The Nazis didn't rise to power in a vacuum - they exploited the worst economic crisis in modern German history. The combination of war debt, hyperinflation, and the Great Depression created a perfect fucking storm that made people desperate enough to embrace fascism.

World War I left Germany economically crippled. Dr. Adam Tooze's "The Wages of Destruction" (2006) details how the Versailles Treaty's reparations demands - 132 billion gold marks - were designed to keep Germany permanently weakened. The war had already drained Germany's reserves and disrupted trade networks. The reparations were basically a financial death sentence.

The 1923 hyperinflation destroyed the middle class's savings and faith in democracy. Dr. Richard Evans documents in "The Coming of the Third Reich" (2003) how prices increased by billions of percent:

"A loaf of bread rose from 250 marks to 200 billion marks in just ten months. People's life savings became worthless faster than they could spend them. Workers were paid twice a day and rushed to buy anything before their wages lost value."

This trauma made Germans desperately crave economic stability - something the Nazis promised to deliver.

The mid-1920s saw a brief recovery funded by American loans under the Dawes Plan. But as Dr. Harold James shows in "The German Slump" (1986), this prosperity was built on sand. When Wall Street crashed in 1929, foreign capital fled Germany, triggering a complete economic collapse.

The Great Depression hit Germany harder than anywhere else. By 1932:

Dr. Jurgen von Kruedener explains in "Economic Crisis and Political Collapse" (1990) that unemployment benefits lasted only six months. Millions faced literal starvation. People burned furniture for heat and ate from garbage dumps to survive.

The Depression intensified class conflict to the breaking point. Dr. Dick Geary's "Hitler and Nazism" (1993) shows how it affected different groups:

Workers faced:

The middle class experienced:

The elite feared:

The Nazis offered what seemed like a third way between failed capitalism and feared communism. Dr. Avraham Barkai's "Nazi Economics" (1990) analyzes their contradictory promises:

To workers:

To the middle class:

To elites:

It was bullshit, but people were desperate enough to buy it.

Major industrialists backed Hitler as a bulwark against communism. Dr. Henry Turner's "German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler" (1985) details how they:

While they didn't create Hitler, they helped enable his rise.

The Nazis weaponized economic anxiety into racial hatred. Dr. Sarah Gordon's "Hitler, Germans, and the 'Jewish Question'" (1984) shows how they:

The Depression discredited liberal capitalism and democracy itself. Dr. Charles Maier explains in "Recasting Bourgeois Europe" (1988) how economic crisis:

When democratic systems fail to provide basic economic security, people become willing to sacrifice freedom for the promise of stability.