Who voted for the Nazi's, and why, in the period 1930-32.

The middle class deserted its old parties for three main reasons, the three parties which were deserted were all relatively new parties formed in 1918 after world war one. This meant that the voter's lies of loyalty to them were not strong and could be broken. Also all three parties had participated in previous Weimar coalitions and were there therefore tainted by the failures of the Republic, in contrast the Nazi's had never participated in a Weimar coalition and had a better record. The final main reason was that middle class voters have a stake in society and do not welcome revolution. The Nazi conversion to a 'respectable' image and the policy of 'legality' were therefore of enormous importance in winning middle class voters. A Nazi collaboration with nationalists against the Young Plan was a supreme example of this. The Nazi's done a survey on why people joined their membership, the main reason was their anti Marxist views, with Volkesgemeinschaft and Hitler were the top three reasons. Other parties also believed in these ideas but did not use them to as much use as the Nazi's did, and when combined with Hitler's speaking skills helped to win over a lot of support. Anti Semitism (which was bottom of the voters list) did not play an important role on the Nazi's electoral success. Hitler muted anti Semitism ideas in the 1930 and 1932 elections. It did matter to the Nazi leadership but not to the general electorate.

The Nazi's first electoral breakthroughs came in protestant, rural areas, where peasant voters had earlier registered discontent with traditional representatives from the DNVP. This was surprising as Nazi propaganda had initially targeted urban workers. The areas of Germany with the highest proportion Nazi voters were in protestant farming communities; and by the 1932 elections the stream of peasant deserters and become a flood of new voters. Many rural workers such as farmers and labourers often influenced by estate managers voted for the Nazi's in 1932. The size of support for the Nazi's from rural voters suggests that the Nazi's were not only supported by the peasants and rural labourers but also by large landowners. In the areas that the Nazi's were trying to target, urban areas, were less convinced by the Nazi electorate propaganda. In July 1932, the month of the election, the Nazi support in areas with high population was about 10% lower than the national average. Though there was a considerable increase in support among workers between the years 1930-32, this was less obvious in the larger cities, and almost half the working class newcomers to the Nazi party ranks came from villages with small populations, and few of the working class members of the SA came from the large cities. This shows that the Nazis were able to gain the most support from areas where political mobilisation was less developed in the provinces and in the countryside. The left wing parties still had the majority of support in the big cities and the Nazi attempted to try and win over some of these voters had encountered many loyalties and traditions which had prevented them from gaining large amounts of support from these areas. The difference between the Nazi's advance in rural areas and ineffective attempts to gain urban workers support showed another major factor, the Nazi's were mainly unsuccessful in gaining support from the masses of unemployed, who were also mainly based in the large cities. This goes to prove that the Nazi's electoral propaganda to target urban support was a failure as the main city parties like the KPD gained support. The SPD lost support but this was mainly believed to just go to other more extreme left wing parties and not to the Nazi's.

The most successful part of the Nazi electorate propaganda was Hitler's new idea of flying to many cities in a short amount of time. He flew to 20 cities in 7 days and often made himself late to heighten anticipation in the meeting as they heard his plane fly over head. He also travelled to the rural areas and made speeches there, which had not been done before by other political parties. This meant that the rural voters now had met Hitler, which they had not done with other parties and this meant that they favoured the Nazi's as they ha seemed to care more than the other parties for there vote.

The voters in Germany were becoming dissatisfied with the Weimar government and wanted a strong leader and party which would help pull them out of this bad period, as unemployment levels rose, and the Nazi's put themselves forward as this, and people considered him to pull them out of this slump and into a better age. They wanted an alternative to the weak Weimar government and a party who would stand up for Germany and against the Treaties which they felt were harshly treating Germany. This alternative was the Nazi's.