ABSTRACT
There was nothing inevitable about the triumph of Adolf Hitler and his party the NSDAP. His rise to power was perfectly resistible. His early life provides little indication of a precocious talent or of the demagogic leader who was to have such a profound impact on the world stage. In 1923 when he was jailed for the abortive Munich Putsch the Bavarian authorities ought to have imprisoned him for longer and on his release he should have been deported to Austria. Had this happened it is very difficult to see how he could have resurrected his political career. He would have been finished as a political figure in Germany. Moreover, as late as 1928, Hitler and the Nazis were still peripheral political forces and in the elections of that year were rejected by 97 per cent of the electorate. Even when he was appointed Chancellor in March 1933, 56 per cent of voters still rejected him.
