ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the Hitler's power of the German state placed at Hitler's disposal; three developments distinguished. First, how Hitler came to acquire undisputed power in the Nazi Party, which by the late 1920s had incorporated and unified disparate strands of the völkisch Right and come to adopt as its organisational ethos the leadership principle, deriving from Hitler's perceived historical mission to save Germany. Second, how Hitler was able in the early 1930s to extend his appeal way beyond previous levels of support for extreme radical völkisch Right to more than a third voting population, providing him with claim to power that he alone could 'deliver' the masses. And third, how non-Nazi elite groups, with distinctly sober views on 'charismatic' missionary claims, but influence on those wielding power in Weimar Germany, came to take an interest in Hitler, and how the power-brokers themselves, when he looked anything but assured of a triumphant future, became ready the Chancellor's seat.
