Hello, I did this exam!
Yes, that question was horrible and I was so disappointed with myself and with the exam paper.
Part A I don't think was that bad, being part A and all.
I talked about Hitler gaining power through legal means, propaganda campaign to gain him support, gaining power through the failure and political incompetence of others, manipulating his policies to gain the support of important groups in society - church.
I definitely think this part was ok.
However, part B left me reeling with fury. 30 years of revision, facts, understanding - pointless. RELIED ON CONSENT?
So my groups were
1) supports interpretation that Hitler relied on consent to consolidate power
- support of the church essential at this early stage: most germans christian, 17000 pastors, christian schools, christian conservatives, you get the picture. Concordat - they wouldn't intervene with policies and hitler left church alone and catholic youth group. "morality" of nazi party - lies as propaganda as nazi policies and beliefs of Untermenschen and Herrenvolk contradicted Christian values of equality and "love thy neighbour" (yes, i really wrote that in an exam. I am ashamed.)
- support of Hindenburg "blessing" - approval of Hitler essential as he had presidential powers to elect chancellor, admired and adored by german public, hitler needed to show that Hindenburg supported him. (lies/propaganda/vested interest as Hindenburg didn't like hitler or nazis). Hindenburg electing him (using own knowledge despite his personal dislike and distrust) to show hitler's political skill when all others proved incompetent (political intrigue between von papen and von schleicher - Hindenburg lost faith in the government)
- also if Hindenburg hadn't elected hitler it was unlikely he could ever come to power due to support for nazi party being in decline therefore from then on would be increasingly difficult to achieve majority in Reichstag and hitler knew this
1) HItler did not rely on the consent of others, it was he and he alone who made his decisions
- Night of the long knives - bore responsibility of murder - Got away with legal murder of political opposition - decisiveness - was a brutal event and did not think twice about losing the support of groups in society because of it
- said something to do with army but cannot remember
- declare merciless war - again did not care if people disagreed with nazi values and beliefes, would not stop at any length to get rid of opposition and did not care if this lost him support
- 5000 concentration camp political prisoners - accurate due to the truth
PROVENANCE - some rambling about unreliability, vested interest of nazi writers to glorify competence of nazis, the fact that they had little opposition of would do anything to get rid of it etc etc etc WAS NOT AS GOOD AS IT COULD HAVE BEEN
I had long provenance comments about each, but God help me,
I did not have a conclusion. Someone PLEASE tell me if there are only so many marks you can be awarded without a conclusion????? SCREWED THIS UP.