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Hitler's National Socialist Party, which had only 17,000 members in 1926, metastasized to 120,000 in 1929, to 1 million in 1930. Wealthy industrialists began contributing handsomely. In the Reichstag, the Nazis held an insignificant twelve seats until the elections of 1930. By 1932 they had 230 seats, the largest bloc in the Reichstag.
Central to the question of what went wrong is the question of whether Hitler's rise to power was inevitable. Was there some fatal flaw in the history of Germany that predestined it to the swastika and the gas chamber? In one sense, everything that has happened may seem inevitable, simply because of the fact that it did happen. Yet it is extraordinary how narrowly Hitler triumphed, how many accidents and variables had to line up.
He still did not have a majority in 1932, and the constitution permitted President Hindenburg to name any Chancellor he wished, authorizing him to rule by a series of presidential decrees. The first time Hindenburg summoned Hitler and asked him to support a conservative regime headed by a dapper courtier named Franz von Papen, Hitler demanded full power for himself; Hindenburg not only refused but dressed Hitler down for lacking "chivalry." In the last pre-Hitler elections in November of 1932, the Nazis lost strength, from 230 seats to 196. The party was an estimated $5 million in debt, unable to pay the storm troopers who fought its street battles. "The future looks dark and gloomy," the Nazi party chief for Berlin, Joseph Goebbels, wrote in his diary at the start of 1933. "All chances and hopes have quite disappeared."
Then in the first week of January, chances and hopes almost miraculously returned. Hindenburg was persuaded to try the idea of a new conservative coalition: Hitler as Chancellor, Papen as Vice Chancellor, with only two other Nazis in the Cabinet. "In this way," said the non-Nazi Minister of Economic Affairs, "we will box Hitler in." A fatal misjudgment. A month later, the Reichstag was in flames, Hitler was persuading Hindenburg to suspend civil liberties, and the most terrible chapter in 20th century history was about to open.
So what is the lesson for 1990?
"There is no European country that hasn't had its moments of trying to swallow up its neighbors, and I don't think Germany is any worse than any other country," says Carl Schorske, Princeton professor emeritus of history and author of Fin de Siecle Vienna. "Since the war, Germany has become rather European. In fact, even in the clues of personal behavior -- the way people walk, the way people greet you, the way they speak their language -- in all these things, there has been a tremendous change in Germany since the Nazis. I don't see another Nazism on the horizon."
"Germany is not a fixed concept or entity," says Gordon Craig. "It's something that has changed through the years. The history of Germany has been a long, slow, disappointed voyage toward the light, toward popular freedom. It started with the Enlightenment and was defeated. It tried to revive and was defeated by the way Germany was united in 1871. Finally, thanks to the utter destruction of Germany in 1945, it got another chance, and is now being realized. We should be celebrating reunification with at least two cheers."