The statistics of the Nazi vote demonstrate the true weakness of the Nazi Party. From the establishment of the Party in 1919 it gained support relatively quickly, and by May 1924 it had 32 seats in the Reichstag. This success can be attributed to Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch and his speech at his trial. It was his rhetoric ability rather than the confidence of the nation in the party that gained the party support. However, after the trial, the Nazi Party was disbanded, but still existed in Bavaria, and as a consequence the Nazi Party lost votes, gaining just 14 seats in the Reichstag. This would have also been down to the fact the economic crisis had improved with the change in currency and the appointment of Stresemann. The improvement in the economic situation meant that the public had more confidence in the Weimar Republic and they had little cause to look towards other political leaders. By May 1928 the support for the Nazi party had fallen again with just 12 seats in the Reichstag. These statistics show that the Nazi Party really wasn’t strong enough internally to have a big impact on politics from 1920-1929. However, we can deduce from these voting figures within the 1920s that the Nazi party thrived when there was something to protest against or something to vote for that gave the nation hope. The 1929 depression and result of the Wall Street Crash on the World Economy gave the Nazis their chance for a better political standing once again. By 1930 the depression had started to hit Germany badly as all the loans America had pumped into Germany to help the economy were being withdrawn, it is at this point where we see the Nazi votes start to increase and overtake all the other more moderate parties within the Reichstag. In September 1930 the Nazis gained 107 seats in the Reichstag, by July 1932 they had 230 and by March 1933, just 3 months after Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, the Nazi Party had 288 seats within the Reichstag, it was still short of the majority that Hitler had planned or needed but it was enough to ensure that he stayed in power and it was enough to worry all the other parties. Voting for Hitler was not necessarily a rejection of the old Weimar System it was a development and a statement that Germany was moving away from democracy and that the Nazis were there when this move took place. Equally ‘To vote for Hitler was above all a rejection of the existing system’, is not a wholly satisfactory explanation of the dramatic increase in Nazi electoral support during the years 1930-1933. We could say instead that it was one very significant factor into determining who the German public voted for but it was not the only factor.
The strengths, the weaknesses and the voting success of the Nazi Party can be very much attributed to the success or the failure of the other Party’s within the Reichstag to give the German population political, economic and social stability. The Nazi Party was born in the economic downturn after the First World War. It was very much a people’s party and the issues raised by Adolf Hitler at the meetings were very much geared around the public attitude towards the ‘November Criminals’ and the ‘Treaty of Versailles’. The hyperinflation was therefore an external factor that allowed the Nazis to gain more support and for the Party to be strengthen. At the invasion of the Ruhr the Nazis again turned their focus to campaigning, using propaganda, and voicing public opinion about the betrayal of the Weimar and the breaking of the Treaty of Versailles by the French. It was from the foundations laid in the 1920s, by using propaganda and rallies and media, along with the terror tactics and the strength of the SA that persuaded the German people to vote for the Nazis and away from the more moderate parties in the Reichstag. The Nazis were successful at attracting the support of the young, particularly students; in 1930 over two-thirds of the party’s members were under the age of 40. It was this that the Nazis were very good at. They encouraged the younger generation to vote for them, they captured the hearts and the minds of the young people, making them believe that the party was aimed at the good of the German Volk. It was not a vote for Hitler that increased the Nazi votes but a vote for the Nazi ideals, the greater Germany, for Lebensraum, for men in uniform, for the abolition of the Treaty of Versailles, for political, economic and social freedom and for new views and ideas for the future.
The destruction of the Weimar Republic can be seen as early as 1929. The Wall Street Crash and the subsequent worldwide economic crisis and depression meant that the German public lost confidence in Weimar. They had already been through hyperinflation, under the leadership of Weimar and they did not want to return to the same situation again. As the economic situation got worse in the USA they began demanding loans back from Germany. This left holes in the Weimar Republic and gave the weaker more extreme political groups a focus on which to gain more support. The Nazis, in particular used the economic depression to their advantage. The Depression caused widespread unemployment, banks to close, workers to have less money, the middle classes to lose the ‘new money’ that they had gained and invested and then the complete loss of confidence within the democratic political system. Weimar proved that they had not been looking at the long term interests of Germany as yet again due to a bad decision, Germany had become a devastated nation. The fragile political structure, the decline in world trade and the growth of protectionism all added up to causing the demolition of the democratic system. Conversely, there was corruption at the top of the political system by 1932. Party members were determined to get rid of Hindenburg and bring in a new Chancellor; however, Hindenburg was not prepared to hand over his power to the Right Wing extremist Adolf Hitler. We can see from the election figures that the SPD was no longer supported by the German vote: in May 1928 the SPD got 29.8% of the vote whereas in November 1932 it had just 20.4% of the vote, in comparison to the Nazi Party, who went from 2.6% of the vote in May 1928 and 33.1% of the vote in November 1932. It was the vote against Hindenburg (the old, frail president) and a vote for a step into the future that assured the German vote went to the Nazis.
The dramatic increase in the number of votes for the Nazi Party can be very much attributed to the decline in the economy but if we look further back into the fragility of the 1920s, in terms of the political standing of Germany, we can see that there were other reasons why people started to vote for Hitler. You could say that the fragility of the Weimar Republic was largely down to leadership and external problems, such as the Wall Street Crash. Stresemann was a key individual in the success of the Weimar Republic and the confidence the government portrayed to the German population over the years 1924-1929. Most historians would agree though that there were fundamental underlying weaknesses within the structure of the Weimar Republic that made it fragile. The main weaknesses were the idea of proportional representation and the coalition government; article 48 declaring that if an emergency arose that the chancellor could lead the country without consulting the Reichstag; the inexperience of Germany operating as a democracy and the decision to print more money instead of funding the resources which lead to the first economic crisis. Hitler’s passion for making Germany a successful, strong, powerful and modern country can be linked to the reasons why people voted for the party. Hitler himself was a radical extremist who believed in the Greater Germany and in the Future of Germany, his developing rhetoric ability was being shown as one of the best Germany had ever seen, but equally he had grown up in public, developing very quickly as a political speaker through his speeches in the Beer Halls of Bavaria. By aiming the propaganda (showing the weaknesses of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi aims for a greater Germany) at different audiences Hitler was able to show that he really was thinking about the German Volk. This would suggest that it was the German people voting for Hitler as a way of going against the old and unsuccessful political system that had stood from 1919.
It was the secrecy of the internal elements of the party that could have helped the Nazis gain power. Hitler never let any of his generals get too powerful and always played them against each other – they were constantly battling for his support and attention right through until his death in 1945, but the German population would not have seen this. Everything that went on within the depths of the Nazis Party was not discussed or publicised further than the people closest to Hitler. As the confidence in the Weimar Republic dropped and the gaps within the system started to emerge they were heavily publicised and people could see that it was breaking down from the inside out. After the death of Stresemann, Germany never really recovered its leadership until Hitler took the chancellorship in January 1933. It was therefore through the portrayed stability of the structure of the Party, a party with its own army and a heroic orator that the votes for the Nazis started to increase.
You could argue that it was not Hitler that made the German people vote for the Nazi Party. We can see that whilst Hitler was imprisoned in Landsberg there were still people prepared to vote for the Nazi Party and that it had been steadily supported throughout the 1920s. Equally, when Hitler appears on the stage again in 1928 and reclaims the party the vote significantly increases and makes it more plausible that it was the combination of the Nazis Party’s contrasting views, compared to the Weimar Republic’s views, and the leadership of Hitler that encouraged and persuaded more people to vote for the Nazi Party between 1930-1933.
