Hitler/NSDAP popularity

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bronk7
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Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#1

Post by bronk7 » 31 Jul 2013, 18:58

can any1 say how popular and well liked hitler and the NSDAP were as for as percentage of population?? I would say it was like every other country, a good percentage do not agree with the party in power....of course they didn't have the media we do now, so, state run media could easily propagandize the people....

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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#2

Post by Frankfurter » 01 Aug 2013, 17:06

bronk7 wrote:can any1 say how popular and well liked hitler and the NSDAP were as for as percentage of population?? I would say it was like every other country, a good percentage do not agree with the party in power....of course they didn't have the media we do now, so, state run media could easily propagandize the people....
As much as I know there are no reliable figures after 1933. Support varied over time, and was quite different in certain parts of the country. In the last fair election at the end of 1932 Hitler had less than 30% of the voters behind him. How many of them were true believers is unknown, many were certainly just opportunistic at that time. As over the next few years much more people did profit from the Nazi policy than did suffer from it, the support by the German people was more or less constantly rising. Propaganda and the fact that the majority of Germans had no realistic chance to get any objective information anymore did the rest. If its really true that the support for Hitler was at its Zenith after the fall of Paris 1940 I cant say.

According to Seymour Martin Lipset the typical NSDAP supporter was a self-employed, protestant member of the middle-class, living on a farm or a village, a former voter of local parties or a party of the political center. He was NOT a (devoted) catholic. This is consistent with what I know from my family, neighborhood and local background. I am coming from a farmers family, middle class, countryside, but as being catholic they were largely anti-Nazi, and not a single one of my large family became a party member. Many if not most protestants in the neighborhood and surrounding villages were Nazi.

An example of at first glance surprisingly varying figures: in protestant regions the NSDAP reached 40-49% in 1932, in catholic regions only 23%, no matter what social background these catholic regions had. The highest percentage of NSDAP voters could be found among the jobless and (to a lesser extent) the self-employed and the helpers of the latter, the lowest percentage among the "new" middle class, which means the office employees and officials. House wives were average voters. Extraordinarily many new NSDAP voters in the early 30s were former non-voters.
Source Peter Borowsky: Who voted for Hitler and why? Jürgen W. Falter: Why the German worker supported Hitler (the political scientist Falter is a professor at the university of Mainz)


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bronk7
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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#3

Post by bronk7 » 01 Aug 2013, 18:52

that's super interesting, Frank...much thanks....be interesting to compare to other dictator eras

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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#4

Post by Cerdic » 20 Nov 2013, 20:55

While not providing a direct measure of support, the volume of letters recieved by Hitler reached a high point in 1938 according to Letters to Hitler by Henrik Eberle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Letters-Hitler- ... 0745648738

Daily Mail writeup here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -time.html

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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#5

Post by anondragon2012 » 23 Nov 2013, 20:25

At least in wartime, I remember many reports saying that among the general masses, Hitler was always popular no matter what until 1945 (and even long after the war ended).
However General Nazis from 1942-1943 onwards were despised.

I even heard that when Nazi local officials walked in town late in 1944, they were not even greeted. Nobody made the Sieg Heil salute or raised their arms anymore. There was enormous cynicism at that point and nobody believed in them any longer. This is a strong contrast as in the early days of Nazi rule, many average Germans were enthusiastic Nazis.

However the figure of Hitler again was lasting and popular. I think for many Germans he was "one of them", as opposed to many Nazi officials which were almost like local feudal lords who lived lavishly while the population was bombed and starved.

I know that in Vienna in 1945, the local population was openly revolting against local NSDAP. There was widespread looting, and nobody felt any attachment to Germany anymore and to the Third Reich.

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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#6

Post by bronk7 » 24 Nov 2013, 18:00

I guess so, after the massive bombing/etc...wouldn't hitler have used propaganda to influence the populace, blaming others?

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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#7

Post by Adam UK » 01 Feb 2014, 00:26

Read the book The 'Hitler Myth': Image and Reality in the Third Reich by Ian Kershaw.

He goes into great detail about the popularity of Hitler himself and the NSDAP.

After Hitler came out of prison he became more popular than ever, he was given extra luxuries than most other prisoners when he was in jail after his failed putsch.

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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#8

Post by Cerdic » 01 Feb 2014, 09:32

I think what we should differentiate here is - support for the government and support for National Socialism itself. The government supplied jobs, social welfare and security to millions of Germans. That doesn't mean they agreed with all NS ideology or really liked the police state and censorship that came along with it.

Kershaw also writes in The End that the popularity of Hitler and the party was very low through 1944/45, but even a few years after the war around half of Germans when asked said that NS was a good idea, but badly carried out.

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Adam UK
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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#9

Post by Adam UK » 01 Feb 2014, 14:01

The Nazis power rapidly increased in 1932 to 1933, with Hitler becoming a German citizen in 1932 he could then run for election too whereas before he could not.

The popularity of the regime was practically lost towards the end of the war:
When the leader of the Wehrmacht unit at the end of his speech called for a Sieg Heil for the Führer, it was returned neither by the Wehrmacht present, nor by the Volkssturm, nor by the spectators of the civilian population who had turned up. This silence of the masses... probably reflects better than anything else, the attitudes of the population.

- Ian Kerhsaw, Hitler: 1936–45 : Nemesis

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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#10

Post by Lyndhen » 14 Feb 2014, 21:45

There is the OMGUS survey on public opinion in occupied Germany between 1945 and 1949.

http://archive.org/stream/publicopinion ... r_djvu.txt

https://archive.org/details/publicopinionino00merr

'National Socialism was a good idea badly carried out' - around 50 %. Higher (60%) among protestants, those under 30, lower educated. This suggests that despite losing the war and suffering destruction and occupation the Germans were still in favour of a strong leader, authoritarianism and nationalism (and racism - "37 per cent denied that "extermination of the Jews and Poles and other non-Aryans was not necessary for the security of Germans" ")

Hitler doesn't come out too well - only 10% named him as the greatest German in history. There are a lot of other interesting results in there.

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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#11

Post by Marcus » 22 Feb 2014, 16:52

An off-topic post from Adam UK commenting on the claims made in http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=200409 was removed.

/Marcus

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Re: Hitler/NSDAP popularity

#12

Post by Cerdic » 24 Feb 2014, 20:51

Summaries of the surveys are also at:

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub ... tion_id=14

The large majority responded positively to the Nuremberg trials - showing that belief in former Nazi leaders was low already by late 45/early 46. The surveys also showed a acceptance of guilt for the crimes of the Nazi regime, but a (correct) belief that not all Germans were responsible.

Interestingly, support for NS went up thought it remained in the minority:

Image

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