In the weeks that followed Hitler's rise to power in February 1933 the German Communist Party (KPD) and the Communist International clung rigidly to their view that the Nazi triumph would be brief and that it would be a case of "after Hitler – our turn". But as the brutality of the Nazi government became clear and there was no sign of its collapse, Communists began to sense that there was a need to radically alter their stance - especially as Hitler had made it clear he regarded the Soviet Union as an enemy state.