The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

Chapter 5 describes the late 1920s as the height of the Weimar Republic, when peace and relative prosperity prevailed. These were lean years for Nazism, which fed on misery and hatred. After emerging from prison near the end of 1924, Hitler used these years to build the Nazi Party organization, focus on his long-term strategy, and await more favorable conditions for revolution, which, ironically, he decided to carry out through means of democratic election.

Hitler created the SS (“Schutzstaffel”) to serve as his personal bodyguard and in 1929 placed Heinrich Himmler in command of the new paramilitary unit, which began small but eventually carried out many of the atrocities for which the Nazis became infamous, including the Holocaust. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s future propaganda minister, also joined the Nazis in these years. On the personal front, Hitler spent much of his time at the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, his home in the Bavarian Alps. He also had a love affair with his 20-year-old niece, Geli Raubal. Her death by suicide in 1931 plunged Hitler into a deep depression.

A depression of a different kind revived Hitler’s fortunes. The Great Depression of the 1930s, the modern Western world’s most severe economic crisis, shook the Weimar Republic.