7. Fascism’s Rise to Power¶
Core Argument¶
By 1929, fascism in Germany appeared a spent force. Hitler’s Nazi Party, shattered by the failed 1923 Munich Putsch, had dwindled to a mere 2.6% of the vote by 1928, one insignificant outfit among many. The turning point came from above. From 1930, monopoly capitalists, led by figures like Fritz Thyssen, poured millions of marks into the Nazi movement. The bourgeoisie, this chapter argues, turned to fascism as a special form of reaction when the Bonapartist regimes of the late Weimar Republic proved incapable of fully destroying the organised working class. Fascism’s mass base, however, was drawn from the ruined middle classes—crushed by crisis, unemployment, and hyperinflation—and mobilised through a potent anti-capitalist demagogy that masked its true function.
The catastrophe was compounded by the catastrophic strategy of the workers’ parties. The Stalinist Communist Party (KPD), paralysed by the “social fascism” doctrine, treated the Social Democrats (SPD) as the main enemy, refusing a united front and even collaborating with Nazis in the 1931 “Red Referendum” and the 1932 Berlin transport strike. The SPD, in turn, backed Hindenburg as the “lesser evil” and offered no resistance when von Papen dismissed the Prussian government. By July 1932, the Nazis had surged to 37.4%, becoming the largest Reichstag party.
Yet the tide was turning. In the last free election of November 1932, the Nazis lost two million votes, falling to 33.1%, while the combined SPD-KPD vote exceeded theirs. Two-thirds of Germans voted against fascism. Despite this, Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor on 30 January 1933. The SPD leadership issued an appeal for calm, instructing workers not to be provoked, and justified Hitler’s appointment as constitutional. Trotsky and his supporters called for armed resistance, but the labour leaders dithered.
Hitler immediately demanded new elections. The Nazis unleashed a wave of state terror: banning Communist meetings, closing their press, murdering 51 anti-fascists, and purging republican officials. Goering formed an auxiliary police force of 50,000, mostly from the SA and SS. On 27 February, the Nazis burned down the Reichstag, blaming the KPD, and Hindenburg suspended constitutional rights. Despite this, the Nazis won only 43.9% on 5 March, failing to secure a majority. The KPD was already illegal, and on 23 March, with 441 votes to 81 Social Democrats, Hitler passed the Enabling Act, making himself dictator. The working class had been defeated not by fascism’s strength, but by its own leadership’s betrayal.