A History of Germany 1918 - 2020. Mary Fulbrook

Plate 1 Unemployed dock workers inJanuary 1931.

      well-being of millions of German families – to achieve certain foreign policy aims. In particular, he consciously exacerbated a worsening unemployment situation with the intention of lifting the burden of reparations payments from the German economy. This was effected first in the Hoover Moratorium of 1931 and then ultimately, when Brüning was no longer chancellor, by the cancellation of all reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932.Brüning’s deflationary policies have been defended by some historians,who suggest that there was no alternative set of economic policies either politically or technically open to him at the time. Brüning, on this view,operated in a period when there was very little room for manoeuvre (in Knut Borchardt’s phrase, Handlungsspielraum). Others, such as C.-L. Holtfrerich,have disputed such an interpretation, suggesting that a range of other policies was open both theoretically and politically and could thus have been pursued – and indeed other policies were being promoted increasingly by influential groups at this time.6 Whatever the balance of argument in this debate, one thing is quite clear: the consequences of Brüning’s policies were such as to produce the socioeconomic circumstances that provided fertile ground for Nazi agitation.

      Brüning’s policies have been the subject of considerable debate. He pursued austere, deflationary policies designed – at the cost of sacrificing the well-being of millions of German families – to achieve certain foreign policy aims. In particular, he consciously exacerbated a worsening unemployment situation with the intention of lifting the burden of reparations payments from the German economy. This was effected first in the Hoover Moratorium of 1931 and then ultimately, when Brüning was no longer chancellor, by the cancellation of all reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. Brüning’s deflationary policies have been defended by some historians, who suggest that there was no alternative set of economic policies either politically or technically open to him at the time. Brüning, on this view, operated in a period when there was very little room for manoeuvre (in Knut Borchardt’s phrase, Handlungsspielraum). Others, such as C.-L. Holtfrerich, have disputed such an interpretation, suggesting that a range of other policies was open both theoretically and politically and could thus have been pursued – and indeed other policies were being promoted increasingly by influential groups at this time.⁶ Whatever the balance of argument in this debate, one thing is quite clear: the consequences of Brüning’s policies were such as to produce the socioeconomic circumstances that provided fertile ground for Nazi agitation.

Brüning had been appointed Müller’s successor, on the collapse of Müller’s cabinet, without any dissolution of the Reichstag. However, when the latter demanded the withdrawal of a decree that Brüning had issued after the Reichstag’s rejection of parts of the finance bill, Brüning chose to have the Reichstag dissolved in summer 1930. Under the constitution new elections would have to be called within sixty days. These took place in September 1930. Now, under conditions of rising economic crisis, the NSDAP achieved its electoral breakthrough. With 6.4 million votes, or 18.3% of the total vote, the NSDAP became the second largest party in the Reichstag, after the SPD (with 24.5% of the vote). At last, with 107 deputies out of a total of 608, the Nazis had a large, visible, disruptive presence in the Reichstag. The NSDAP made its greatest gains in the Protestant, agricultural regions and small towns of north and northeast Germany. In 1930 they achieved figures of 27% in Schleswig-Holstein, 24.3% in Pomerania and 24.3% in Hanover South-Brunswick. In the mixed agricultural and small-scale industrial areas of Lower Silesia-Breslau (24.2%), Chemnitz-Zwickau (23.8%) and Rhineland-Palatinate (22.8%) the Nazis also achieved good results.⁷ Most impervious to Nazi penetration were Catholic areas, where Catholics tended to remain loyal to the Centre Party, and urban industrial areas, where the organized working class on the whole stayed with the two major parties of labour, the SPD and KPD, although, as the Depression worsened, the Social Democrats lost votes to the communists. (In 1930, when the Nazis gained 107 seats the communists won 77 seats.)

      Presented, by skilful propaganda, as the party of dynamism and of youth, in contrast to the ageing, stolid image of the SPD, the NSDAP attracted many young voters and new voters with visions of a better future. The Nazis also benefited from the enhanced respectability and widespread publicity arising from cooperation with Hugenberg’s DNVP in the campaign against the Young Plan in 1929. With a more ‘respectable’ image, the NSDAP was able to make inroads among ‘pillars of the community’ – local notables such as mayors, schoolteachers and Protestant pastors. The increasing radicalism of frightened former liberals and conservatives who had previously supported a range of parties led many more into the Nazi camp. In the closing years of the Weimar Republic the support for liberal and conservative parties shrank markedly. The share of the vote held by the DVP and DDP collapsed from 20% at the beginning of the Weimar Republic to a mere 2.2% in July 1932; the DNVP’s share fell from 20% in late 1924 to 5.9% in July 1932; the Wirtschaftspartei and the agrarian parties also collapsed mainly to the benefit of the NSDAP.

      Given the outcome of the September 1930 elections the SPD chose to ‘tolerate’ the Brüning government rather than trying to topple it and risk new elections that might provide further support for the extreme Right. In the meantime, Brüning’s policies only served to heighten the misery of millions in the economic depression. Unemployment rose steadily, from 1.3 million in September 1929 to over 3 million by September 1930 to over 6 million by the beginning of 1933. This last figure represented one in three of the working population; with official underestimation of the true figures, and with widespread short-time working, perhaps one in two families in Germany were severely affected by the Depression. Brüning’s priority nevertheless remained that of showing that Germany was unable to pay reparations, whatever the cost in human misery, misery that could have been alleviated by public expenditure programmes and less deflationary policies. In summer 1931 the economic situation was further exacerbated by a financial crisis. A failed attempt at a German–Austrian customs union led to a withdrawal of French credits from Austria, precipitating a collapse of the main Austrian bank, a rush of bankruptcies in Austria and Germany and a banking crisis, which necessitated a ‘bank holiday’ of three weeks’ duration in July 1931.

In the midst of this mounting economic chaos, politics was increasingly played out not in Parliament but on the streets. Skirmishes took place between rival political gangs: most frequently, the paramilitary organizations of the KPD joined violent battle with the unruly SA units. Hitler, in an attempt to retain the air of respectability cultivated over the preceding few years, now made concerted efforts to improve his relations with conservative elites: the army, agricultural landowners, leaders of industry. While

      Map 3.1 The electoral performance of the NSDAP, 1924–1932.

some industrialists – particularly Fritz Thyssen and the banker Hjalmar Schacht – had for some time been sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the prevailing attitude among business leaders was on the whole one of suspicion. Weimar democracy might have been rejected in principle; but it was quite another matter to consider Hitler’s Nazism as embodying a preferable alternative. Before 1933 industrialists were not important supporters, at least financially, of the NSDAP; small donations by local notables were a more significant source of NSDAP funds than any contributions from leaders of industry (with the exception of Thyssen, whose book entitled I Paid Hitler provided a basis for much of this myth).⁸ In the early 1930s it was clear to Hitler that he needed to woo industrialists and convince them that he was worth backing. On 26 January 1932 Hitler addressed the prestigious Düsseldorf Industry Club, seeking to create a distinction between his condemnation of ‘Jewish capital’ and capitalism in general. More important perhaps was a combination of increasing disaffection with Brüning’s management of the economic crisis and increased willingness, in the apparent absence of viable alternatives, to view Nazism as at least acceptable or tolerable. This shift in attitude was particularly important in army circles, who began to insist that officers and civil servants should be allowed to become members of the NSDAP. An attempt at developing links