At the beginning of 1933, the National Socialist German Workers Party, better known as the Nazis, found themselves on the brink of financial ruin. The party had spent down its reserves on a now-historic election campaign earlier that year in which it won a plurality, though not a majority, of seats in the Reichstag, Germany's parliament. Adolf Hitler, who now held executive power as chancellor — with the backing of mainstream conservatives who hoped to control him — parlayed his gains to call for new elections that spring, in hopes of riding his momentum, along with a heavy dose of political thuggery, to an absolute majority.
This was a major gamble. To feed its propaganda apparatus and pay for the "brownshirts," Nazi militias who stalked Germany's streets "discouraging" opposition, the party needed money it didn't have.
