This Week in History: Hitler Named Chancellor of Germany

This episode stands in solidarity with anti-ICE protests around the US. It contains graphic descriptions of mass violence, political extremism, and mass suffering. Please take care when listening.

It  was January 30th, 1933, in Berlin.

If you had been there that morning, it might not have felt like history at all. The day unfolded like any other, minutes, hours, life just rushing past. There was no real  sign that the day would be remembered. The radio kept on, cafés hummed, conversations drifted between concern, routine — but nothing to suggest that the ground beneath them was already giving way.

"HITLER NAMED CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY", the newspaper read. President Paul von Hindenburg had appointed him legally, through Germany’s constitutional process. The articles read of concern for the fascist leader, but many of the men involved in that day’s decision believed they were being pragmatic. They thought they were restoring stability to a destitute and paralyzed government.

They believed the appointment was temporary. They thought there were safeguards in place to keep centrist control and keep his most extreme ideas suppressed. What they did not yet realize was that within months, Hitler would use Germany’s own constitution and emergency laws to dismantle free and fair elections, neutralize the courts, and tear down the checks and balances that might have stopped his reign of terror.

But first, a highly simplified backstory: 

Long before Hitler entered German politics, the twentieth century was already testing dangerous ideas and making mass tragedy feel ordinary. Industrialized warfare turned human life into logistics and ballistics. Distance weapons mechanized firepower – it all made killing easier to carry out without proximity or empathy.

In the middle of it all, the Ottoman Empire, located near modern Turkey, carried out what is today known as the Catastrophe. Armenian citizens were rounded up by the state and removed under the guise of security. They were then systematically killed through starvation, exposure, and mass execution. It is widely considered to have been the first wave of the Holocaust genocide.

And what mattered here was not only the crime itself, but the response to it. With no sustained international intervention and little lasting accountability, the takeaway for other governments was subtle but haunting: a state could target its own population, frame it as a wartime necessity, and continue on with little consequence. It became a proof of concept that mass violence could be bureaucratized, denied, and ultimately normalized. This became part of the psychological landscape of the postwar world.

And when the war ended, the violence did not disappear. Instead, it diffused itself into politics. When Germany lost World War I in 1918, it was forced to accept full responsibility for the war, which felt like a gross simplification of what they thought actually happened. Yet they committed to reparations that they could not afford, after the spoils of war had been taken by their victors. Much of their industry was already damaged or lost, making those obligations feel absolutely impossible in daily life. Everyone in the country felt the effects. Even upper-middle-class citizens became destitute in the blink of an eye. When officials signed the Treaty of Versailles, it paved the way for resentment that fueled nationalist ideas and desperate economic solutions.

As Germany’s economy collapsed, a new democracy — named the Weimar Republic — tried to stand up in the wreckage. It became an explosive era in the country: widespread poverty rampaged alongside the roaring 20's, with new political movements and cultural experimentation expanding civil rights for women and queer people. In the blink of an eye, the world became a place where progress and collapse were appearing  side by side, and uncertainty was just part of daily routine.

To cope with the stresses of life, Adolf Hitler returned night after night to the same beer halls, draining boots of ale and rambling about the good old days before women could have a say in politics and sexual orientation was complicated. He vented antisemitic rants that parroted false stereotypes, painting Jews as cheap outcasts grifting off the jobs and wages of his Volksgenosse (or German comrades). His ideas gained some traction in his circles, and by February 1920, Hitler strode confidently into his beer hall with a long written manifesto of 25 points outlining his antisemitic, social nationalist views. Here, heartened by easy laughter and approving pats on the back from his beer hall buddies, the Nazi Party was born.

And by 1923, the Nazi Party was banned in the Weimar Republic. After staging a violent coup d'état at a Burgerbrau in Munich, Hitler was sentenced to five years in a minimum security prison with many privileges. While most people were displeased by the easy sentence he received for attempting to overthrow the government, Hitler remained rather comfortable in civilian clothing with guests in and out as he pleased. He even worked with his secretary in prison to write his memoir, Mein Kampf, before being released only 9 months into his sentence. After the equivalent of his relaxing vacation, Hitler realized that the power he wanted could be achieved “legally”—through elections and the gradual capture of institutions.

