The impact of the Depression

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German businesses and factories cut production or closed down.

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Interpretation A presents the SA as a positive force. The author says it gave unemployed men like him a brown shirt, hot meals and comrades, so it was 'a family'. He claims its marches showed 'order and discipline', and that its fighting was only self-defence, because 'the Reds attacked our meetings first' and the SA was simply protecting Hitler's speakers so people could hear the truth.

Interpretation B takes the opposite view. The woman says the SA came into working-class streets 'to provoke us' and was 'looking for a fight'. It broke up meetings, beat up Communists and Social Democrats and frightened people into silence, and she remembers the shooting in Altona in 1932. Rather than bringing order, B argues the SA 'created the chaos' on purpose, so that Hitler could pretend only he could end it. So A sees the SA as a source of support and order, while B sees it as a source of deliberate terror.

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One way middle-class Germans were affected was the loss of their livelihoods. As unemployment rose towards 6 million, ordinary people had little money to spend, so shopkeepers, craftsmen and small businessmen lost customers and many went bankrupt. White-collar workers such as clerks and office staff lost their jobs in large numbers, and even secure civil servants and teachers had their salaries cut several times by Brüning's emergency decrees. Students and young graduates found there were no jobs for them at all.

A second way was the threat to their savings and status. In July 1931 the Danat Bank collapsed and the banks closed for several days. This revived terrible memories of 1923, when hyperinflation had wiped out middle-class savings. Many middle-class families now feared that they would sink into the working class, losing the respectability that mattered so much to them.

Because of these losses, the middle classes also became frightened and politically restless. The Communist Party grew from 54 seats in 1928 to 100 in November 1932 and promised to abolish private property, which terrified shopkeepers and property owners. Feeling that the Weimar parties had failed them, middle-class voters deserted the liberal and conservative parties: the DVP fell from 45 seats in 1928 to just 7 in July 1932, and the DNVP from 73 to 37. Many turned instead to the Nazis, who promised order, protection from communism and help for small businesses against department stores. So the Depression affected the middle classes economically, socially and politically, and helped make them the backbone of Nazi support.

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Both the SA and propaganda helped the Nazis to grow from 2.6% of the vote in 1928 to 37.3% in July 1932, but I think propaganda was the more important reason because it reached and persuaded far more voters.

The SA played an important role. Under Ernst Röhm, who took over in 1931, it grew to about 400,000 men by 1932. It protected Nazi meetings from opponents and broke up the meetings of Communists and Social Democrats, so the Nazi message was heard while rivals were silenced. Its uniformed marches gave an impression of discipline and strength, and its street battles with Communists allowed the Nazis to pose as the defenders of Germany against the 'Reds', which appealed to the middle classes. The SA also recruited unemployed young men with meals, hostels and uniforms. However, its violence could put voters off. Brüning's government banned the SA in April 1932, and the Potempa murder of August 1932, when SA men killed a Communist worker, shocked many respectable Germans.

Propaganda was more important. Joseph Goebbels, in charge from 1930, used simple slogans such as 'Work and bread' and 'Germany awake!' and designed messages for every group: posters like 'Our last hope: Hitler' targeted the unemployed, while farmers, women and the middle classes were given promises of their own. Propaganda built up the image of Hitler as a strong leader above the squabbling parties, and in the 1932 presidential election the 'Hitler over Germany' flights helped him win 36.8% of the vote in the second round. It also offered scapegoats, blaming Jews, Communists and the 'November Criminals' for Germany's suffering.

The two were linked, because SA marches were themselves a kind of propaganda and SA men put up the posters. But propaganda was the more important reason, because it reached millions of people in every class, including women, farmers and pensioners who would never see an SA street fight. The SA could intimidate opponents, but it was propaganda that persuaded people to vote Nazi.