Notes · HistoryUK · A-Levels

2O Democracy and Nazism: Germany, 1918-1945

This depth option investigates the fragility of Weimar democracy, the rise of the Nazi Party, and the nature and impact of the Nazi state. It teaches the period as a study of detailed causation and significance — the fall of a democracy and the making of a dictatorship — and of the evaluation of primary sources produced within, and about, a propagandising regime.

5 sections~18 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 3 · Advanced 1

T·131313 / 16

Exam profile

AO1 · Analyse the collapse of Weimar democracy and the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in detailAO1 · Assess the significance of developments such as the Enabling Act and the Nazi terrorAO2 · Evaluate primary sources within the context of a propagandising and, later, defeated regime

Operators:to what extenthow farhow significantassesshow valuableanalyse

basic level

AS-Level covers part of the period; the analytical and source demands are the same in kind.

higher level

The full A-Level requires detailed command of the whole period 1918-1945, essay argument and the primary-sources question.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

2O Democracy and Nazism: Germany, 1918-1945

Weimar democracy and its weaknesses, 1918-1929#

FoundationAQA 7042 2O - the Weimar RepublicDfE GCE History subject content

Democracy and Nazism: a timeline

Fig. 1Two regimes across the period — the Weimar Republic (from 1919) and the Nazi dictatorship (from 1933) — with the Great Depression (1929) the hinge between them.

The Weimar Republic, founded in 1919, was Germany's first genuine parliamentary democracy, with a democratic constitution, a Reichstag elected by proportional representation and a president holding emergency powers. It was born under the worst conditions: defeat in war, revolution, and the deeply resented Treaty of Versailles, whose territorial losses, reparations and 'war guilt' clause many Germans found humiliating and which they blamed on the Republic. From the start the new democracy was tainted in the eyes of its opponents by association with national defeat and disgrace.

The Republic carried structural weaknesses that made stable government difficult. Proportional representation produced a fragmented party system and a succession of unstable coalitions, while the constitution's emergency provision allowed the president to authorise rule by decree in a crisis, bypassing parliament. In its early years the Republic survived violent challenges from left and right and the catastrophic hyperinflation of 1923, which destroyed savings and deepened middle-class insecurity. That it survived these storms at all warns against reading its later collapse as inevitable from the beginning.

The middle years brought a real but fragile recovery. Under able leadership the currency was stabilised, reparations were eased by international agreement, foreign relations improved and Germany was readmitted to the community of nations, and the economy revived on the basis of foreign loans. These were years of relative stability and cultural flourishing that show the Republic could function. But the recovery rested on shaky foundations — dependence on foreign loans and a still-narrow base of committed democratic support — leaving the Republic dangerously exposed to any renewed economic shock.

For the depth student, the 1918-1929 years establish the essential preconditions of the later collapse: a democracy of contested legitimacy, structural flaws that hindered stable government, and a recovery too dependent on foreign money to withstand a crisis. The central causation question is whether these weaknesses doomed the Republic, or whether it might have survived but for the specific catastrophe and choices that followed. Establishing that the Republic was fragile but not yet doomed by 1929 is the foundation for analysing what destroyed it.

Worked example

How secure was the recovery?

How would you assess the stability of the Weimar Republic by 1929?

The signs of stability
Point to the mid-1920s recovery: currency stabilised, reparations eased, foreign relations improved, economy revived and culture flourishing — genuine functioning democracy.
The underlying fragility
Set against this the contested legitimacy, structural flaws (PR, emergency powers) and dependence on foreign loans that left the recovery vulnerable to any shock.
Judge
Conclude that by 1929 the Republic was functioning but fragile — stable on the surface yet resting on weak foundations, so it was exposed rather than doomed, and its fate would turn on what came next.

Result: The Republic is judged functioning but fragile by 1929 — a surface recovery on weak foundations, exposed to but not yet destroyed by crisis.

Typical mistakes

Presenting Weimar as doomed from birth, ignoring its survival of the early crises and the mid-1920s recovery.
Treating the mid-1920s recovery as secure, when it depended heavily on foreign loans.

Active revision

How stable was the Weimar Republic by 1929? Plan a balanced answer weighing recovery against underlying weaknesses.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level History (7041 / 7042) specification (AQA)

The rise of the Nazis, 1928-1933#

StandardAQA 7042 2O - the rise of the Nazi PartyDfE GCE History subject content

The Nazi rise to power

Fig. 2The Nazi rise required the Depression, Weimar's lost legitimacy, the Nazis' electoral surge and the conservative elite's miscalculation — which together installed Hitler in 1933.