So the Republic barreled onward, he began gathering the support of central government parties, and forming his loyalist militia on the side. He created the Sturmabteilung, or Storm Troopers, who functioned as an instrument of street terror. They brutalized people in opposition with Nazi ideals, disrupted meetings, and conditioned the public to accept racist violence as politics. Although his parties’ open antisemitism was distasteful to most, his promise to bring wealth back to the Republic left central parties largely ignoring his extreme ideals.

Then the world economy buckled, plummeting the Weimar Republic into further destitution. Foreign creditors demanded repayment so they could settle their own debts, tightening the vise as unemployment surged. The country slid into crisis and desperation. The Holocaust Museum notes how Nazi leaders promised them “work and bread,” while propaganda from them blamed the economic crisis on “Jewish manipulation.” Hitler promised, in essence, to restore the greatness of Germany through the systematic removal of Jews and immoral people. The Jewish people became an easy scapegoat as the public desperately sought a simple cause and solution for their  increasing woes.

Although the leaders who supported him did not all agree with his humanitarian politics, they believed that the checks and balances within their government would stop any extreme action and give Hitler the space to act on just his economic promises. After great and nervous deliberation, President Paul von Hindenberg decided to give Adolf Hitler the title of chancellor.

And then, quicker than anyone could process what was happening, their democracy warped into a cruel, tyrannical dictatorship.

Danse Macabre by Mabel Dwight (1933) depicts death playfully watching the tragic characters, puppets in a play as the scene unfolds. The "Dance of Death" character has been portrayed through centuries to explore playful or welcoming sights when death comes in times of hardship, famine, and war. Photo origin: https://whitney.org/collection/works/10224

On January 30, his chancellorship was announced. In February 1933, less than one month later, a mysterious arson burned the German parliament building. While there was little investigation and we may never know who actually started the fire, the blame was put on his opposing party: the communists. This empowered the Nazi party to make a broad emergency decree allowing the regime to arrest political opponents, dissolve opposing organizations, and suppress media without due process or specific charge. Emergency decrees almost never dissolve with the emergency, though. 

The situation escalated quickly. Just to highlight a few events, University students burned books that included feminism and queerness, democratic thinking, even Jewish or disabled characters. An anti-Jewish boycott held by the Storm Troopers seeded fear when interacting with Jewish neighbors and business owners. Public schools became unsafe and unwelcome for Jewish children. The first concentration camp was established. New legislation forced sterilization of people with physical and mental disabilities, people with asocial or homosexual qualities, Roma gypsy and Afro people. Other orders removed non-Aryans from the workforce and from voting eligibility. By the time President von Hindenburg died in August 1934 – just a year later – a free and fair democracy was already out of sight. 

The day before Hindenburg passed, Hitler issued a law granting himself the presidency as well as his chancellorship. With 90% of eligible voters approving this decision, Adolf Hitler rose to absolute power and became the dictator of Germany.

We have all heard the horror stories of what came next. The Gestapo was formed to instill fear and eliminate opposition. Contemporary accounts describe neighbors hearing the screams of detainees from nearby camps. A climate of deep-seated fear—sometimes mixed with a grim sense of schadenfreude—left little room for resistance. Gas vans and concentration camps annihilated entire groups of people at once, which only amplified during the days of Hitler’s “Final Solution” decree.  

My grandmother, my Oma, told me a very few precious stories of her childhood in Germany during the war. Growing up, I fell asleep with the image of my small, brave twelve-year-old German grandmother hearing her presumed dead mom crying for help at the bottom of a mass grave, and digging her out from the bodies piled on top of her after a battle that 12-year-old little girl had taken cover from only hours before. It was nightmare fuel for a kid like me, and it's a reality I have been grateful every day not to be facing.

Ultimately, the Nazi Party was defeated in World War 2, but not before millions of innocent human beings had suffered greatly, and millions more had been erased completely.

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This dark, morbid history is sickening to retell, and it might remind us of the current events happening today. It almost feels as though one could copy and paste certain names, Administrations, and scapegoats into this script and you would suddenly have an eerie recounting of the news since before 2016. Social nationalism was considered a radical right-wing movement in 1920’s Germany. Even though the tenets of socialism are fundamentally different from capitalism and would be considered left-wing in today’s America, that didn’t matter in Hitler’s rise to power. As a matter of fact, he worked mainly with business elites in his cabinet once he was in power, to maintain support for his sinister goals. And don’t be fooled; nationalism in all forms can become a powerful dark influence in times of desperation, when people need a sense of priority and stability. 

