Who voted for the Nazi Party and why?

Amy Clark

The typical person who voted for the Nazis was thought to be young, male, protestant and a member of the mittelstand (middle class). This was the predominant view until the 1980s by historians such as Bullock, K.D Bracher and W.Knauerhase. They key group who supposedly provided the Nazis with their mass support was the petty bourgeoisie (Mittelstand). However this is a very simplistic outlook and latest research has shown the voting patterns to be much more complex than first thought. The people who voted for the Nazis in the July 1932 election cannot be classified in terms of social strata or gender. There has been much debate over exactly who supported this extremist party, what has hindered this research has been the absence of modern opinion polls. The results of secret ballots only tells us how many votes a party got in a certain region not who voted for whom. This is still very useful as you can look at specific areas which may have particular social or religious groups living in them. Some states in Germany had separate ballot papers for men and women so in a few areas there are figures available by gender. There is other evidence which is more direct such as membership records of the Nazi Party and the SA, providing us with some personal details. The decline in votes for the other parties may also provide an insight into who voted for the Nazis. But they may have not lost their votes to the Nazis alone. Recent historians such as Falter, Conan Fischer and Brustein have suggested that German workers were far more attracted to the Nazis than has been suggested in the past.

The name of the Nazi party, the ‘National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP)’ was an extremely clever device in attracting both left and right winged people. The ‘National’ part of it attracted the Right and the ‘Socialist’ part attracted the Left. This was one of the contributing factors which most definitely maximised the Nazi vote. The Nazi party refused to conform to all the other political parties (except the Centre party), as it didn’t use the traditional lines of division –economic, social, religious and regional, which is how the party system had been based since its formation in the nineteenth century. So this made the Nazis different from the beginning. Instead of appealing to specific sectors of society they broke all the class and social barriers as to mobilize their support. It was a ‘volkspartei’, offering something to everybody, a people’s party rising above class and religious divisions, instead representing the whole nation. In Allan Bullock’s (historian) opinion, ultimately the NSDAP failed to achieve being a catch-all party because they just ended up contradicting themselves trying to overcome these traditional divisions. In free elections they were never able to gain over 37% of the vote, whereas if they were what they said they were they would have easily won a majority. The fact that the Nazis claimed this was an attraction to many of those who voted for them anyway.

The gain in support the NSDAP received between 1928 and 1932 was extraordinary. In the July 1932 Reichstag elections they achieved 14 million votes, a dramatic rise since the 1928 election where they only got a pathetic 810,000. Although, there were more than 2 million people voting in 1930 who hadn’t voted in 1928, so the Nazi’s breakthrough was partly due to new voters. A large proportion of these votes came from Protestants; there is an extensive amount of evidence to support this. Looking at statistical sources showing bar graphs for the NSDAP votes in different areas over 50% of Protestant areas voted Nazi in 1933. In Schleswig-Holstein, a predominately Protestant area in north Germany 51.0% voted for the NSDAP, in Lower Bavaria (a Catholic area) they only got 20.4%. The Nazis won a higher share of the vote in Protestant than in Catholic Germany. The vote was nearly always double in Protestant as in Catholic areas. Germany’s Roman Catholic minority stood loyal to the Centre party, which regularly gained votes from 11.8 and 12.5%. It felt its best interests were served by the Centre Party, as well as by its trade unions, farmers’ co-operative, youth groups and women organizations. Than again this doesn’t automatically mean that no Catholics voted for Hitler, they were just much less compared to the Protestants. The reason why the Nazis polled so high in Protestant areas was because that political loyalties were either weak or non-existent. Catholics had the Centre Party and voted for them at the height of the political and economic crisis. Also, many Protestants were suspicious of the Weimar republic as they identified it with mainly Catholic and working-class values. Therefore they turned to the Nazis, as they didn’t want a change of regime, preferring the time of the Kaiser’s rule.

