Over the years historians have tried to research who actually voted for the Nazi party. This has proved a difficult task; as votes during the time where recorded via secret ballot. However, we do know what part of the country Nazis votes came from and through this we can make an accurate assumption as to who did vote for the Nazis party. For example, a town with a university in it with a large voting poll for the Nazis would indicate that young people were voting for the party. Likewise if the Nazis received a small percentage of votes from southern areas of Germany (Catholics) it would indicate that Catholics were not supporting the party. By using this method historians have managed to discover what sort of person was voting for the Nazis. Historians could then consider, examining the Nazi programme and the situation at the time, why.
When countries are in a situation such as Germany was in the early thirties the population tend to look to extreme parties to solve their problems. A good example is the communist rise to power in Russia at the end of WWI. Most people had financial worries and many feared the rise of communism. Very few actually voted for the Nazis because they approved of their anti-Semitic and racial views but more so by the fact that the Nazis had the most attractive economic programme, people felt that democracy had let them down and an anti-democratic party should be put into power such as the Nazis. The KPD communist party also saw a rapid increase in votes and went from 54 seats in 1928 to 100 in 1932.
Nazism drew its greatest support from the middle classes. Evidence supporting this includes the fact that election polls in middle class areas (small towns) had a high vote for the party and that the traditionally “middle-class” parties (DVP, DDP) had lost votes while the SPD (workers) and Centre (Catholics) parties had remained stable-indicating that the middle-class voters had begun to defect to the Nazis. They were attracted by the Nazi promise to end democracy and crush the much feared communism threat. The small shopkeepers were also a supporter of the Nazis as Hitler had promised them to help compete with the department stores. However, the votes of the “white collar workers” such as journalists and bankers tended to vote SPD as democracy had been affective for them. As for the upper class business owners, they not only tended to vote Nazi, but also supported the party financially through donations. The car company Mercedes was a great supporter as were several leading industrialists such as Fritz Thyssen and Hjalmar Schacht. This was predominantly because the upper classes were terrified of a communist revolution as they would lose almost everything. However, this was not typical. Although many businessmen disliked the democratic system in Germany they did not feel the Nazis provided the answer. Most businessmen voted DNVP.
The working class on the whole remained loyal to the SPD. Those that did defect tended to vote for the KPD communist party as they offered a far better economic and social future to the working class than the Nazis. However, the socialist part of the Nazi party which included land reform and an attack on profiteering won some working class support.
The Nazis also attracted some votes from the unemployed as the Nazis in power would create more positions in the SA-which provided food, accommodation and a small wage.
The Nazis were generally strong in rural areas; in fact a large about of the 2.6% of the vote they received in 1928 elections was from Northern, protestant rural areas such as Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. These areas were many inhabited by peasant farmers and work labourers; who had been hit practically hard by the depression due to lower in prices of produce in the depression. They were won over by the Nazis who had made pledges to reduce interest on agricultural debts.
There was also a religious bias in the voting of the Nazis. The Nazis gained a much higher share in the vote from protestant areas than catholic. The catholic centre party in fact was the only non-extremist group who had increased their votes since 1928 (by 0.4%) in July 1932. The most obvious reason for this is that a lot of Hitler’s polices such as racism and the “Aryan race” idea disagreed with a lot of Catholic traditions and beliefs.
The Nazis also had a strong impact on the young. University towns tendered to have a high number of votes for the Nazis. The Nazis portrayed themselves to be a youthful and vigorous party and Nazi members had an average age of just 29 years. The 41-year old Hitler still had his best political years ahead of him in the eyes of many. The Nazis were the most exciting party to support. They were in the news the most, had a charismatic leader and had music and parades in there programme. The Nazis also had a lot of support from the elderly, a community that generally didn’t bother voting as politics didn’t affect them much any more, but they had had their pensions and savings slashed by democracy.
The Nazis of course did appeal to the nationalistic and anti-Semitic strands in German society as well but very few people voted Nazi merely because of this factor.
The typical Nazi voter was protestant from a rural area or small province town, middle class and young. Catholics, workers and people from big cities normally stayed loyal to the centre party, the KPD and SPD. However, the Nazis, despite being under-represented among some sections of society, received at least some support across all areas of the country.
The Nazis therefore were a Volskipartei (Peoples party)-they attracted some support, if not a lot, from every group of society, the old and young, men and woman, the rich and poor and this is unquestionably its greatest strength.
