AP World History DBQ
The Rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis
Directions: The following question is based on the accompanying Documents. (The
documents have been edited for the purpose of this exercise.)
This question is designed to test your ability to work with and understand historical
documents. Write an essay that:
• Has a relevant thesis and supports that thesis with evidence from the
documents.
• Uses all or all but one of the documents.
• Analyzes the documents by grouping them in as many appropriate ways as
possible. Does not simply summarize the documents individually.
• Takes into account both the sources of the documents and the author’s points
of view.
You may refer to relevant historical information not mentioned in the documents.
Question: Based on the following documents evaluate the successful methods of the
Nazis for acquiring political power in Germany. What was the appeal of Hitler and the
Nazi Party for Germans in the early 1930s?
Historical Background: The peace and prosperity promised by the Versailles treaty was
short lived. Disappointment and despair grew over issues like new boundary disputes,
reparations payments, national pride and inflation until the American stock market crash
sent the European economy into a tailspin. Eventually, Adolf Hitler and the National
Socialists gained power in 1933 and created a totalitarian dictatorship.
Document 1
Arnold Freiherr von Vietinghoff-Reisch, Prussian nobleman, 1934.
…. For a year and a half, from January 31, 1933, to the first large scale violation of all law,
the Rohm purge, and to the unmasking of evil that followed it, Hitler (and with him
National Socialism) for many of us was the savior from economic and social disaster, the
unifier of the German people, the man who was restoring the its honor abroad and raising it
again to the proper rank among the European family of nations …..
Document 2
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925. Referring to the future of the German state.
The … state will have to fight for its existence. It will neither obtain it by Dawes [treaty]
signatures, nor be able to defend its existence by them. For its existence and its protection, it
will need the very things that people today think they can do without. The more
incomparable and precious [the state’s] form and content will be, the greater will be the
envy and resistance of it enemies. The state’s best defense will lie not in its weapons, but in
its citizens; no fortress walls will protect it, but a living wall of men and women filled with
supreme love of their fatherland and fanatical national enthusiasm.
Document 3
Kurt Ludecke, Nazi Ambassador to North America in a pamphlet entitled “I Had Given Him My
Heart,” (1938) referring to his conversion to Nazism during a political rally in the 1930s.
“Hitler’s words were like a scourge. When he spoke of the disgrace of Germany, I felt ready to
spring on any enemy…glancing around, I saw that his magnetism was holding these thousands as
one….I was a man of 32, weary of disgust and disillusionment, a wanderer seeking a cause….a
yearner after the heroic without a hero. The intense will of the man, the passion of his sincerity,
seemed to flow from him into me. I experienced a feeling that could be likened only to a religious
conversion ….I felt sure that no-one who heard Hitler that night that he was the man of destiny…I
had given him my heart.”
Document 4
Election Results to the German Reichstag from 1924 to 1932 and available unemployment statistics for the same
period. Number of voters, percentage of votes and number of deputies (ex: 45/423 would be 45 deputies out of a total
of 423 possible deputies) are given where applicable.