The Great Depression from 1929 was the catastrophe that turned Weimar's fragility into collapse. Mass unemployment and economic misery drained support from the moderate parties and drove voters towards the political extremes, both Nazi and Communist. The Nazi Party, previously a fringe movement, surged in successive elections to become the largest party in the Reichstag by 1932, its message of national revival, order and scapegoats gaining traction among Germans desperate for a way out of the crisis. Economic disaster was the essential precondition of the Nazi rise.

But electoral success alone did not put Hitler in power; the collapse of parliamentary government and the manoeuvres of the conservative elite were equally necessary. As the crisis deepened, no stable Reichstag majority could be formed, and successive chancellors governed by presidential emergency decree rather than parliamentary consent, hollowing out democracy from within. In this vacuum, conservative politicians around the president schemed to harness the Nazi movement's popular support for their own ends, believing they could control Hitler in a coalition government.

This miscalculation proved fatal. Persuaded by intriguing conservatives that Hitler could be contained and used, the president appointed him Chancellor in January 1933 at the head of a coalition in which conservatives expected to hold the real power. They were catastrophically wrong: within months Hitler had outmanoeuvred them and begun dismantling the democracy that had brought him to office. The appointment was not the seizure of power by an irresistible force but the handing of power to Hitler by an elite that thought it could master him.

For the depth student, the rise of the Nazis is a classic multi-causal problem. It required the Depression to create mass desperation, Weimar's structural weakness and lost legitimacy to make democracy vulnerable, the Nazis' own propaganda and organisation to capture the resulting discontent, and the fatal miscalculation of the conservative elite to open the door. Ranking these factors — and in particular weighing the Nazis' electoral appeal against the backstairs intrigue that actually installed Hitler — is the central analytical task of this part of the option.

Worked example

Ranking the causes of Hitler's appointment

How would you rank the causes of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933?

The precondition
Rank the Depression as the essential precondition: without mass unemployment and desperation there would have been no Nazi surge and no collapse of moderate politics.
The mechanism
Identify the immediate mechanism as the collapse of parliamentary government and the conservative elite's miscalculation, which actually placed Hitler in office — the Nazis' electoral strength gave them the leverage the elite tried to exploit.
Judge
Conclude that the Depression was the fundamental cause but not the direct one: it created the conditions that the Nazis exploited and the elite mishandled, so responsibility is shared between the economic catastrophe, Nazi strength and the fatal intrigue that installed Hitler.

Result: The Depression is ranked as the essential precondition and the elite's miscalculation as the direct mechanism, with Nazi strength the leverage between them — a multi-causal, weighed judgement.

Typical mistakes

Explaining Hitler's rise by Nazi popularity alone, ignoring the collapse of parliamentary government and elite intrigue.
Describing the appointment as a seizure of power rather than a calculated handover the elite expected to control.

Active revision

'The Depression was the main reason Hitler came to power in 1933.' Assess the validity of this view. Plan a factor-by-factor answer.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level History (7041 / 7042) specification (AQA)

Consolidating the dictatorship, 1933-1934#

StandardAQA 7042 2O - the establishment of the dictatorshipDfE GCE History subject content

Instruments of the Nazi state

Fig. 3The Nazi state ruled through the leader principle and one-party state, terror, propaganda, and economic and social control of society.

Once in office, Hitler moved with great speed to convert a coalition chancellorship into a personal dictatorship, exploiting each opportunity to concentrate power. A fire at the Reichstag was used to justify an emergency decree suspending civil liberties and enabling the arrest of opponents, and in the atmosphere of intimidation and crisis that followed, an election and then legislation gave the government the power to make laws without parliament. Within months the constitutional restraints of the Weimar system had been swept aside under a veneer of legality.

The Nazis then set about the coordination of German life — the process of bringing institutions, organisations and public bodies under Nazi control and eliminating alternative centres of power. Other political parties were banned or dissolved, trade unions were abolished and replaced, and Germany became a one-party state. This transformation, achieved largely through legal forms backed by terror and intimidation, dismantled the pluralism of the Republic and subordinated the machinery of state and society to the Nazi movement and its leader.

Two further steps completed the concentration of power. In 1934 Hitler moved against potential rivals within his own movement and reassured the conservative establishment and the army by purging the leadership of the party's paramilitary wing in a violent action. Then, on the death of the aged president later that year, Hitler merged the offices of head of state and head of government in his own person and secured the army's personal loyalty. By the end of 1934 he held untrammelled power as leader of a one-party dictatorship.

