How Hitler and Mussolini Rose to Power Essay

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Fascism and Democracy

Hitler essentially seized power in Germany. The National Socialist Party was losing support among the people, and the German political system in general was in shambles. There were frequent elections, with no party able to establish a majority. Hitler made a deal with the 85-year-old President von Hindenburg to form a coalition. Hitler would be the Chancellor under this arrangement. The coalition was formed on January 30, 1933. One of the key characteristics of this coalition was that von Hindenburg was among many in Germany who were distrustful of democracy -- the people were unused to it at the time (Hawley, 2008). There was an election later that year in Germany, with the Nazis taking 43.9% of the vote. By the time the parliament was called to session following that election, however, the Nazi Party had jailed, exiled or otherwise intimidated 107 representatives of the other major parties, the Social Democrats and the Communists (Hawley, 2008). The Nazis opted not to recognize the 81 Communist seats, and by this point they had control of the parliamentary session. The Nazis promptly stripped the parliament of its power, concentrating power in the Hitler's hands (Hawley, 2008), this on March 23, 1933. Hitler made the concentration of his power official in the summer of 1934 when he abolished the presidency and created the position of Fuhrer (Hawley, 2008).

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Mussolini's approach was somewhat different. When he returned after World War One, he called for a dictator to rule over Italy, which was politically-fractured. Mussolini felt that a dictatorship would allow for a more unified form of governance. He began immediately with a campaign of terror, in 1919, putting physical beatings on socialists and communists in Milan in 1919. He declared his intention to rule Italy personally in public speeches, something Hitler was hesitant to do in Germany. In 1924, Mussolini called an election, and intimidated his way to a majority mandate. He openly embraced his fascist doctrine and even adopted the critical term totalitarian that had been used by his opponents to describe his rule (CRF, 2010).

For the most part, there were significant differences between how these men arose to power. Mussolini was relatively transparent about his desire to absolute power over Italy, and repeatedly and publicly made his case for a dictatorship. In the end he worked hard to consolidate power, manifesting the mandate he had always spoken about.….....

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https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/hitler-mussolini-rose-power-2159478