Why did people like the Nazis in 1933?
By 1932, the Nazi Party had significantly increased in popularity. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 had sparked a great depression in Germany and Hitler used this to his advantage. By September 1932 unemployment stood at 5.1 million and peaked to 6.1 million in early 1933.
There were, however, a number of other factors that helped increase support for the NSDAP:
- Popular policies: To deal with the social problems of hunger and homelessness, the Nazis set up soup kitchens and shelters. The Nazis appeared to put the peoples needs first, unlike the Weimar politicians who cut benefits and raised taxes.
- Effective Propaganda: Goebbels was in charge of Propaganda and made sure that the Nazi message was clear and appealed to the majority of German people. ‘Hitler, our last hope’, ‘Work, Freedom and Bread’, were slogans on posters that gained the support of the working classes. Nazi propaganda against the Jews, Gypsies and Communists was becoming increasingly popular. Radios were used for the first time to get across the Nazis message and Hitler also made use of technology, flying in an aeroplane to three cities in one day to attend rallies.
- The SA (Led by Rohm) was important because they displayed a disciplined organisation. By 1932 they had 600,000 members and many young men were attracted to join. They also had an important job of disrupting the meetings of political rivals and beating up rival groups (communist supporters were heavily targeted). This again made more people look to the Nazis as an organised party which could lead the country well.
- Hitler’s image as a strong leader Hitler was the focus of many posters where he was portrayed as a ‘superman’ who could end the German crisis. The middle class hoped he would protect them from communism (the communists would take all their savings away from them) and the upper classes even admired Hitler’s promise to build up industry and business and regain Germany’s strength.
In this lesson, you will be focusing on why people supported the Nazi Party in 1933 and what their key demands were. I would recommend reading through pages 12-13 of the textbook and adding the document 'The main Nazi demands in 1933' to your notes.
