Votes To The Nazis example essay topic

The reasons for this dramatic rise can be put down to any number of changes both within the party and outside the party. First of all the changes within the party had a profound effect on the ability to canvass votes from their respective constituencies. After the Bamberg conference Hitler had established himself as the sole authority within the party and everyone was answerable back to him. Hitler set up Games throughout Germany which matched the different constituencies within Germany, this helped to focus propaganda and tailor to match the specific needs of that particular area. For example those constituencies located further north were protestant and were generally working class with socialist tendencies. The Strasser brothers who made up the socialist faction of the Nazi party campaigned heavily in this area and through their support behind trade unions in the area; this helped the Nazis gain a lot of votes in that area.

Another example of how a different area means different campaign techniques is in the highly nationalist area of Bavaria which is located in eastern Germany, this area because of its deep rooted national tendencies voted for the Nazis, as we can see from the voting statistics the voting of the electorate there leaned heavily toward the Nazis. Other such changes as the setting up of such organisations as the teacher's Nazi organisation and the Hitler youth helped to bring the electorate to vote for the Nazis, the way they done this was by broadening there reach with propaganda. Also because of Hitler's almost godlike status which he gave himself after the Bamberg conference the people now looked upon Hitler as if he were the saviour they were all waiting for. Hitler seen himself as the saviour of Germany and he certainly showed his enthusiasm in his speeches to the German electorate. The Nazis won a higher share of the vote in Protestant, rather than Catholic, areas. In July 1932 the Nazi share of the vote was 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 and was the only party not to lose support to the Nazis apart from the communists. 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 neighboring Poland, many Catholics did vote Nazi. The 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 (KID) 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 D NVP 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.