• Germany always had an authoritarian government and their Weimar Republic was imposed on them

• Germany was always deeply conservative and yearned for the times before the war, Hitler was compared to popular figures like Bismarck who defended Germany and instituted a social welfare system

• deadlock in the Reichstag due to unstable coalition government

• political "polarization" with pro-democratic groups siding with socialists and communists to counter authoritarian conservatives which further stained the idea of democracy

• only the right wanted to do away with the Treaty of Versailles completely, making the left look like weak collaborators

• desperation at the low point of the great depression

• shock by more traditional segments of society at Weimar sexual freedom, not just religious disapproval of homosexuality, child prostitutes lined the streets outside hotels for foreigners in Berlin for example

• about half of adult men were ww1 veterans, many with PTSD, they had fought and watched friends die for nothing

• many Poles had migrated to Germany and the poor immigrants tended to side with the left communists and care little for Germany's defeat in the war, many of whom were Jews, and again only the right were opposed to what was seen as a subversive foreign element

• Hitler's force of personality, the lessons learned from Mussolini's rise to power as well as talented people like Goebbels and new technology like microphones, radio and air travel to get Hitler to and fro his gigs made it seem as though his brand of authoritarianism was a modern alternative to monarchy and a preferable alternative to communism