While the inflationary policies of the early 1920s had disillusioned “much of the middle class,” the advent of the Great Depression proved most consequential in engendering widespread disaffection with Weimar democracy. As the financial panic transformed into a production crisis, thousands of industrial laborers were laid off as market demand for goods “collapsed” as unemployment peaked at roughly 40%. The collapse of industry in the cities, meant that urban dwellers had less money to spend on food which proved calamitous to farmers in the countryside. Deepening the already severe agricultural crisis, farmers were swallowed up by “foreclosures” and “bankruptcy” as the banks recalled the loans on which most agricultural workers depended. More
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Multiple data analyses of the Nazi Party detail a distinct correlation between the arrival of the Great Depression and electoral success for the National Socialists. While these longitudinal data analyses don’t prove direct causation between the former and the latter, they consistently reveal an increase in Nazi Party support following 1929 that is worthy of consideration. Drawing on NSDAP membership cards from the Zentralkartei (central file) combined with supplementary sources from the Berlin Document Center (BDC), Lawrence Stokes expertly traces the growth in Nazi Party membership in the city of Eutin. From 1920-1928, the Nazi Party had received support from a mere 22 citizens out of Eutin’s total population of 4,500. Notably, as the Great Depression swept across Europe in 1929, the party spontaneously doubled its total membership in the month of November alone. Moreover, from 1929-1933, the National Socialists added nearly 350 members, elevating from a fledgling party to the most widely supported in Eutin over the course of just 4 years. Apparently, Nazi strongholds like Eutin only began to support the National Socialists in the wake of the depression despite prior exposure to Nazi propaganda campaigns. While Nazi political savviness has been widely documented and supported, it becomes clear that skyrocketing …show more content…
While historians like David Imhoof have argued that pre-existing sociocultural preferences for male authority dominated Nazi towns like Gottingen - Stokes’ study expertly refutes this claim. Eutin, an archetypical Nazi town like Gottingen, housed very few of these soldiers. In fact, the Nazi town housed a majority too young to have experienced WWI; “almost 53% of male members were too young to be called up for battlefield service.” Elucidated by the data, it’s clear that personal combat experience “played no role” in the growing disaffection with modernity that supposedly engendered support for the radical Nazi Party. As a result, in the case of Eutin, economics proved to be a causal force in compelling Nazi support. Notably, the town of Eutin was not an anomaly. In the Reichstag election of 1928, just prior to the depression, the NSDAP received 2.44% of the vote. Subsequently, in the election of 1930, the National Socialists acquired 18.25% of the
Multiple data analyses of the Nazi Party detail a distinct correlation between the arrival of the Great Depression and electoral success for the National Socialists. While these longitudinal data analyses don’t prove direct causation between the former and the latter, they consistently reveal an increase in Nazi Party support following 1929 that is worthy of consideration. Drawing on NSDAP membership cards from the Zentralkartei (central file) combined with supplementary sources from the Berlin Document Center (BDC), Lawrence Stokes expertly traces the growth in Nazi Party membership in the city of Eutin. From 1920-1928, the Nazi Party had received support from a mere 22 citizens out of Eutin’s total population of 4,500. Notably, as the Great Depression swept across Europe in 1929, the party spontaneously doubled its total membership in the month of November alone. Moreover, from 1929-1933, the National Socialists added nearly 350 members, elevating from a fledgling party to the most widely supported in Eutin over the course of just 4 years. Apparently, Nazi strongholds like Eutin only began to support the National Socialists in the wake of the depression despite prior exposure to Nazi propaganda campaigns. While Nazi political savviness has been widely documented and supported, it becomes clear that skyrocketing …show more content…
While historians like David Imhoof have argued that pre-existing sociocultural preferences for male authority dominated Nazi towns like Gottingen - Stokes’ study expertly refutes this claim. Eutin, an archetypical Nazi town like Gottingen, housed very few of these soldiers. In fact, the Nazi town housed a majority too young to have experienced WWI; “almost 53% of male members were too young to be called up for battlefield service.” Elucidated by the data, it’s clear that personal combat experience “played no role” in the growing disaffection with modernity that supposedly engendered support for the radical Nazi Party. As a result, in the case of Eutin, economics proved to be a causal force in compelling Nazi support. Notably, the town of Eutin was not an anomaly. In the Reichstag election of 1928, just prior to the depression, the NSDAP received 2.44% of the vote. Subsequently, in the election of 1930, the National Socialists acquired 18.25% of the