nd businessmen. In November 1923, a time of political and economic chaos, he led an uprising in Munich against the postwar weimar republic, proclaiming himself chancellor of a new authoritarian regime. Without military support, however, the Putsch collapsed. As leader of the plot, Hitler was sentenced to five years imprisonment and spent the eight months he actually served dictating his autobiography Mein kampf. Released as a result of a general amnesty in December 1924, he rebuilt his party without interference from those whose government he had tried to overthrow. When the Great depression struck in 1929, his explanation of it as a Jewish-Communist plot was accepted by many Germans. Promising a strong Germany, jobs, and national glory, he attracted millions of voters. Nazi representation in the Reichstag rose from 12 seats in 1928 to 107 in 1930. During the following two years the party kept expanding, benefiting from growing unemployment, fear of Communism, Hitler's self certainty, and the diffidence of his political rivals. Nevertheless, when Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933, he was expected to be an easily controlled tool of big business. Once in power, however, Hitler quickly established himself as a dictator. Thousands of anti-Nazis were hauled off to concentration camps and all signs of dissent suppressed. An Enabling Act passed by a subservient legislature allowed him to Nazify the bureaucracy and the judiciary, replace all labor unions with one Nazi controlled German Labor Front, and ban all political parties except his own. The economy, the media, and all cultural activities were brought under by Nazi authority by making an individuals livelihood dependent on his or her political loyalty. Hitler relied on his secret police, the gestapo, and on jails and camps to intimidate his opponents, but most Germans supported him enthusiastically. His armament drive wiped out unemployment, an ambitious recre...