For the depth student, the years 1933-1934 are a case study in how a democracy can be destroyed from within by a combination of legal forms, terror and the exploitation of crisis. The central questions are how far the dictatorship was established by legal means rather than force, and how significant particular steps — the emergency decree, the enabling legislation, the purge of 1934 — were in the process. The pseudo-legal character of the seizure, which cloaked coercion in the appearance of legality, is one of its most important and instructive features.

Worked example

Legal means or force?

How would you argue whether the Nazi dictatorship was established chiefly by legal means or by force?

The legal route
Emphasise that Hitler was appointed legally and that the dictatorship was built through emergency decrees and enabling legislation that granted law-making power to the government and dissolved opposition — a pseudo-legal revolution.
The role of force
Set against this the intimidation, arrests and violence — and the 1934 purge — that coerced opponents and created the atmosphere in which the legal steps were taken.
Judge
Conclude that the dictatorship combined legal forms with force: legality supplied the framework and terror the pressure, so the seizure was pseudo-legal — its appearance of legality masking coercion.

Result: The dictatorship is judged the product of legal forms backed by force — a pseudo-legal seizure in which legislation and terror worked together.

Typical mistakes

Presenting the dictatorship as established by force alone, ignoring the legal forms that cloaked it.
Neglecting the significance of the 1934 purge and the merging of offices in completing Hitler's power.

Active revision

How significant was the enabling legislation of 1933 in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship? Plan a balanced answer.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level History (7041 / 7042) specification (AQA)

The Nazi state and society, 1934-1945#

StandardAQA 7042 2O - the Nazi state, society and warDfE GCE History subject content

Control and consent in the Nazi state

Fig. 4The regime combined terror (to crush) and propaganda (to persuade); the two overlapped in the pervasive demand for conformity and commitment.

The Nazi dictatorship ruled through a combination of terror and persuasion. A powerful apparatus of political police and concentration camps crushed opposition and instilled fear, while a sophisticated propaganda machine, controlling the press, radio, film and public ritual, promoted the leader cult and the ideology of a racially defined national community. The regime sought not merely to suppress dissent but to win active commitment, remake attitudes and mobilise the population behind its goals — a more total ambition than mere authoritarian control.

Economic and social policy served these ends. The regime reduced unemployment through public works and, increasingly, rearmament, pursued self-sufficiency, and intervened extensively in the economy in preparation for war. In society it targeted the young through controlled education and youth organisations, promoted a particular role for women, brought workers under state-controlled bodies, and pressed the churches. How far ordinary Germans genuinely embraced the regime, acquiesced out of fear or self-interest, or quietly resisted, is a central and much-debated question, and resistance, though it existed, remained limited and was ruthlessly suppressed.

At the core of Nazi ideology was a murderous racism, and the regime's policies towards those it defined as racial enemies escalated from discrimination and persecution in the 1930s to systematic mass murder during the war. The Second World War, launched in 1939, provided both the cover and the means for genocide: the Holocaust, the deliberate, industrialised murder of millions of Jews and others, was carried out under the conditions of war. This is the terrible culmination of the regime's ideology and the defining fact of its history.

For the depth student, the Nazi state raises questions of control and consent, of the nature of the regime, and of the relationship between ideology, war and genocide. Was the regime held together mainly by terror or by genuine popular support? How efficient or chaotic was its government? And how did an advanced society come to perpetrate mass murder? These are questions of causation, significance and the character of a regime, to be argued with precise evidence — and they make the honest, careful handling of evidence, including the evidence of the regime's own crimes, a matter of real seriousness.

Worked example

Terror versus consent

How would you argue whether the Nazi regime rested mainly on terror or on consent?

The case for consent
Acknowledge genuine sources of support: the reduction of unemployment, national revival, effective propaganda and the appeal of the leader cult to many Germans.
The case for terror
Set against this the pervasive apparatus of police, camps and fear, which removed alternatives, silenced dissent and made the expression of opposition dangerous, so apparent consent cannot be cleanly separated from coercion.
Judge
Conclude that the regime rested on both, working together: real popularity in some areas, sustained and protected by an atmosphere of fear that made non-conformity perilous, so neither terror nor consent alone explains its hold.

Result: The regime is judged to have rested on terror and consent working together — real support protected by pervasive fear — a weighed judgement rather than a single answer.

