Why did People Support the Nazi Party? (WJEC Eduqas GCSE History): Revision Note

Role of the SA

• SA stood for Sturmabteilung (‘Stormtroopers’)

• The organisation was formed in August 1921

• They gained the nickname ‘Brownshirts’ due to the colour of their uniform

• Members of the SA included: 

  • The unemployed

  • Students

  • Ex-soldiers

• Hitler used the SA to:

  • Control crowds at meetings

  • Start fights on the streets

  • Disrupt the meetings of opposition groups like the KPD

  • Strengthen the image of the NSDAP

• Ernst Röhm became the leader of the SA in 1923

  • The SA was not under Hitler’s direct control

  • Ernst Röhm was popular amongst the stormtroopers

• By 1925, the SA had 400,000 members

  • To many Germans, the SA made the Nazis look strong, powerful and well organised

Nazi Party Propaganda

• One of the most important aspects of Nazi propaganda was Hitler’s skill at public speaking

• Hitler spent a considerable amount of time practising his speeches

  • Hitler developed a unique pattern of oration, increasing his tempo of speaking until he reached a frantic and aggressive crescendo

    • This made his arguments very persuasive

  • He would practice hand gestures to utilise in certain sections of his speeches

• Initially, Hitler was the propaganda minister for the Nazi Party

  • In 1928, Hitler made Joseph Goebbels the propaganda minister

• Goebbels was highly skilled at getting the Nazi message across and his propaganda campaigns of 1930 and 1932 increased Nazi popularity

• His campaign included:

  • Flying Hitler around Germany to give speeches, a new idea at the time

  • Hosting enormous marches and rallies

  • Using the new technology of radio to get the Nazi message into people’s homes

  • Creating posters and pamphlets 

• All the different propaganda techniques carried the same messages: 

  • Exact revenge for the dolchstoss committed by the ‘November Criminals’ for signing the armistice and the Treaty of Versailles

  • Portrayal of the Jewish people as the  ‘enemies of Germany’

  • Promotion of a return to traditional values

What Groups of People Voted for the Nazis?

• The key to the Nazi success in elections in the 1930s was that they did not just appeal to one group in German society

  • They gathered votes from a wide range of social groups

Big Business

The Working Class

• The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), or Nazis, specifically targeted the votes of workers

  • They were named the ‘Workers’ Party’, which, together with their policies, appealed to the working classes

  • The policies included:

    • The redistribution of land from wealthy landowners

    • Improved working conditions

    • The promise of employment

• The NSDAP won the votes of many workers but never gained the majority of the working-class vote, who traditionally favoured the left-wing

The Middle Class

• The middle classes contained teachers, lawyers and smaller business owners

  • They often owned property and had savings

• Between 1929 to 1933, the middle classes stopped supporting moderate parties and began to vote for extremists like the Nazi Party

  • Fear of losing what wealth and property they had meant they would not vote for the communists

Farmers

• Farmers had suffered under the Weimar Republic

  • High debt, low prices and increasing taxes damaged the standard of living in farming communities

  • By 1929, the income of agricultural workers was 44% below the national average

• Farmers initially did not like the NSDAP

  • The Twenty-Five Point Programme created a policy of confiscating all private land

    • Under this policy, farmers would lose their income

  • The Nazi Party changed their policy to say that, if the people voted for the NSDAP, it would only confiscate land owned by the Jewish people 

• In 1930, the Nazi Party gained 60% of the rural vote in some areas

Young People

• The economic depression in the 1930s had hit young people especially hard 

  • By January 1933, unemployment hit 6.1 million people

  • Half of all 16 and 30-year-olds did not work

  • The Nazis positioned themselves as the party of youth and promised a better future

Political extremism and Scheming, 1929-1932

• The result of the propaganda campaigns and broad political appeal was enormous gains for the Nazi Party in the elections

  • Hitler may have lost to Hindenburg in the Presidential elections of 1932, but 13 million Germans still voted for him, and he secured 30% of the total vote

• The General Election of July 1932 was a spectacular success for the Nazis

  • They won 38% of the vote and had become the biggest party in the Reichstag

  • As the leader of the biggest party in the Reichstag, Hitler demanded to be made Chancellor

  • Hindenburg, who personally disliked Hitler, refused to do this and kept Von Papen as Chancellor

• Hindenburg called another General Election in November 1932 and hoped that the Nazis would not be as successful this time around

  • The Nazi share of the vote did decrease to 33% but they remained the biggest party in the Reichstag

  • Von Papen’s Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) did particularly badly, which caused Hindenburg to force him to resign

  • To von Papen's fury, his fierce rival, von Schleicher, was appointed Chancellor in December 1932 in his place

• Von Schleicher was also deeply unpopular with the voters and suggested the army should take over Germany and run it as a dictatorship

  • Von Papen continued to plot and scheme against von Schleicher 

• Von Papen convinced Hindenburg that the popularity of the Nazis needed to be recognised for the government to work effectively 

  • He persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor, with von Papen serving as his Vice Chancellor

  • Both Hindenburg and von Papen believed they could control Hitler and use his popularity with the people to their advantage

  • Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on 30th January 1933