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The Protestant areas where the NSDAP dominated were also rural farming communities, such as Lower Saxony. Millions of farmers were in turmoil as they had been badly affected by the depression and hyper-inflation. They were unable to sell their produce, prices were plummeting and their profits were down. Many were facing ruin and evictions were widespread. To them Hitler was a God send as they had lost all hope and were in complete despair. He campaigned in the countryside and said he would protect their prices and also that “no farmer in the Third Reich will ever be evicted from their farm”. He did indeed keep this promise. Hitler even attended harvest festivals where he praised numbers of peasants saying they were “the backbone of the nation”. He knew how to win over the farmers and succeeded triumphantly by gaining millions of votes in lots of rural areas all over Germany. In urban areas Nazi support was much less, in the Grosstädte it was 10% less than the national average in the July 1932 elections. In the big cities political mobilisation was well developed so it was easier for Hitler to go to the rural areas and small towns to gain support. Also in the cities people tended to stay loyal and maintain their powerful traditions. The Social democrats (SDP) and the Communists (KPD) were and always had been concentrated in the big cities. Also large numbers of unemployed lived in the cities and the Nazi vote among unemployed was only 13%; they were more likely to vote for the KPD. There was little desertion from the KPD, their votes from 1928 to 1932 steadily increased from 10.6 to 16.9%.

The percentage of workers who were members of the NSDAP rose from 26.3% before November 1930 to 32.5% between November 1930 to January1933. The estimated percentage of society that were workers in 1933 was 46.3%. It wasn’t thought that many working class people voted for Hitler between 1928 and 1932 but resent evidence has provided a different insight. J.Falter suggests that ‘probably one in three workers of voting age backed the NSDAP’ which is an incredibly large proportion. Conan Fischer estimates that 40% of all Nazi voters belonged to the working class. The NSDAP was a self-financing organisation, which separated it from the other parties such as the DNVP and DVP who used a lot of industrial money. The workers appreciated this, supported by the fact that 55% of Storm Troopers came from a working-class background. To many disheartened workers or unemployed the SA were seen as heroes. Seeing their powerful stature in propaganda posters inspired thousands. A particular area in Germany where the Nazis made substantial gains from working-class communities was in parts of Saxony, in Chemnitz. Nazi propaganda had initially targeted urban workers. Propaganda was extremely successful tool in gaining support. It appealed to the emotions, especially at mass meetings and rallies. But it wasn’t completely indispensable because the Nazis had major electoral successes in some areas where there was little propaganda. Therefore it was more useful in reinforcing existing sympathies and feelings rather than creating them. Some workers were more likely to vote Nazi then others. It was mainly skilled workers and especially rural labourers. Another reason why the working class voted for Hitler was due to economic reasons. Between 1930 and 1933 the Nazis put forward a series of economic policies, offering a third way between Marxist state planning and Laissez-Faire capitalism. They said the economy should serve the needs of the state, not individuals. They advocated public investment in industry to boost the economy, financial controls to protect people in debt and an economic autarky to put the interests of Germans above foreigners. Blue collar workers in depressed industries were particularly attracted to these policies. Also, aspiring workers who had benefited from the social reforms of Weimar and were looking for further advance beyond their working-class origins might be attracted by a Nazi future. Although Nazi support from the working class is clearly apparent it was far less important than the Mittelstand in the Nazi movement.

There is powerful evidence which shows that the Mittelstand voted disproportionately for the Nazis. Although they are the stereotypical class to vote Nazi they shouldn’t be dismissed. The lower middle classes fought against big business, trade unions, SDP and KPD and protested against Weimar’s use and increase of taxes. The old Mittelstand (self-employed, independent artisans, shopkeepers) had a secure political identity whereas the new mittelstand (white-collar workers) had a very varied and un-uniformed political identity. Technical workers and civil servants were more likely to vote Nazi than manual workers or habitants of working class districts of large cities who were more likely to vote SPD. The rise in the nazi vote has been described as ‘the panic of the middle classes’. The petty bourgeoisie were particularly attracted by the emotional appeal of the Nazis, via their charismatic leader, symbols and rallies. It felt threatened by big business and by the powerful working class. These isolated individuals in a new mass society were looking for security and a sense of direction. The Nazis tapped into this sense of unease and offered a bright future. Hitler was extremely good at exploiting people’s fears and this is what he did to the middle classes. It is known as negative campaigning. The Mittelstand were extremely fearful of a catastrophic decline in their status (proletarianisation) from either unemployment or by the communists taking over. Hitler presented himself as the only one who could protect people from the things they dreaded the most, especially communism. Due to hyper-inflation and the serious depression it resulted in a ‘crisis of the Mittelstand’. Before they were a very stable part of the population but this made them fearful. Only the Nazi party had the answer for them, no other party offered any secure guidance. Its appeal was perfect in attracting such a disillusioned section of the population. Hitler promised to protect small independent shopkeepers from being taken over by big, capitalist department stores. He said, “The Nazi Party would look after the little person”. Another reason so many of the middle classes voted for Hitler was simply because they abandoned the parties they previously supported. These were especially the DDP and the DVP.

