Was The Nazis use of threats and violence the reason that Hitler became Fuhrer in 1934?
The Nazis’ use of threats and violence did play a role in their rise to power (by intimidating and suppressing their opponents) but not in Hitler becoming Fuhrer. Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933 because of a political deal; his power was increased by the burning of the Reichstag and the passing of the Enabling Act which gave him wide-ranging emergency powers. On the death of President Hindenburg in 1934, he merged the chancellorship and presidency into one office – the ‘Fuhrer’ or ‘leader’.
Threats and violence were an essential part of the Hitler method and he managed to destabilise German society until the country was ungovernable. Even though the Nazi party lost two million votes in the November 1932 election compared with the one in July, Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor in January 1933. The next action by Hitler was the Reichstag fire in February which gave him the excuse to ban all other parties and pass the Enabling Act to give himself the powers of a dictator. When Hindenburg died in 1934 he abolished the office of President and combined it into his own and declared himself Fuhrer.
After the Night of the Long Knives, nothing stood between Hitler and absolute power in Germany, except 87-year-old German President Paul von Hindenburg, who now lay close to death at his country estate in East Prussia. For Hitler, Hindenburg’s demise couldn’t have come at a better time. He had just broken the back of the rowdy Brownshirts and cemented the support of the Army’s General Staff. Now he just needed to resolve the issue of who would succeed Hindenburg as president. Hitler, of course, decided that he should succeed Hindenburg, but not as president, instead as Führer (supreme leader) of the German people. Although he was already called Führer by members of the Nazi Party and popularly by the German public, Hitler’s actual government title at this time was simply Reich Chancellor of Germany. However, there were still a handful of influential old-time conservatives in Germany who hoped for a return of the monarchy or perhaps some kind of non-Nazi nationalist government after Hin
