Did the Nazis rise to power because the Germans didn't "Bash the Fash" enough?

No, Hitler and the Nazi's did not come to power because 'they did not bash the fash' enough. (I'm sort of sick of the wider reddit community using Askhistorians as a soapbox to ask questions that relate to how upset they are with the current situation in the world) But I digress.

In an incredibly general sense, the Nazi's rose to power because firstly, internally Germany was looking for their own guilty party as to who to blame for losing the first world war. The left within the Country would blame Imperialists and nationalists for ruining any chance of fair conciliation. The Right, in turn, would blame leftists, communists, and social democrats for accepting the treaty of Versailles to begin with – calling them traitors to Germany. Regardless of any legitimate blame for either side, these back and forth accusations would crumble the integrity of democracy within the German state during the inter-war years. Secondly; It would create a diplomatic and political environment wherein a highly emotional populous could be manipulated by political entities using the pain of the Great War for a chance at power. Moreover, it created an environment where the populous would accept and support more drastic and extreme forms of leadership in the face of overwhelming hardship – both in practical terms (economic/political instability) and emotional (a beaten morale, a broken nation licking its war wounds and being picked apart by the International community

These more extreme and drastic forms of leadership obviously manifested itself in the form of Adolph Hitler, the architect of World War Two. Hitler’s rise, one could argue, was born out of the pain of the German nation during the inter-war years. While it would be more comforting to believe that he came to power illegitimately through illegal means, and not a lack of 'bashing the fash' Hitler’s rise was a mostly democratic one and truly a movement of the people. Could one truly blame the German public for putting their faith in a man, who, for all intents and purposes, truly loved Germany and its people? A man who spoke of Germany and its inhabitants as one would about a dear loved one? He was a charismatic leader who spat in the face of the ‘Victor’s peace’ and protected Germany from the vultures circling overhead. He promised to return the self-proclaimed ethnically superior Germany to it’s true glory at the top of European and World power. How could a German citizen, living in the middle of (until then) Germany’s darkest hour, resist such a temptation to get behind and support such a man?

Hitler’s rhetoric captured the sense of betrayal the German people felt, not only to the Allies and International community, but to certain parts of internal German society as well. He squared the blame of losing the War on workers strikes, the signing of the Reichstag resolution (1917) and the Treaty of Versailles, which he called “The enslavement of Germany itself” . To Hitler, it was inconceivable that any blame rest at the feet of Germany for hostilities in World War One. Rather, the blame was squarely on people how had ‘stabbed Germany in the back ’ – Such as the Communists and Jews. It is arguably the environment caused by the Treaty of Versailles and the general turmoil of the Weimar Republic and Germany in general during the inter-war years that allowed these views to fester and generate ever more increasing popularity. As according to K. Schwabe, “Actually, Hitler, in propagating his extremist views during the mid- twenties, belonged to the lunatic fringe on the right of Germany’s political spectrum ” – But as history tells us, by the 1930’s the political void created by the effects political impotency in the face of the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression, he gained control of German Government and held a large amount of popularity amongst the German public.

To truly understand the rise of Hitler I think it's best to examine an issue of Die Wehrmacht, a monthly German army magazine distributed during the war for propaganda purposes. According to Die Wehrmacht, the reason for Germany going to war in 1939 was essentially to fight the ‘old order’ of the world. A world in which Britain and her allies controlled the lion’s share of world power. One article writes “The contrast between England itself and its overseas territories is so grotesque that England has always has a certain inferiority complex with respect to the European continent. Whenever a continental power reached a certain strength, England believed itself and its empire to be threatened ” – Germany was essentially so powerful that England, threatened by Germany’s strength, was nervous that the old paradigm of unchallenged British power throughout the world was now in peril. The German argument, according to Die Wehrmacht, was that England was a hypocritical nation, pretending to defend liberty in one hand, but brutally subjugating its colonies and the people within them in another. An incredibly powerful quote within the text that speaks for itself perhaps answers the question as to the rationale for the psyche within Germany: "We are fighting for our most valuable possession: our freedom [...] We are fighting so that our children will not be slaves of foreign rulers [...] We know the English. We know about Versailles, about the colonies England stole from us, about the Ruhr, about Golzheimer Heath, about the starvation blockade. We know that we will be slaves if we do not win and we know that the goal of England’s policy of encirclement is to subject Germany to its will [...] The Führer made unprecedented offers for peace and understanding to those who are now fighting against Germany. His attempts were scornfully rejected because they wanted this fight."

Obviously, this is a clear piece of propaganda and has incredible bias throughout, however one can see the very powerful emotions in play. The German mindset, much like with the end of the first World War, was firmly rooted in believing that they were the victims. All they had wanted from the beginning was peace, yet the world rejected it because they feared German power. 1939, according to Germany at the time, was driven by allied “Envy and Hatred” towards Germany. It is perhaps this mindset, driven into the German populous for decades during the inter-war period that contributed most to the German rationale during the inter-war period, and not, as you put it, a reluctance to "bash the fash"

Sources:

Bytwerk, Randall, ‘A German Explanation for the Start of WW II’ in The German Propoganda Archive(http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/wehr02.htm) (27 Nov. 2016)

Macmillan, Margaret, ‘Making War, Making Peace: Versailles, 1919’ in Queen's Quarterly, cxxi, no. 1 (2014)

Schwabe, K., ‘World War I and the Rise of Hitler’ in Diplomatic History, xxxviii, no. 4 (2014), pp 864–879