The Treaty of Versailles, the Depression, the weaknesses of the Weimar constitution and widespread fear of communism made some kind of right-wing dictatorship in Germany in the 1930s highly likely. However, the Nazis were not the only party that attacked the Versailles Treaty, the Weimar Republic and communism, while promising a strong authoritarian government to restore Germany’s economy and its pride. Why did Hitler and the Nazis succeed and no one else?
Little about his earliest years marked out Adolf Hitler as a future German dictator. He grew up in middle-class comfort in Austria (despite his references in Mein Kampf to his family’s poverty) with a strict father and doting mother. At school he enjoyed art and history but failed his exams. He left school hating the educated classes.
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