Support for Hitler amongst the Elite was visible but not on a large scale. Evidence has been from voting returns from upper-class holiday resorts and cruise liners. These indicate that sections of the upper middle class also voted for Hitler at the height of the economic and political crisis of 1932. Party membership amongst the rich remained low. A significant number of landowners, industrialists and businessmen defected to Nazism. The main reason for this was because Hitler promised to embark on maintaining capitalism and destroying communism. Hitler also successfully presented the Nazi party as the only true patriotic party. He put Germany first and stood for the nation as a whole. He attacked the other parties for being selfish and unpatriotic as they refused to work together in the Weimar Government. This may have swayed voters from voting for the Nationalist party and voting for the NSDAP instead. Hitler appealed to the Right as he openly condemned the Versailles Peace treaty, a view held by many, and the failings of the Weimar Government. Many Junkers regarded him as a fool and they thought they could use Hitler in order to bring back the Kaiser. Little did they know of Hitler’s capabilities.

The NSDAP managed to appeal to both genders. In the beginning its support from women was 3% less than that of men. But it made up for this imbalance because in July 1932 it increased by 17.7% overtaking the male vote. In 1930 the vast majority of women were more right-wing in their voting behaviour. They voted less frequently then men but when they did vote they often followed their husbands political view. Women’s voting behaving is largely dictated by religion, they support the parties close to the church, such as the Nationalist or the Centre Party. In Cologne-Aachen in 1930 only 18.9% of men voted for the Centre Party whereas 33.1% of women voted for it. A clear majority preferred Hindenburg to Hitler. But the Nazi message and propaganda managed to change this. Its message was that their place was in the home looking after the children. This prospect of a decent family life was appealing to women, if they did have jobs they were usually exhausting and tedious.

The Nazi Party has been widely associated with the youth of society, yet they did pick up votes from the elderly. In the 1930s, along with women they were the group in society who were the least likely to vote at all. Hitler specially appealed to those who had seen their pensions and savings eroded by hyper-inflation. Also, war-veterans were attracted to the party as they hated the new republic and wanted change. The youthful image of the Nazi Party is in no way incorrect as 61% of the NSDAP members were aged 18-30, compared to the SDP which only had 19% of this age group. Students were particular strong followers of the Nazis. The Nazi Student Organisation-Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund received more than half the votes and dominated the student government in 1929 at the universities of Erlangen and Greifswald. The young voted for Hitler as many rebelled against their parents. They offered simple solutions to the world, and were colourful and exciting, especially for the first time voter. They had a youthful dynamic image, supported by the SA which attracted young men aged 18-39 whom many looked to as role models.

Hitler can most definitely be regarded as a political genius by the skilful tactics he used to maximise the Nazi vote. He appealed to such a wide range of people in society unlike any other party or leader at the time. He embraced all occupational groups, regardless of class, gender and background. Religious and local community influences seem to have been a greater determinant of voting behaviour than class. A vast number of people just voted for Hitler as he was so charismatic and they liked him. Millions of worried Germans turned to the Nazis as they promised to take firm action to get Germany out of the economic and psychological depression. The Nazi anti-semitic message they portrayed was also a major factor for Hitler’s mass support. The core voters for the Nazis were mainly farmers, middle classes and lower middle classes, the young, Protestants and skilled workers. Of course other groups in society did vote for the Nazis but in smaller proportions than those previously mentioned. The reasons for the 37.7% of society voting NSDAP was mainly due to anti-Marxism, for a national community, super nationalism, the Hitler cult, anti Semitism and other factors I have previously described.