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How Important Was the Fear of Communism in Explaining Why President Hindenburg Invited Hitler to Become Chancellor in 1933?

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How important was fear of communism in explaining why President Hindenburg invited Hitler to become Chancellor in 1933?

Intro
Communism was a political idea which was beginning to become popular in Germany. However it was very much disliked as communist were seen as unruly because of street battles with police. People feared the way the USSR discriminated against the middle class and in the process of becoming communist countries had taken land away from farmers and many peasants had been killed or imprisioned. Hitler was appointed chancellor on the 30th January 1933 and this was partly to do with the publics fear of communism however it was not the most important factor.

One way the fear of communism explained why Hindenburg invited Hitler to become chancellor was pressure from big businesses. Originally Hindenburg had not wanted to appoint Hitler as chancellor, he feared he would dismantle democracy and as a former leader of the imperial german army Hindenburg strngly disliked the S.A. However he was getting older and struggling to keep the republic together. The army favored Hitler to protect the state from communism and the former president of the reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht, made it known that the business and finical world saw Hitler as the ‘lesser of two evils’. This put huge pressure on Hindenburg to pick Hitler as chancellor because he needed the support of the army and business world.
Along with the army and business world, support for Hitler in the public was growing because of the fear of communism. By the time of the depression people were listening to the Nazis. The middle class were fearful the mass unemployed would rise up in a communist revolution, they turned to the Nazis as reliable protection from the left. In the Nazi 25 point programme it said ‘communism is evil- it places the working class before the nation’. Which showed the Nazis felt

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