The Nazi Party reorganised, from 1924

Where was Hitler at the beginning of 1924?

Landsberg prison (castle)

How many weeks after Hitler’s release was the ban on the Nazi party lifted?

Two weeks

How many seats did the Nazis win in the 1924 Reichstag elections?

32

What did Hitler do as a consequence of this?

Set up a network of local Nazi parties led by a local leader (Gauleiter)

What were these leaders’ responsibilities?

• To set up a local Nazi group in their area of Germany

• They were subordinate to Hitler

What were some of these leaders’ jobs later on?

• Some of them progressed to senior positions in the Nazi Party

  • Heinrich Himmler, who was later in charge of the SS and Munich Police

Who was Gregor Strasser?

• Put in charge of the Nazi’s national organisation in 1925

• Was effectually the Nazis’ leader in Northern Germany (incl. Berlin!)

What else did the Nazi party’s reorganisation help Hitler to do?

Reassert his own personal control after his imprisonment

When did he achieve this by and how do we know?

• Feb 1926

• It was established at a Nazi conference that the party would be run according to the Führerprinzip with no disagreements

Who was the Führer?

Hitler

What did this mean for Hitler?

He was the absolute leader of the party and all his decisions were final.

Did Hitler see his power as stable now?

No - he saw Strasser and others as threats to his power, and thus purged them from the party in 1934.

Which organisations did Hitler set up during his reorganisation of the Nazi party?

• Hitler Youth & Nazi Students’ League (for young people)

• Nazi Welfare Organisation (ran soup kitchens and organised food donations, designed to appeal to the working class)

• Nazi Teachers’ Association

• Order of German Women

How many members did the Nazis have in 1925?

27,000

How many members did they have by 1928?

108,000

Why did the Nazis increase anti-Jewish propaganda in this time?

They discovered that their anti-Jewish message appealed the most among the working classes

Who was put in charge of propaganda?

Josef Goebbels

What did Goebbels produce as propaganda?

Films, leaflets, posters, radio broadcasts, organised rallies, set up ‘photo opportunities’.

How many seats did the Nazis win in the 1928 election?

12

How many did the SDP and Communists have in comparison?

• SDP - 153

• Communists - 48

Who did the urban industrial workers support in this period?

The SPD

Who did the Nazis gain support from in this time?

Peasant farmers, middle-class shopkeepers, small business owners

Who did the working class mainly support?

The Communists

How much of Germany’s population lived in rural areas?

35%

How did the Nazis attempt to win the rural peasants’ support?

• Praised them as ‘racially pure’ Germans

• Contrasted clean and simple rural areas with allegedly crime-ridden and filthy cities, which they blamed the Jews for.

• Nazis also despised Weimar culture, which many people in rural areas did as well.

What did Hitler do to the SA in 1925?

Enlarged them

Which paramilitary organisation did many SA members formerly belong to?

The Freikorps

Who was the SA run by?

Ernst Röhm

What does SS stand for?

Schutzstaffel

When were the SS set up?

1925

What was the difference between the SA and SS?

SS were more fanatically loyal to Hitler

Who led the SS?

Heinrich Himmler

What was the main way political parties communicated with the public in the 1920s?

Through meetings

What did Nazis run in the evenings?

Public speaking classes for members

What did Nazi activists in towns throughout Germany do?

• Held meetings with guest speakers

  • Topics were tailored to appeal to the citizens

  • Public reaction to policies shaped Nazi policies - basically fully tailored to get the best possible public reaction

Reasons for low electoral support

• Stresemann’s success in foreign policy

• Hindenburg and Stresemann united moderate leftist parties, so coalitions were able to govern Germany more effectively

How much of the population (%) supported the Nazis in 1928?

< 3%