But what is it that drives normal human beings to be complicit, or participate, or even lead mass violence? The Star Wars universe, imagined by George Lucas, draws stark parallels to World War 2. Did anyone else notice that the Empire’s forces and the Republic resistance were a direct reference to Germany’s historic tale? This universe allows us to explore many themes: what happens when a person consumed by hate and vengeance takes power? Who is the human behind the tyrant? How do communities react when faced with overwhelming force? And how does a person or a small group find the will to resist impossible forces that threaten their lives?

Aside from the echoes we are feeling from our darkest, deep-seeded worldviews, the story of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power reminds us that it’s not action that defines our future, but inaction. The choice to ignore red flags and stop ourselves from speaking out can lead us to be complicit in the suffering caused, even if those things are happening for reasons outside of our control. 

Today, people like Renee Good and Alex Pretti are being exalted by their community as essentially martyrs after stepping in peacefully to help their neighbors, Keith Porter and another anonymous woman, victims of the current immigration enforcement that uses the same decommissioned ex-military recruits and the same horrific fear tactics that German Storm Troopers once did. Meanwhile, some people are more than willing to believe propaganda that poses these people as enemies of the state, deserving the cruelty of death for refusing to comply with orders to stay back while ICE terrorized their neighborhoods. These people put their lives on the line because in the moment they refused to hear their screams of suffering in their nightmares or in their communities. And while I would never, ever-ever condone putting yourself in danger or risking your life, these citizens can rest in peace knowing that their final loving acts echo through the hearts of every good American. 

This weekend, there have been marches organized in the freezing cold to advocate for our democracy. This podcast stands in support of these protests, and thanks every person who is braving the ice and snow, raising their voices to bring peace and unity back to our cities. As we watch or participate in this resistance, we must ask ourselves to reflect on our own hearts. It can be scary to think about, but get real: who are you when everything good is stripped down? 

Who do you blame first when your bank account is empty, when you see insane grocery store prices, or when you get ghosted on another job application? When have you felt so desperate for relief, that you would resort to almost anything? What is that “almost anything”? Is it finally pawning your sentimental items, or selling your body for good side cash? Is it robbing a bank, or voting for the removal of suspected immigrants without due process to increase your likelihood of employment? I don’t know, just spitballing. 

When you’ve found your thing, reflect for a moment on how this polarizing feeling impacts your decisions. What dissonance do you feel with your individual, everyday values when you sit in that place that leaves so much dark potential? Is your most extreme response rooted in a core belief of yours, or are your morals flexible and circumstantial? Does your hardship fester feelings that are destructive, or are those feelings refined into solutions, outreach, and loving action? Are you happy with your answers?

In the end, only you get to sit with that, and it’s up to you to make peace with yourself, fully and openly. If you can’t accept whatever dissonance is inside of you, if it’s just too uncomfortable, then find one action a day that can bring you a step closer to being a person who steps in harmony with their beliefs. Your small actions, or inactions, echo outward. And hopefully, your beliefs bring you closer to community, lovingkindness, and liberation. We’ll be here, rooting for you.

Works Cited

Domurad, Frank. “1933 May Be Closer than We Think.” History News Network, 8 Sept. 2019, www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/1933-may-be-closer-than-we-think. Accessed 26 Jan. 2026.

History.com Editors. “World War I: Summary, Causes & Facts.” History, 29 Oct. 2009, www.history.com/articles/world-war-i-history.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Holocaust Encyclopedia.

  - “Introduction to the Holocaust.” 20 Sept. 2024. Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “Timeline of Events.” 2024. Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “Nazi Propaganda.” 2023. Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “The Weimar Republic.” 2025. Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “The Role of Business Elites.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “Adolf Hitler Is Appointed Chancellor.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “The Nazi Rise to Power.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “The SA (Sturmabteilung).” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “The SS (Schutzstaffel).” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “Reichstag Fire.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “Reichstag Fire Decree.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “Establishment of Dachau Concentration Camp.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “Nuremberg Race Laws.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “Beer Hall Putsch.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “Treaty of Versailles.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “World War I.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

  - “The Armenian Genocide.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

Worner, Tod. “Hitler’s Final Rise to Power w/ Tim Ryback.” Evangelization & Culture Podcast, Word on Fire, 5 Aug. 2025, www.wordonfire.org/videos/evangelization-and-culture-podcast/ep55-takeover-hitlers-final-rise-to-power-timothy-ryback/.