the reichsbank and economics minister hjalmar Schacht. Behind von Hindenburg's power was not just his prestige as president but the army, which, although still at the size set by the Versailles agreement, was highly influential. the new chancellor's scope for action was also constrained by the power of institutions from the Reichstag to local government. the civil service, churches and press all stood as potential barriers to the nazification of the political system. Hitler's sworn ideological enemies on the left wielded considerable power through the trade unions. in many urban areas, such as Berlin, the Nazi vote in the general election in November 1932 was as low as 22.5 per cent (as opposed to a national figure of 33.1 per cent). just as the Nazis had risen from obscurity to power on the back of considerable discontent with the political system's inability to deal with Germany's economic problems, so the Nazis now had to deliver (or at least be

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