Typical mistakes

Explaining the regime by terror alone, or by consent alone, rather than weighing both.
Detaching the Holocaust from Nazi ideology and the conditions of war rather than analysing their connection.

Active revision

To what extent did the Nazi regime rest on popular support rather than terror? Plan a balanced answer.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level History (7041 / 7042) specification (AQA)

Evaluating sources on Nazi Germany#

AdvancedAQA 7042 2O - primary sources (AO2)DfE GCE History subject content

Contemporary and retrospective sources

Fig. 5Sources on Nazi Germany fall into contemporary (official propaganda, internal reports) and retrospective (post-war memoirs, testimony) — each with distinct provenance issues to weigh.

The depth study of Nazi Germany is examined partly through the evaluation of contemporary primary sources, and the regime's character makes provenance decisive. This was a state that controlled the press, radio, film and the arts through a propaganda ministry, that maintained a leader cult, and that punished dissent — so official sources were produced to serve the regime's purposes, and even ostensibly private material was shaped by the risks of the time. The AO2 skill begins with alertness to the controlled information environment that shaped almost every source from within the regime.

As always, this makes the sources valuable for the right enquiries rather than worthless. A propaganda film or an official speech is unreliable as a neutral record but highly valuable as evidence of what the regime wished Germans to believe and how it presented itself. A report by the regime's own security services on public opinion may, precisely because it was internal and confidential, be more candid about discontent than public statements were. Matching each source to what it can be trusted to reveal — regime intentions, internal assessments, public presentation — is the essence of the task.

This period adds a further dimension: much evidence about Nazi Germany comes from after its fall, and such retrospective sources carry their own distortions. Memoirs and testimony produced after 1945, including by those implicated in the regime, may minimise or deny involvement, shift blame, or be shaped by hindsight and the desire for self-justification. Weighing a post-war account requires attention to when and why it was produced and to the author's stake in a particular version — the same provenance analysis, applied to sources looking back on the period rather than written within it.

For the depth student, then, evaluating sources on Nazi Germany rewards the disciplined AO2 technique with special attention to provenance and to the moment of production, whether contemporary or retrospective. Identify what a source offers on the enquiry, analyse who produced it and why, test its content against detailed knowledge of the period, and judge its value with strengths and limitations weighed. The regime's control of information and the distortions of hindsight are not obstacles to be lamented but features to be analysed, since they are exactly what a careful evaluation must take into account.

Worked example

Evaluating a post-war memoir

Consider a described source: a memoir written after 1945 by a former official of the regime, describing their role. How would you evaluate it for an enquiry into how the regime functioned?

Provenance and hindsight
Note that it is retrospective, written after the regime's fall by someone implicated in it, with an obvious motive to minimise their own responsibility and to present their conduct favourably — so its self-exculpatory claims must be treated with caution.
What it can still offer
Recognise that it may nonetheless contain valuable detail about how the regime operated from the inside, especially where the author has no motive to distort, and that its very evasions are evidence of how participants later justified themselves.
Context and judgement
Test its claims against known facts and the author's likely motives, then judge: of limited value where it exculpates the author, but of real value both for internal detail it has no reason to falsify and as evidence of post-war self-justification.

Result: The post-war memoir is judged cautiously for its self-exculpation but valuable for inside detail and as evidence of retrospective self-justification — provenance and hindsight doing the work.

Typical mistakes

Taking a propaganda source at face value, or dismissing it as worthless rather than judging what it reveals.
Treating a post-war memoir as a straightforward record, ignoring self-justification and hindsight.

Active revision

For an enquiry into popular attitudes to the regime, take three sources including one internal report and one post-war memoir, and judge each for value using provenance and context.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level History (7041 / 7042) specification (AQA) · GCE AS and A level subject content for history (Department for Education)

References & sources

Sources

AQA

AQA AS and A-level History (7041 / 7042) specification

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for history

2O Democracy and Nazism: Germany, 1918-1945

5 sections~18 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 3 · Advanced 1

2O Democracy and Nazism: Germany, 1918-1945

Key points

How secure was the recovery?

Key points

Ranking the causes of Hitler's appointment

Key points

Legal means or force?

Key points

Terror versus consent

Key points

Evaluating a post-war memoir

Sources

2O Democracy and Nazism: Germany, 1918-1945

Key points

How secure was the recovery?

Key points

Ranking the causes of Hitler's appointment

Key points

Legal means or force?

Key points

Terror versus consent

Key points

Evaluating a post-war memoir

Sources