Nazis and Workers before 1933

• Published in: The Australian journal of politics and history Vol. 48; no. 1; pp. 40 - 51
• Main Author: Geary, Dick
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford UK and Boston, USA Blackwell Publishers Ltd 01.03.2002
• Subjects: Catholicism; German Communist Party (KPD); Germany; Germany: Politics and government; Historiography; Kele, Max. Nazis and Workers; Labour; Labour movements; National Socialist Factory Cell Organisation; National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP); Nazi Party; Nazism; Political parties; Public Support; Social classes; Trade unions; Voting Behavior; Working Class
• ISSN: 0004-9522; 1467-8497
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8497.00250

This paper examines the mass of recent research, which suggests that the Nazis were much more successful in winning “working‐class” votes than had been previously imagined. Though the research has undeniably shown a great deal of such support, some of the claims made on its basis (e.g. about the cross‐sectional and relatively random distribution of Nazi support amongst workers) are not sustainable. In fact working‐class Nazis were much more likely to be found amongst some communities than others (e.g. in rural areas and small provincial towns); and the fact that some Social Democrats did desert to the radical right in the early 1930s is not sufficient to claim that explanations framed in terms of “class milieux” no longer function.