The Lean Years of the Nazi Party, 1924-28 (Edexcel GCSE History)

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Why Did the Nazi Party Lose Support Between 1924 & 1928? - Summary

Historians call the support for the Nazi Party 1924-28 ‘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, the 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’s policies. This resulted in a decline in support for Hitler’s party.

Although the Nazi Party lost support, Hitler used 1924-28 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.

Creation of Mein Kampf

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

A key belief in Mein Kampf	Summary of the belief	Nationalist or socialist?
The superiority of the Aryan race	Hitler believed the German race was the best in the world. He was against Germans marrying the Jewish people as he stated this weakened the Aryan race	Nationalist
Social Darwinism	The pseudo-science that some races are better than others. He believed the Aryan race was the best and the Jewish race was the worst. He stated that the Jewish people conspired to take down the Aryan race. Hitler believed the Jewish people dominated industry and infiltrated politics through parties such as the SPD	Nationalist
Lebensraum	This means ‘living space’ in German. Hitler theorised that the Aryan race needed more territory so that the population could grow. He believed this space should come from Eastern Europe by taking over parts of the Russian empire	Nationalist
Führerprinzip	The concept was that Germany needed an autocratic leader with ultimate power. He believed that democracy was weak and totalitarianism could keep the people happy	Nationalist
The restoration of traditional values	Hitler saw the ‘Golden Age’ of Weimar Germany as a corruption of traditional values. He wanted to reintroduce strong family values, Christianity and realism in art and culture	Nationalist
Redistributing the wealth from industry and land	Hitler believed that landowners and factory owners should have their profits taken from them. The German workers would benefit from this money	Socialism

Exam Tip

When comparing Mein Kampf to the Twenty-Five Point Programme, it is clear that Hitler had moved the party firmly towards nationalism. While there were still elements of socialism, this was more in name rather than in policy. This move to the extreme right-wing created a clearer political identity. It also shrunk its potential support base as Mein Kampf made NSDAP’s policies more extreme.

Reorganising the Nazi Party, 1924-28

Why was it the right time to reorganise the Nazi Party?

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

The Nazi Party headquarters

Hitler changed how he ran the headquarters for the NSDAP in Munich
The diagram below illustrates the organisational structure he developed for the Nazi Party headquarters

Organisation of the NSDAP

A flow diagram showing the restructuring of the NSDAP in the Lean Years

A National Nazi Party

Hitler divided Germany into 35 regions (called gaue)
- These corresponded to the constituencies created by the Weimar government
Each gau (single region) had a local Nazi Party leader called a gauleiter
- Gauleiters were not often appointed
- 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

What was 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 classes 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:

Hitler sent Ernst Röhm abroad. He returned to the Nazi Party in 1930
Hitler created a new private army called the Schutzstaffel (‘Protection Squad’), or SS

Features of the 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 would become Hitler’s personal bodyguards
Hitler’s chauffeur and bodyguard, Julius Schreck, initially commanded the SS
- 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 the 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 7th biggest party in the Reichstag
The concept map below shows the reasons why the Nazi Party had limited support:

Reasons why the Nazi Party had limited support by 1928

A concept map showing the reasons why the Nazis had limited support in the Lean Years

Worked Example

Give two things you can infer from Source A about the Nazi Party’s approach to elections in ‘The Lean Years’ of 1924-28

4 marks

Source A: A Nazi propaganda poster created in 1928. It is a portrait of a German soldier with the caption “National Socialist; or the victims [German soldiers killed in the First World War] were in vain”

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, USA

Answers:

i) What I can infer:

I can infer that Hitler wanted to remind people of Weimar’s failure in the First World War (1)

Details in the source that tell me this:

The caption “or the victims [German soldiers killed in the First World War] were in vain” (1)

ii) What I can infer:

I can also infer that the Nazis did not have much election support in 1928 (1)