Free Sample Essays > European History
Why did the percent of Germans voting Nazi rise from 2.8% in 1928 to 37.3% in 1932?
the Socialist party (SPD) and Communist party (KPD) focused their efforts. In the cities the Nazis came up against an electorate which couldn’t be swayed so easily with propaganda because they retained many of their 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.
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. The reason for the younger voters voting Nazi was that they were the ones most affected and influenced by such spectacles as the Nuremberg rallies and other demonstrations. 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 after hyperinflation. These groups, especially elderly women, were a source of previous non-voters to whom the Nazis made a real appeal. If you didn’t fit into any of the above groups in society in Germany then you may have voted for the Nazis because simply you had pride in your country and believed the racial propaganda which the Nazi electorate were being intoxicated with.
Another factor which added to the rise in people voting for the Nazis was the circumstances which existed at the time. Without such circumstances the Nazis may never have rise to power when they did. The situation which basically forced the electorate into a corner was the depression which was crippling the economy of the world but the cracks were widest in Germany. Germany at the time was surviving on loans from the US but after the stock market crash of 1929 the loans were recalled as the US was suffering also. Unemployment figures in Germany and around the world sky rocketed as people no longer were buying any goods and therefore wages went unpaid. This definitely influenced the swing of voters in the early 30’s. See that their current government was in chaos many turned to extremists who they saw as the way out of their helpless situation, some voted communist and others voted Nazi, but the communists had underestimated the power of the rural areas and influence that the Nazi propaganda was having upon the people of Germany, so the Nazis were victorious in the election of 1932, they succeeded in winning votes from other right wing groups such as the DNVP and the DVP, there were only two groups which didn’t lose votes to the Nazis these were the Catholic centre part and the communist party.