Berlin in the 1930s beneath Nazi banners and mass rallies

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Nazi Germany

See how Nazi Germany turned crisis into dictatorship, war, genocide, and national ruin.

11 chapters

Content note

This story discusses genocide, persecution, mass killing, and crimes against humanity in an educational historical context.

Reading mode

Accessible gives a lighter overview. Deep Dive tells the fuller story.

Quick Answers

What was Nazi Germany?

Nazi Germany was the dictatorship that ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945 under Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party. It destroyed democracy, built a police state, pursued racial ideology, launched the Second World War in Europe, and carried out the Holocaust.

At a glance

Date range: 1933 to 1945.
From Weimar collapse to WWII, Nazi Germany imposed totalitarian rule, expansion, and genocide.
Hitler came to power legally through appointment as chancellor in January 1933 but moved within months to destroy the constitutional framework that had brought him to office.
The regime consolidated power through a combination of emergency legislation, organised violence, and intimidation — eliminating political opponents, trade unions, and independent institutions.

Common questions

When was Nazi Germany?

Nazi Germany lasted from Hitler's appointment as chancellor on 30 January 1933 until Germany's defeat and surrender in May 1945.

How did Hitler become dictator?

Hitler became chancellor legally, then used emergency powers, intimidation, propaganda, the Enabling Act, and the destruction of rival parties to turn Germany into a dictatorship.

What did Nazi ideology believe?

Nazi ideology combined extreme nationalism, antisemitism, racism, anti-communism, dictatorship, militarism, and the belief that Germany should conquer living space in eastern Europe.

How did Nazi Germany end?

Nazi Germany ended in 1945 after Allied armies invaded from east and west, fell to the Soviet army, Hitler died by suicide, and Germany surrendered unconditionally.

Context

Introduction

Overview

Nazi power grew amid war's aftermath, economic crisis and the collapse of democratic trust in Germany. The regime dismantled political freedoms and imposed a dictatorship built on racial ideology and violence. Its pursuit of expansion and genocide drew Europe into catastrophe.

What you'll learn: You'll understand how Hitler converted a democratic appointment into absolute power, how the regime reshaped everyday life through propaganda and fear, why racial ideology became law, and how dictatorship and militarisation converged to produce the Second World War and the Holocaust.

Key forces

Hitler came to power legally through appointment as chancellor in January 1933 but moved within months to destroy the constitutional framework that had brought him to office.
The regime consolidated power through a combination of emergency legislation, organised violence, and intimidation — eliminating political opponents, trade unions, and independent institutions.
Racial ideology was central to Nazism from the beginning, becoming embedded in law through the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which stripped Jews of citizenship and laid the legal groundwork for persecution.
By 1938, the convergence of dictatorship, propaganda, militarisation, and racial violence had set Germany on a direct course toward war and genocide.

Civilians read fresh newspapers as reporters, police and anonymous officials gather outside a Berlin government building in January 1933.

1933 CE

Step 1 of 101933 CEAccessible mode

Hitler Becomes Chancellor

By January 1933, Germany's democracy was failing. Hitler was not swept into power by revolution — he was handed it by politicians who thought they could keep him under control.

Germany's Weimar Republic had been struggling for years. Economic collapse, street violence between rival political groups, and a parliament unable to form stable coalitions had left the country close to breaking point.

Conservative politicians around President Hindenburg believed Hitler could be used. By making him chancellor — with conservatives filling most of the cabinet — they expected to win his popular support while keeping him in check.

“They underestimated him in every possible way.”

On 30 January 1933, Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor. It was a legal, constitutional act — not a coup. But it gave power to a man who intended to destroy the very system that had placed him there.

The conservatives' plan collapsed almost immediately. Within weeks, Hitler had begun dismantling everything they thought would contain him.

Firefighters and police respond as the Reichstag burns at night in February 1933.

1933 CE

Step 2 of 101933 CEAccessible mode

The Reichstag Fire Decree

On the night of 27 February 1933, the German parliament building caught fire. The Nazis used it as the excuse they needed to destroy civil liberties almost overnight.

A young Dutch communist was arrested at the scene. The Nazis blamed a vast communist conspiracy — though the fire was almost certainly the act of one individual acting alone. The truth barely mattered. The regime had its emergency.

The following morning, Hitler persuaded President Hindenburg to sign an emergency decree. At a stroke, it suspended freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and protection from arrest without warrant.

“Rights that took decades to build were suspended in a single morning.”

Communist politicians were arrested immediately. Thousands of opponents — trade unionists, journalists, lawyers, Social Democrats — were detained in the weeks that followed. The first concentration camps opened to hold them.

Germany had entered a state of emergency that would never be lifted.

Lawmakers enter the Kroll Opera House through a cordon of armed men before the Enabling Act vote.

1933 CE

Step 3 of 101933 CEAccessible mode

The Enabling Act

In March 1933, the German parliament voted itself out of existence — handing Hitler the power to make law without any parliamentary approval.

The Enabling Act required a two-thirds majority, so the Nazis needed other parties to vote with them. They achieved this through a combination of physical intimidation and political persuasion. SA stormtroopers surrounded the parliament building on the day of the vote.

Communist members had already been arrested. Most other parties either voted in favour or were too frightened to resist. Only the Social Democrats voted against — and they did so knowing they faced arrest.

“Democracy ended not with tanks in the streets but with a vote in a parliament surrounded by armed men.”

The Enabling Act gave Hitler's government the power to pass laws — including unconstitutional ones — without the Reichstag. The legal framework for dictatorship was now complete.

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Gleichschaltung

The opening chapters show a shattered democracy giving extremists room to grow. Premium follows the more disturbing transformation: politics becomes obedience, propaganda enters everyday life, and a state built on fear and racial ideology prepares Germany for persecution, violence and war.

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