How did a failed coup leader become Germany's absolute ruler?

A legal vote in parliament, not an army, finally handed Adolf Hitler total power over Germany. He had tried force first. In November 1923 he and General Ludendorff launched the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, hoping to march on Berlin. A police cordon stopped the marchers. Fifteen Nazis, four police officers and a bystander died. Hitler was convicted of treason. In prison he dictated Mein Kampf, and he drew a lesson: he would chase power through elections, not uprisings.

For years that went nowhere. Most Germans ignored him while the economy recovered on American loans. Then came the 1929 crash and the Great Depression. Some business leaders, afraid of communism, began backing the Nazis. In July 1932 they became the largest party in the Reichstag, though without a majority. After backroom deals, President Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933. Every step so far was constitutional.

Then things moved fast. In February the Reichstag building burned. Hitler blamed the communists, and a decree suspended free speech, free assembly and due process. In March he asked parliament for an Enabling Act: his cabinet could make laws, even ones breaking the constitution, without the Reichstag. Communist deputies were banned, and SA men stood inside and outside the chamber. The Catholic Centre Party traded its votes for promises about its schools and civil servants. Only the Social Democrats voted no. Their leader, Otto Wels, told Hitler: "No Enabling Act gives you the power to destroy ideas that are eternal and indestructible." The act passed 444 to 94.

By April Hitler held dictatorial powers, and the first concentration camp opened at Dachau for political opponents. When Hindenburg died in August 1934, Hitler merged the presidency and the chancellorship into one title: Führer. The armed coup had failed. The legal route, backed by fear and intimidation, took him about eighteen months from chancellor to dictator.