Volume 35 Issue 10 October 1985

A ballot-box 'revolution' made Hitler Chancellor of Germany. But political violence was the stock-in-trade consolidating Nazi power piecemeal throughout 1933 against disorganised opponents.

In the early 1930s, when National Socialism became a mass movement, it drew strong support from the Protestant rural population. The emergence of the Third Reich and the advent of the Second World War saw a gradual shift in attitudes to the Nazi movement and regime. Gerhard Wilke looks at a rural community in northern Hesse.

Not all young Germans were enthusiasts for Hitler Youth ideas - and some actively opposed them.