In 1920, Hitler was a member of the NSDAP (later to be re-branded the Nazi party), an ex-soldier, disillusioned with the German government and harbouring delusions of Jewish conspiracy, Adolph Hitler hardly had the profile of master politician. So how did he manage to go from imprisonment for his political beliefs, to appointment to Chancellor (from which he managed to transform the entire government into a dictatorship) in just 13 years. There are numerous interior and exterior factors to the conundrum.
Weak Weimar Republic
The democracy that was in place post-WW1 was a shambolic affair, called the Weimar Republic, it relied on a proportional representative system of election, which meant that no single party could ever get enough votes to form a strong leadership, leading to coalition, compromise, and ultimately a rather weak leadership. The idea behind it was that one party should never gain too much power, however it is arguable that the weak governments it inspired gave rise to exactly that.
Hitler's Personal Characteristics
Germany was used to strong, autocratic rulers, figureheads of their country, symbolic of the power which they wielded, and of the streamlined system of autocratic ruling which required no compromise. In the wake of a government which saw inflation spiral out of control, one can forgive the German people for looking to another such figurehead in the form of Adolph Hitler. A man whose speeches were somewhat legendary, spinning rhetoric about Germany's racial past and purity, and harking back to the days-gone-by where Germany was not the ridicule of Europe. Hitler must have appeared safe and comforting in comparison to the coalition governments.
Economic Situation
It is no falsehood that in times of economic crisis, people turn to their governments to alleviate the problem. When the Great Depression hit the already economically-beleaguered Germans in 1930, it was no different. In exceptionally simplistic terms, the Great Depression affected Germany because the German government was borrowing money to pay reparations and rebuilding costs from American banks, when the Depression hit America, the banks called in the loans, which the Germans couldn't pay. People were losing their jobs and hyperinflation was rife, The Weimar Republic was at a loss at what to do, there was very little they could have done, but the people were still angry, and looking to an easy solution for an exceptionally complex economic problem was inevitable.
Hitler was offering jobs, a stronger currency, and economic stability (which he in fact did deliver in the short term), which must have appeared widely appealing to the desperate Germans. The correlation between the intensity of the economic crisis and increasing support for the Nazi party at the polls is visible.
Though there are numerous minor factors, these are probably the most important to look at in terms of Hitler's rise to power.
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