Images Illustrating the Ascendancy of Hitler and the Nazi Party: 36 Snapshots of their Ascension
In the lead-up to World War II, Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party rose to power in Germany, a development that was well-documented by historians and journalists alike. One of these journalists was Edgar A. Mowrer, an American reporter who won the Pulitzer Prize in the 1930s for his coverage of the Nazi party.
Mowrer's reports did not contain any condemnation or comment from any opposing party, but they offered valuable insights into the attitudes of the time. On July 30, 1932, he reported in the Chicago Daily News that Hitler wanted an "empire based on his own mystical knowledge of the superiority of the Germans and the Aryan race."
The rise of the Nazis was a well-trodden scholarly ground, with historians and journalists exploring it from various angles in exhaustive detail. However, the gallery above presents a visual record of the rise of the Nazi Party, a record that was, perhaps, unforeseen even by those like Mowrer and his peers. These images date from the post-World War I days when Germany was punished by the Allies, leading to the economic collapse and homelessness of the Weimar Republic and the Great Depression.
Dr. Emil Lengyel, a Hungarian-Jewish survivor and author, made predictions about Hitler and the Nazis in 1932, three months after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. However, there is no widely documented record of specific pre-World War II predictions he made about Hitler or the Nazis in the sources provided. Lengyel did testify about the rise of the Nazis and the horrors to come, given his experiences before and during World War II.
Lengyel, a professor of social sciences at New York University, was not alone in his observations. Mowrer also noted that Hitler had a "formidable instinct for politics." Looking back on original reporting from the era provides a unique perspective, being a barometer of the often nonchalant U.S. attitude toward Hitler and his followers at the time.
The true horror of Hitler's "long-range plans" were not exposed until after World War II. The election of 1932 and how Hitler convinced Germany to vote for fascism is a topic explored in an available article. The rise of the Nazis is considered the ultimate cautionary tale, a reminder of the dangers of unchecked nationalism and the importance of vigilance in the face of political extremism.
- The insights offered by Mowrer and other journalists, like Lengyel at New York University, during the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1930s provide a unique perspective on the general news and politics of the time, as well as the attitudes of the period.
- While historians have extensively studied the rise of the Nazis from various angles, the visual record of this rise, as seen in the gallery above, may have been unforeseen even by journalists such as Mowrer.
- Lengyel's predictions about Hitler and the Nazis, made in 1932, are not widely documented, but his experiences before and during World War II shed light on the ultimate horror of Hitler's long-range plans, a reminder of the importance of policy-and-legislation and vigilance against political extremism.
