Why were the Nazis Successful in 1932?
History essay coursework Why were the Nazis Successful in 1932? Between 1928 and 1932 the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party became the most popular political party in Germany. In 1928 it won only 2.8 per cent of the popular vote; but in 1930 it won 18.3 per cent; and in July 1932 it gained a massive 37.3 per cent of all votes cast, winning the allegiance of 13.7 million Germans.This electoral success did not give Hitler power, and even at the height of their success the Nazis did not win a majority of votes or seats. Furthermore in November 1932 they lost 2 million votes. Even so, the Nazi party won more votes and seats in 1932 than any other single party, and this electoral success provides one important factor behind the fateful decision made by President Hindenburg to make Hitler Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Hence we have to ask, who voted for the Nazis?Religious DivideThe Nazis won a higher share of the vote in Protestant, rather than Catholic, areas. In July 1932 the Nazi share of the vote was indeed twice as high in Protestant areas as in Catholic. The Catholic Centre party regularly gained 11-12 per cent of the
vote and did not lose support to the Nazis. This is not to say that Hitler and the Nazis received no support from Catholics, but this support came in special circumstances. In Silesia, for instance, where there were strong nationalist grievances against neighbouring Poland, many Catholics did vote Nazi.Town and CountryThe Nazis were also strong in rural areas, even though at first their propaganda did not target them. Hitler's first electoral breakthrough, in 1928, came in Protestant rural areas such as Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. This seems to have been because these areas experienced depression earlier than other parts of ...
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vote and did not lose support to the Nazis. This is not to say that Hitler and the Nazis received no support from Catholics, but this support came in special circumstances. In Silesia, for instance, where there were strong nationalist grievances against neighbouring Poland, many Catholics did vote Nazi.Town and CountryThe Nazis were also strong in rural areas, even though at first their propaganda did not target them. Hitler's first electoral breakthrough, in 1928, came in Protestant rural areas such as Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. This seems to have been because these areas experienced depression earlier than other parts of Germany and because the other main parties had not attempted to mobilise support there. Even when the full force of the depression hit Germany, Hitler's support was greater in small towns rather than large cities, where the Socialist party (SPD) and Communist party (KPD) focused their efforts.In the cities the Nazis came up against powerful traditional loyalties. Furthermore, the Nazis were not very successful in winning the support of the unemployed. Nazi support broadly rose and fell in line with unemployment statistics, but it seems to have been the fear of unemployment which motivated Nazi voters. The unemployed themselves were twice as likely to vote Communist as Nazi. In the middle of 1932 13 per cent of the unemployed supported the National Socialists, compared with 37.3 per cent of the nation as a whole.The Class DivideIt has traditionally been thought that Nazism gained from the support of the German Mittelstand, who were reacting against big business, trade unions and high government taxes. And indeed the Protestant Mittelstand in the towns did provide the hard-core of Nazi support. Yet the votes of the 'new' Mittelstand (the white-collar workers) were more likely to go to the SPD than the Nazis. On the other hand, the Nazis gained significant numbers of votes from the upper middle classes (as seen by returns from upper-class holiday resorts) and from manual workers. About 40 per cent of the party were working-class and one worker in every four voted Nazi in July 1932. No less than 55 per cent of Nazi SA stormtroopers came from working-class backgrounds.Big BusinessIt has sometimes been asserted that the Nazi party was financed by big business. Certainly individual businessmen did give donations, the industrialist Fritz Thyssen for instance. Yet Thyssen was not typical. We now know that, on the whole, small businesses were more likely to support the party than big businesses. It is also important to note that the Nazi party was largely self-financing, being paid for by its members. Many businessmen were hostile to the Weimar Republic, but most would have preferred a non-Nazi successor.The Gender and Age DivideAt least in the early 1930s women were more likely to vote for the Nazis than for the Left, and on the Left the KPD appears to have been much less attractive to women than to men. No doubt the same confessional, class and regional factors motivated women as motivated men, with the additional factor that women were less likely than men to support left-wing parties. In July 1932 a higher proportion of women than men voted Nazi, perhaps because they had fewer existing political allegiances.Another factor in Nazi support was age. The Nazis projected themselves as a youthful, dynamic party, and Nazi members (averaging 29 years in 1925-32) were younger than those of other parties. Yet the Nazis were also successful in picking up the votes of pensioners and the elderly, especially those whose pensions and savings had been eroded in value. This group, especially elderly women, were a reservoir of previous non-voters to whom the Nazis made a real appeal.A Cross-Section?People were more likely to vote Nazi if they were Protestants from rural areas and small provincial towns, especially if they were from the middle classes and if they were female and young. Workers, Catholics, those from the big cities and the unemployed did sometimes support the party; but they were under-represented in the ranks of Nazi voters. Hence the rise of the Nazis made only a relatively small dent in the support of the KPD and SPD. Recent research in Saxony has shown that Nazi success among the workers was only significant in areas where the socialists had not penetrated. Nevertheless the Nazis, despite being under-represented among some sections of society, did receive some support from across the community.The Nazis were therefore a Volkspartei, not in the sense that they won massive support from each group in society but in the sense that they attracted some support from every group, from both sexes and from the older as well as the younger generation. Even so, they did not achieve a majority. It took the decision to make Hitler Chancellor in January 1933 and then the Enabling Act, following the Reichstag fire, before Hitler could achieve real power.