n January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was named chancellor, the most powerful position in the German government, by the aged President Hindenburg, who hoped Hitler could lead the nation out of its grave political and economic crisis. Hitler was the leader of the right-wing National Socialist German Workers Party (called “the Nazi Party” for short). It was, by 1933, one of the strongest parties in Germany, even though — reflecting the country’s multiparty system — the Nazis had won only a plurality of 33 percent of the votes in the 1932 elections to the German parliament (Reichstag).
