PDF file: History - Advanced Higher - Germany - Education Scotland

meetings with even three or four thousand people soon disappear. Local successes in
which the National Socialists are running first or second are, surprisingly, almost
invariably the result of the activity of the branch leader or of a few energetic
members.
Source L
A breakdown of recent research on the social structure of the membership of The Nazi
Party in various regions of Germany between 1925 and January 1933(in percentages)
is given below.
Region Lower
Class
Lower &
Middle
Middle
Class
Upper
Middle
Class &
Upper
Class
Unknown
Status
Western Ruhr 50.8 38.3 1.0 6.5
Hanover-South Brunswick 37.1 45.5 5.4 11.9
Hesse-Darmstadt 39.4 50.1 4.0 6.5
Wurttemberg-Hohenzollern 42.9 46.3 5.4 5.4
Hesse-Nassau-South 41.6 45.5 4.3 8.6
Posen-West Prussia 37.6 48.4 3.2 10.8
TOTAL 41.9 45.9 4.6 7.6
Source M
No one doubts that National Socialism owes its electoral success to the old and new
middle classes. Even if half of the young new voters since 1928 were to have voted
National Socialist, that would only be around a million votes. The rising generation,
therefore, can only partially explain the inflating of the NSDAP.
…. It is not the great current of contemporary ideas which the middle classes have
allowed to carry them along - it is worry and anxiety, which oppresses them. For
years the middle class man has kept his head down or sought rescue … His special
interests; he has gone with this party or that party, and it has always got worse. He
has realised the futility of his splintered parties.
(Theordore Geiger, ‘Panic in the Middle Class’, an article in the German journal, ‘Die
Arbeit’, 1930)
History: Germany: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II - 1918-1939 (AH) 70