On February 5, 1933, the new German Chancellor Adolf Hitler received a visitor.

It was Baldur von Schirach, head of the Nazi Party's youth organizations.

Chancellor Hitler, five days after moving into the chancellery, told Shirach, we have power and we're going to keep it.

I'm never leaving here.

Indeed, though few at the time would have predicted it, he remained Chancellor until his death in 1945.

Welcome to the history of the 20stag fire.

When Adolf Hitler was offered the chancellorship, at the head of a government of mostly ministers who were not national socialists,

he accepted the offer on the condition that another general election be held.

The deal was made and President Hindenburg called the election for March 5th, barely a month in the future.

Germany had already seen two general elections in 1932, plus two rounds of presidential elections,

plus various state elections. So a lot of elections have been going on, and a consistent thread in these elections has been

that support of Adolf Hitler's party, the NSDAP, tops out in the high 30s, enough to make it

the largest party in the Reichstag, but not enough to form a government it can fully control.

On the face of it, Hitler demanding yet another election was likely to become yet another exercise in futility.

Why should this election produce a result markedly different from any of the other recent elections.

But Hitler didn't see it that way. Hitler saw an opportunity to use his new position as

Chancellor to spread his message farther than ever before, win a majority at last, and gain

the government he always wanted.

He spoke over the radio to a national audience on February 1st, two days after taking office.

This was Hitler's first radio address. It had to be vetted by the cabinet, so it was not a full-bore national socialist speech. It was a declaration of the new government's

priorities. Even so, it contained much that would have been familiar to anyone who had heard

Hitler speak before. He denounced the German Revolution of 1918 as a betrayal and dismissed the

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