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The early timeline of Nazism begins with its origins and continues until Hitler's rise to power.
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party, was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party, existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremist German nationalist, racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against communist uprisings in post–World War I Germany. The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti–big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes. The party had little popular support until the Great Depression, when worsening living standards and widespread unemployment drove Germans into political extremism.
The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic. The period's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar, which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" not commonly used until the 1930s.
The Night of the Long Knives, also called the Röhm purge or Operation Hummingbird, was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts". Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Röhm – the so-called Röhm Putsch.
Ernst Julius Günther Röhm was a German military officer and a leading member of the Nazi Party. Initially a close friend and early ally of Adolf Hitler, Röhm was the co-founder and leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazi Party's original paramilitary wing, which played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power. He served as chief of the SA from 1931 until his murder in 1934 during the Night of the Long Knives.
Wilhelm Frick was a convicted war criminal and prominent German politician of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as Minister of the Interior in Adolf Hitler's cabinet from 1933 to 1943 and as the last governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Alfred Ernst Christian Alexander Hugenberg was an influential German businessman and politician. An important figure in nationalist politics in Germany during the first three decades of the twentieth century, Hugenberg became the country's leading media proprietor during the 1920s. As leader of the German National People's Party, he played a part in helping Adolf Hitler become chancellor of Germany and served in his first cabinet in 1933, hoping to control Hitler and use him as his tool. The plan failed, and by the end of 1933 Hugenberg had been pushed to the sidelines. Although he continued to serve as a guest member of the Reichstag until 1945, he wielded no political influence. Following World War II, he was interned by the British in 1946 and classified as "exonerated" in 1951 after undergoing denazification.
Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen, Erbsälzer zu Werl und Neuwerk was a German national conservative, diplomat, Prussian nobleman and General Staff officer. He served as the chancellor of Germany in 1932, and then as the vice-chancellor under Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1934.
Kurt Ferdinand Friedrich Hermann von Schleicher was a German general and the penultimate chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic. A rival for power with Adolf Hitler, Schleicher was murdered by Hitler's SS during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.
The German National People's Party was a national-conservative and monarchist political party in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Before the rise of the Nazi Party, it was the major nationalist party in Weimar Germany. It was an alliance of conservative, nationalist, monarchist, völkisch, and antisemitic elements supported by the Pan-German League. Ideologically, the party was described as subscribing to authoritarian conservatism, German nationalism, monarchism, and from 1931 onwards also to corporatism in economic policy. It held anti-communist, anti-Catholic, and antisemitic views. On the left–right political spectrum, it belonged on the right-wing, and is classified as far-right in its early years and then again from the late 1920s when it moved back rightward.
Gregor Strasser was a German politician and early leader of the Nazi Party. Along with his younger brother Otto, he was a leading member of the party's left-wing faction, which brought them into conflict with the dominant faction led by Adolf Hitler, resulting in his murder in 1934. The brothers' strand of the Nazi ideology is known as Strasserism.
Presidential elections were held in Germany on 13 March 1932, with a runoff on 10 April. Independent incumbent Paul von Hindenburg won a second seven-year term against Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Communist Party (KPD) leader Ernst Thälmann also ran and received more than ten percent of the vote in the runoff. Theodor Duesterberg, the deputy leader of the World War I veterans' organization Der Stahlhelm, ran in the first round but dropped out of the runoff. This was the second and final direct election to the office of President of the Reich, Germany's head of state under the Weimar Republic.
The 1932 Prussian coup d'état or Preußenschlag took place on 20 July 1932, when Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, at the request of Franz von Papen, then Reich Chancellor of Germany, replaced the legal government of the Free State of Prussia with von Papen as Reich Commissioner. A second decree the same day transferred executive power in Prussia to the Reich Minister of the Armed Forces Kurt von Schleicher and restricted fundamental rights.
Federal elections were held in Germany on 5 March 1933, after the Nazi seizure of power on 30 January 1933 and just six days after the Reichstag fire. The election saw Nazi stormtroopers unleash a widespread campaign of violence against the Communist Party (KPD), left-wingers, trade unionists, the Social Democratic Party, and the Centre Party. They were the last multi-party elections in a united Germany until 1990.
Franz Gürtner was a German Minister of Justice in the governments of Franz von Papen, Kurt von Schleicher and Adolf Hitler. Gürtner was responsible for coordinating jurisprudence in Nazi Germany and provided official sanction and legal grounds for a series of repressive actions under the Nazi regime from 1933 until his death in 1941.
The Harzburg Front was a short-lived radical right-wing, anti-democratic political alliance in Weimar Germany, formed in 1931 as an attempt to present a unified opposition to the government of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning. It was a coalition of the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) under millionaire press-baron Alfred Hugenberg with Adolf Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), the leadership of Der Stahlhelm paramilitary veterans' association, the Agricultural League and the Pan-German League organizations.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Being one of its most popular speakers, he was made the party leader after he threatened to otherwise leave.
Edmund Heines was a German Nazi politician and Deputy to Ernst Röhm, the Stabschef of the Sturmabteilung (SA). Heines was one of the earliest members of the Nazi Party and a leading member of the SA in Munich, participating in the Beer Hall Putsch and becoming a notorious enforcer of the party. He held several high-ranking positions in the Nazi administration until he was executed during the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934.
The Stennes revolt was a revolt within the Nazi Party in 1930 through 1931 led by Walter Stennes, the Berlin commandant of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazi's "brownshirt" storm troops. The revolt arose from internal tensions and conflicts within the Nazi Party of Germany, particularly between the party organization headquartered in Munich and Adolf Hitler on the one hand, and the SA and its leadership on the other hand. There is some evidence suggesting that Stennes may have been paid by the government of German chancellor Heinrich Brüning, with the intention of causing conflict within and destabilizing the Nazi movement.
The Papen cabinet, headed by the independent Franz von Papen, was the nineteenth government of the Weimar Republic. It took office on 1 June 1932 when it replaced the second Brüning cabinet, which had resigned the same day after it lost the confidence of President Paul von Hindenburg.
The presidential cabinets were a succession of governments of the Weimar Republic whose legitimacy derived exclusively from presidential emergency decrees. From April 1930 to January 1933, three chancellors, Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, and Kurt von Schleicher were appointed by President Paul von Hindenburg, and governed without the consent of the Reichstag, Germany's lower house of parliament. After Schleicher's tenure, the leader of the Nazis Adolf Hitler succeeded to the chancellorship and regained the consent of the Reichstag by obtaining a majority in the March 1933 German federal election with DNVP.
