Hindenburg, the 230 duly elected Nazis (with there 13 million voters), and the Nazi party apparatus that made Hitler leader.
If you pull off a political miracle, you might be able to keep a 37℅ plurality (with significant electoral momentum) out of power for a cycle; maybe 2. But a democracy cannot keep such a popular movement out of power indefinitely.
The time to keep the Nazis out of power was the 1932 election. Any move after that is just a Hail Mary gambit
It was still a choice made by hindenburg, even within the confines of the “democratic” system. He had the power to not buckle to nazism. He could, by law and by custom, create a coalition government with Centre, SPD and KPD (who together had more support than NSDAP) and yet he didn’t, because he was part of the capitalist class and thought nazism would work out better for his class than socialism. It were not the voters who chose hitler, it was a bourgeois “lesser-evil” candidate.
Hindenburg, the 230 duly elected Nazis (with there 13 million voters), and the Nazi party apparatus that made Hitler leader.
If you pull off a political miracle, you might be able to keep a 37℅ plurality (with significant electoral momentum) out of power for a cycle; maybe 2. But a democracy cannot keep such a popular movement out of power indefinitely.
The time to keep the Nazis out of power was the 1932 election. Any move after that is just a Hail Mary gambit
It was still a choice made by hindenburg, even within the confines of the “democratic” system. He had the power to not buckle to nazism. He could, by law and by custom, create a coalition government with Centre, SPD and KPD (who together had more support than NSDAP) and yet he didn’t, because he was part of the capitalist class and thought nazism would work out better for his class than socialism. It were not the voters who chose hitler, it was a bourgeois “lesser-evil” candidate.