May 4th 1924
Number of eligible
voters (in millions)
Votes cast (in millions)
NAZI Party
German Conservative
Party
Catholic Center Party
German Democratic
Party
Social Democratic Party
Communist Party
May 20th 1928
38.4
December 7th
1924
39.0
July 31st 1932
41.2
September 14th
1930
43.0
44.2
November
6th 1932
44.2
29.7
1,918,000 or
6.6%
32/472
5,696,000 or
19.5%
3,914,000 or
13.4%
65/472
1,655,000 or
5.7%
6,009,000 or
20.5%
100/472
3,693,000 or
12.6%
62/472
30.7
908,000 or
3%
14/493
6,209,000 or
20.5%
4,121,000 or
13.6%
69/493
1,921,000 or
6.3%
7,886,000 or
26%
131/493
2,712,000 or
9%
45/493
31.2
810,000 or
2.6%
12/491
4,382,000 or
14.2%
3,712,000 or
12.1%
62/491
1,506,000 or
4.9%
9,153,000 or
29.8%
153/491
3,265,000 or
10.6%
54/491
35.2
6,407,000 or
18.3%
107/577
2,458,000 or
7%
4,127,000 or
11.8%
68/577
1,322,00 or
3.8%
8,575,000 or
24.5%
143/577
4,590,000 or
13.1%
77/577
37.2
13,779,000 or
37.3%
230/608
2,187,000 or
5.9%
4,589,000 or
12.4%
75/608
373,000 or
1%
7,960,000 or
21.6%
133/608
5,370,000 or
14.3%
89/608
35.7
11,737,000
or 33.1%
196/584
3,131,000 or
8.8%
14,230,000
or 11.9%
70/584
339,000 or
1%
7,251,000 or
20.4%
121/584
5,980,000 or
16.9%
100/584
Unemployment in Germany 1924 to 1938
1924
978,000
1928
1,368,000
1930
3,076,000
1932
5,575,500
1933
4,804,400
1935
2,151,000
1938
429,000
Document 5
Bruno Heilig, Austrian journalist. From “Why the German Republic Fell,” 1938.
Seven million men and women (one third of the wage-earning people) were unemployed … the
middle class swept away: that was the position about one year after the climax of prosperity
(1931). Progress, conditioned as it was, had rapidly produced the most dreadful poverty….In the
first year of the crisis the number of Nazi deputies to the Reichstag rose from 8 to 107. A year later
this figure was doubled. In the same time the Communists captured half of the votes of the German
Social Democratic Party and the representation of the middle class practically speaking
disappeared. In January, 1933, Hitler was appointed [Chancellor]; he attained power, as I said
before, quite legally. All forms of democracy were observed. It sounds paradoxical but it was in
fact absolutely legal.
Document 6
Lilo Linke recalling the economic hardships of Germany in 1923 when she was a university student
in Munich.
The whole population had suddenly turned into maniacs. Everyone, was buying, selling,
speculating, bargaining, and dollar, dollar, dollar, was the magic word which dominated every
conversation, every newspaper, every poster in Germany. Nobody understood what was happening.
There seemed to be no sense, no rules in the mad game but one had to take part in it if one did not
want to be trampled underfoot at once….The middle class was hurt more than any other, the savings
of a lifetime and their small fortunes melted into a few [pennies]. They had to sell their most
precious belongings for ten [million] inflated marks to buy a bit of food or an absolutely necessary
coat, and their pride and dignity were bleeding out of many wounds. Bitterness remained for ever in
their hearts. Full of hatred, they accused the international financiers, the Jews and Socialists – their
old enemies – of having exploited their distress. They never forgot and never forgave and were the
first to lend a willing ear to Hitler’s fervent preaching.
Document 7
A German Dry Goods Store ca. 1936.
Document 8
German Newspaper account of the Nazi Party Nuremberg Convention in September 1936.
“…We have witnessed many great march-pasts and ceremonies. But none of them were more thrilling,
and at the same time more inspiring, than yesterday’s roll-call of 140 000 political wardens (heads of
various local party groups) who were addressed by the Führer at night, on the Zepplin Meadow which
floodlights had made bright as day …. Twenty straight columns cut across the square …. There are
140 000 political wardens who have formed ranks in rows of twelve. Innumerable swastika flags
flutter in the evening breeze, torn from the darkness by the floodlights, and providing a sharp contrast
to the pitch black nocturnal sky. The Zepplin Field proves to be too small. The stands will not hold the
vast stream of people who are moving in with out pause….The Führer is there! Reich Organizational
Leader Dr. Ley gives him a report of the men who are standing in parade formation…Dr. Ley speaks:
‘We believe in a Lord God, who directs us and guides us and who has sent you, My Führer.’ These are
the final words of the Reich Organizational Leader; they are underlined by the applause that rises from
150 000 spectators and that lasts for minutes.”