A failing economy from having to pay reparations from WWI was a big part of what started his political career. People were hurt. I’ve heard anecdotal stories of people requesting to be paid in the morning (and given some time off) so they could buy their groceries before hyperinflation made their pay worthless

He knew how to capitalise on peoples‘ fears and prejudices. He gave them common enemies (the democrats, the communists, the Jews), played on their pride, and helped them when they were vulnerable. Then he indoctrinated the hell out of them.

If you give extremism a platform, it will spread.

>why did Hitler appear in the first place?

Because they didn't have laws against hate speech, of course.

Oh wait... they did:

https://www.jta.org/2020/09/03/opinion/former-aclu-president...

You‘re kinda misrepresenting the article. The author/interviewee is not for unlimited speech, she just argues that it should be private organisations doing the censoring rather than the government. (Which quite frankly, I find even scarier - Facebook can‘t be voted out of power within the next four years.)

However the Weimar Republic was extremely politically weak and refused to enforce them.

From the link:

>There were dozens of prosecutions, including successful prosecutions, against Nazis — including Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Sturmer. And it just became a propaganda platform for the Nazis. It got all kinds of attention they otherwise would not have received, and sympathy they otherwise would not have received.

Against minor players, with little public support, they were fearful of doing anything against Hitler or people like Ernst Röhm.