Nazi Vote From Our Point-Of-View

Nazi Vote

From our point-of-view today, the German people made an irrational decision in voting for the Nazis in 1933, though that is clearly a 20-20 hindsight point-of-view. At the time, those who voted for the Nazis believed that they were restoring Germany to a more important position in the world and that the economic problems the nation had faced since the end of World War I could be ended. At the same time, though, there was a good deal of opposition to the National Socialists in Germany, an opposition which unfortunately did not prevail.

During the early days of the rise of the National Socialists to power, there were three characteristics of the regime: 1) a commitment to national tradition to make Germans identify with the state and its power; 2) the joining of tradition with the promise of a new order, of an historic breakthrough, and of a national revival and renewal; and 3) terror directed at enemies and at the populace at large in order to convince the people that compliance was the only way to avoid further trouble. Hitler established his absolute dictatorship within the first few weeks: "He did so by that diabolical simultaneity of reassuring the old elites and silencing or terrorizing most would-be opponents" (Stern 167). In 1933, Hitler persuaded Hindenburg to sign emergency decrees that in essence ended all civic rights that had been granted by the Weimar Constitution, and this would become the "legal" basis for the terror that was now unleashed. At first, this was directed at opponents of the regime, notably the Communists. The entire nation was being brought into conformity under the official designation Gleichschaltung, literally translated as "putting into the same gear." The work of terror could now be carried out more easily because the SA (Storm Troopers) and the SS were now considered "auxiliary police." Goebbels was made minister of propaganda and imposed more stringent censorship (Stern 167-168).

Rothfels states that there were four rough groups in the population during the Third Reich period: actual Nazis, nominal Nazis, non-Nazis, and anti-Nazis. Divisions between these groups are not easy to make and must have shifted over the years. The silent Opposition, those who were non-Nazis, may have included sympathizers as well as those who were antagonistic but silent about the Nazis. They merely abstained from participation, a stance which was a danger in itself but which could be mitigated by being unobtrusive: "It was therefore easier for anonymous men and women to belong to the silent Opposition than for prominent people or those who in some capacity stood in the limelight" (Rothfels 28).

The churches provided open opposition to Hitler, particularly as he had declared a form of war on them as he wanted the state to take over the churches and to direct them in ways compatible with National Socialism. Various religious leaders were arrested, hundreds of them, eventually resulting in a diminishing of the resistance from that front. Shirer notes that this persecution of religion did not arouse the German people as it should have: "A people who had so lightly given up their political and cultural and economic freedoms were not, except for a relatively few, going to die or even risk imprisonment to preserve freedom of worship" (Shirer 240).