People took pride in being German, pride in the engineering and technical achievements of the time, such as new aircraft, roads and public buildings, which were under construction. The success with which Hitler revitalized the German economy helped popularise the Nazis with many people, even those who earlier had voted for other political parties.
An organization was set up to provide leisure facilities for workers, it was known as the KDF. It provided cheap cruises and foreign holidays, it built spas and resorts and booked seats for workers at the theatre and opera. Volkswagen was also an organization of the KDF, it committed workers’ money before the cars were even made, but they were willing to do this because the car made them feel like they were equal to the rich upper classes. The KDF allowed all Germans to feel that they had a share in the country’s economic success, so placing the Nazis in most middle class workers favour.
But, the success of the economic policies was not the only reason for the Nazis’ popularity. Others such as Hitler’s successful achievement of his three foreign aims; tear up the Treaty of Versailles, unite all German people in a single dominant country and provide Germany with lebensraum otherwise known as living space, played a big part in their popularity.
He began his first aim with the Rhineland. In 1936 Hitler took a massive gamble and ordered his troops to march into the Rhineland, this was a direct challenge to the treaty of Versailles but it paid off and the British turned a blind eye to the proceedings. This would have made the Nazis popular because it meant that the people of the Rhineland were fully part of Germany again. He then continued in 1938 with his anchluss with Austria. This would have boosted the Nazis’ popularity because there were many Austrians who wanted to be German and this was making them part of one, big German empire. Later on in 1938, Hitler persisted with his aim to unite all German-speaking people; in September that year Hitler met with the leaders of Britain, Italy and France at the Munich Conference. It was decided that Germany would have the Sudetenland as long as Hitler promised he would not threaten any more countries. This would have made the Nazis popular because, in Hitler, the people saw a strong and powerful leader. In 1939, with the invasion of the rest of Czechoslovakia and Poland, Hitler was seen to have achieved his third stated aim of lebensraum.
In conclusion, the popularity of the Nazis was mainly due to the success of economic policies, all of which improved the German people’s way of life and standard of living, with his foreign aims playing a much smaller, but not insignificant, part.
