Why Did the Nazis have Little Success Before 1930? (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE History)

Why did the Nazi Party Lose Support Between 1924 and 1928? - Summary

Historians call the support for the Nazi Party 1924-1928 ‘The Lean Years’. This means that the German people considered the NSDAP a small, extremist group after the Munich Putsch.

There is a clear link between the ‘Golden Age’ of the Weimar Republic and ‘The Lean Years’ of the Nazi Party. For extremist parties to succeed, a country’s economy or political leadership needs to be failing. The public is more likely to look for alternative solutions offered by extremism if moderate government is ineffective. The recovery of the Weimar Republic through Stresemann’s policies limited the need for the NSDAP. This resulted in a decline in support for Hitler’s party.

Although the Nazi Party lost support, Hitler used 1924-1928 as a period to restructure the party. Hitler had learnt much from the Munich Putsch. He wanted to ensure the NSDAP was ready to benefit if Germany experienced political or economic turmoil again. Without ‘The Lean Years’, the Nazi Party would not have been able to benefit from the subsequent impacts of the Wall Street Crash on Germany from 1930.

The Munich Putsch

• By November 1923, Hitler decided that the NSDAP was ready to take control of Germany

  • Support for the Nazi Party had increased due to the Weimar government’s failure to deal with the hyperinflation crisis

  • Many people were looking to extremist parties for economic and political solutions

• Hitler had studied the failed putsches launched by the Freikorps and the Spartacists

  • He had learnt that a putsch needed the support of the military and the police to succeed

    • The inclusion of General Ludendorff, a respected military veteran, in the putsch aimed to rally the support of the army

    • Hitler also needed the backing of the police

• Learn more about the causes and the events of the Munich Putsch

Why Did the Munich Putsch Fail?

• Hitler left the beer hall placing Ludendorff in charge of watching the Bavarian officials

  • Ludendorff failed in this role by being persuaded to let Kahr, Seisser and Lossow go

    • Without their support, the putsch had no official backing and the army suppressed the SA with ease

  • Hitler continued with the putsch after learning he had lost the support of the Bavarian officials

    • Hitler and the SA only had 2,000 guns. This meant the NSDAP and their supporters could not fight the German army when they attacked

  • The army remained loyal to the government despite the inclusion of General Ludendorff in the putsch

• Hitler rushed the execution of the Munich Putsch in an attempt to benefit from the hyperinflation crisis

  • If Hitler had delayed the putsch, this would have allowed for better preparation and a bigger chance of success

  • Hitler needed to gain more support from the Bavarian people. Most citizens in Munich did not stop the uprising but also did not actively support it

Outcomes of the Munich Putsch

• After his arrest, Hitler and General Ludendorff went on trial for committing high treason

  • Treason is one of the most serious crimes a person can commit

• In February 1924, Hitler represented himself in court

  • Usually, a person would hire a lawyer to represent their case in court and persuade the judge of their innocence

  • Hitler wanted to use his oration skills to defend himself

• Although Hitler was found guilty, his approach to the trial rewarded him with successes

The Lean Years of the Nazi Party, 1924-1928

• In Landsberg Prison, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (‘My Struggle’)

  • He considered what the core values of the Nazi Party should be

  • He dictated the piece for Rudolph Hess, who later became a deputy in the party, to write

  • He published Mein Kampf  in July 1925

Key Beliefs in Mein Kampf

Reorganising the Nazi Party, 1924-1928

• Hitler left prison after serving nine months of his five-year sentence

  • Judges were much more lenient on right-wing offenders

• The government lifted the ban on the NSDAP in February 1925

  • Hitler relaunched the party on 27th February 1925

• The failure of the Munich Putsch made Hitler rethink the organisation of the party

• To make the Nazi Party electable, its systems needed to be a lot clearer

• Hitler divided Germany into 35 regions (called gaue)

  • These corresponded to the regions created by the Weimar government

• Each gau (single region) had a local Nazi Party leader called a gauleiter

  • Hitler left it to the Nazi members in the gaue to fight over who became the gauleiter

    • Hitler strongly believed in the survival of the fittest mentality. Whoever wanted the position more would win it by any means necessary

  • Strasser became a powerful gauleiter in North Germany

  • Goebbels established his power in the Rhineland

• To fund a national party, Hitler persuaded business owners who shared his nationalist vision for Germany to contribute:

  • Big corporations such as Thyssen, Krupp and Bosch funded the Nazi Party

  • The business owners believed Hitler’s influence over the workers would limit the power of trade unions

    • Business owners feared trade unions because they could make unreasonable demands for increased pay and benefits

    • Trade unions had strong links to Communism. If Communism became powerful, business owners would lose their ability to make lots of profit

The Creation of the SS

• By 1925, Hitler was losing trust in the SA

  • The SA had 400,000 members

  • Ernst Röhm had increased his control over the SA during Hitler’s time in prison

  • The SA were hard to control

    • Many middle- and upper-class Germans considered the SA to be violent thugs

    • If Hitler wanted to make the NSDAP electable, he had to change the image of the party

• Hitler took two steps to improve his paramilitary forces:

1. Hitler sent Ernst Röhm abroad. He returned to the Nazi Party in 1930

2. Hitler created a new private army called the Schutzstaffel (‘Protection Squad’), or SS

• The SS was a much smaller group than the SA

• They wore black uniforms from 1932

  • Many members of society found them intimidating

  • They conducted themselves better and less violently than the SA

• Hitler selected and trusted members of the SS. They became Hitler’s personal bodyguards

  • Heinrich Himmler, one of Hitler’s most trusted party members, became head of the SS

• Under Himmler, by 1930, there were 3,000 SS members

The Bamberg Conference, 1926

• Hitler began to realise that the Nazi Party was splitting into ‘nationalist’ and ‘socialist’ sides

  • In North Germany, where Strasser and Goebbels were gauleiters, they were winning the support of the workers by emphasising the socialist aspects of the NSDAP. They verbally attacked local businessmen

  • In South Germany, where Hitler was based, Nazi leaders emphasised the nationalist aspects of the NSDAP. They campaigned for a strong state and anti-semitism

• In 1926, Hitler called a party conference in Bamberg, Bavaria

  • Due to the conference’s location in the south, the majority of attendees were southern gauleiters

• Key outcomes of the Bamberg Conference were:

  • Hitler called the ‘socialist’ side of the NSDAP “Communists” who were the enemy of the Nazi Party

    • Hitler’s statement weakened the socialist aspects of the NSDAP, bringing the party’s policies in line with Hitler’s beliefs in Mein Kampf

  • Hitler persuaded Goebbels to switch to the ‘nationalist’ side of the Party

    • Strasser believed Goebbels had betrayed him. After this, Strasser lost Hitler’s trust. In 1934, a cull of the Nazi leadership structure resulted in Strasser’s murder 

    • Hitler promoted Goebbels to gauleiter of Berlin

• The Bamberg Conference allowed Hitler to develop new policies. Hitler placed more emphasis on nationalist aspects such as:

  • Reminding Germans of the ‘dolchstoss’ committed by the Weimar government in 1919. He campaigned for revenge on the ‘November Criminals’ for ending the First World War and signing the Treaty of Versailles

  • Accusing the Jewish people of being ‘enemies of Germany’. He argued that the Jewish people were responsible for all of Germany’s issues

  • Promoting the return to traditional values

Why was There Limited Support for the Nazi Party?

• By 1929, the NSDAP had 100,000 members

• Despite this success, historians call this period ‘The Lean Years’ 

  • In the May 1928 election, the Nazi Party only won 12 seats (roughly 3% of the overall votes). They were the seventh biggest party in the Reichstag