The social bases of political cleavages in the Weimar Republic, 1919-1933 (1992)

This article focuses on the divided and scattered political affiliations in the Weimar Republic which helped to provide an environment that supported rapid political changes between 1919 and 1933. Using methodologies of historical electoral research, this article considers cleavages between party blocs on a federal level by analyzing the stability within and voter fluctuation between political parties. These voter fluctuations are also analyzed by considering the social background of the eligible voters, as well as by religious denomination. An ecological regression analysis and aggregate data analysis determine the stability of voter blocs and note a number of reasons why the NSDAP received such a large number of votes from a rather stable voting system in March of 1933

Economic debts and political gains: electoral support for the NAZI party in agrarian and commercial sectors, 1928-1933

Es ist inzwischen eine gesicherte Tatsache, daß die NSDAP am besten in den protestantischen ländlichen Gebieten Deutschlands und bei den (wieder protestantischen) Selbstständigen abschnitt. Beide Gruppen wurden durch die Weltwirtschaftskrise besonders hart getroffen. Der vorliegende Beitrag überprüft mittels einer Regressions- und Pfadanalyse, inwieweit die wirtschaftliche Krise und die mit ihr einhergehende Verschuldung des 'alten Mittelstands' zu den starken Affinitäten zum Nationalsozialismus beigetragen hat. Anhand der Wahlunterlagen von 1928-1933 läßt sich der Zusammenhang bestätigen. (pmb)'It is by now a well-established fact that the NSDAP fared best in the protestant rural parts of Germany and among the (again protestant) self-employed. Both groups were affected during the depression by decreasing prizes, reduced business transactions and lower income. The following analysis is trying to figure out by means of correlation, regression and path analysis what part was played by the economic crisis and especially agrarian and non-agrarian debts in the genesis of this very strong affinity of the protestant farming and nonfarming old middle class to National Socialism. The results of various bivariate and multivariate analyses quite strongly indicate that there was an independent effect of the incidence of agrarian and non-agrarian debts on the electoral success of the Hitler movement. We may thus conclude that there is indeed a very high probability that the relative numerical significance of economic debts furthered the rise of National Socialism at the ballot box.' (author's abstract

The young membership of the NSDAP between 1925 and 1933: a demographic and social profile [1996]

"This article considers the youthful composition of the NSDAP between 1925 and 1933. This article not only challenges Michael Kater's previous analyses on the young party by finding the average age of members in the early years of the party to be younger than previously thought, but also examines information about the young recruits including: age, regional background, religious denomination and occupation. While previous research has shown the NSDAP movement to be one of the middle class, this article finds that, amongst the young members, the skilled working class is more heavily represented, thus challenging many commonly held notions about the party membership. This article also takes into consideration the high turnover rate of the NSDAP, while also analyzing which members subsequently rejoined after leaving the party, a quite common phenomenon." (author's abstract

The two Hindenburg elections of 1925 and 1932: a total reversal of voter coalitions [1990]

"This article compares the two presidential elections of 1925 and 1932 in an attempt to determine the shifts between these two elections which brought Paul von Hindenburg to power. Although this article does not attempt to add to the historiography of Hindenburg's election and the subsequent deparliamentarization which has often been thought by historians to have eased Hitler's transition to power, it attempts to use statistical verification to underline a number of hypotheses generally agreed upon by historians, but which lack substantial evidence. In considering Hindenburg's election, a number of variables are considered, such as: which parties the Hindenburg voters came from, why Hindenburg was backed rather than his oppositional candidate Wilhelm Marx, and what social background the Hindenburg voters had. Also, the commonly held belief that many of the communist voters fluctuated from the communist party candidate, Ernst Thälmann, to Adolf Hitler is statistically analyzed." (author's abstract

The anatomy of a Volkspartei: the sociography of the membership of the NSDAP in Stadt- und Landkreis Wetzlar, 1925-1935

Der Beitrag analysiert anhand der Mitgliederlisten der NSDAP deren sozialstrukturelle Zusammensetzung in einer deutschen Kleinstadt mit vorwiegend protestantischer Bevölkerung. Im Zentrum der Auswertung und Interpretation stehen die Mitgliederzu- und abgänge der Partei während der 'Kampfzeit' bis 1933 und nach der 'Machtergreifung'. Die Daten zeigen anhand des sozialstrukturellen Merkmals 'Berufszugehörigkeit', daß es sich bei der NSDAP eindeutig um eine 'Volkspartei' gehandelt hat, d.h. ihre Rekrutierung und Mobilisierung verlief quer durch alle Schichten der Bevölkerung. Die Unterlagen über die Bewegungen im Mitgliederbestand und die schichtmäßige Zusammensetzung befinden sich heute im Hessischen Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden. (pre)'The analysis of the sociography of the NSDAP membership presented here is based on a complete set of data provided by a register of new members joining the party in Wetzlar town and county between 1930 and 1933, along with branch census returns drawn up in 1934 and 1935 relating to 46 of the 62 branches and cells established by the NSDAP in the region by 1933. These data permit not only a very detailed, comprehensive examination of the social contours of the membership mobilized by the NSDAP in a predominantly Protestant, rural and small-town milieu, but also throw light on the question as to which occupational groupings were involved in the relatively high membership turn-over which the party suffered from in its so-called Kampfzeit, an aspect of the Nazi Party about which we know little that is specific to date. The data show that the NSDAP mobilized a following in the Wetzlar region which transcended class divides, making the party a Volkspartei in social terms. In Wetzlar town and county the Nazi Party secured a membership whose occupational and class profile was astonishingly variable from branch to branch. The almost totally male, and predominantly young, membership was subjected to a high rate of membership turn-over in the early 1930s, in which the volatility among the working-class members drawn to the party before 1933 is particularly striking.' (author's abstract

Minor and major flaws of a widely used data set: the ICPSR 'German Weimar Republik data 1919-1933' under scrutiny

Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft und die Stiftung Volkswagenwerk finanzieren zwei getrennte, aber thematisch zusammenhängende Forschungsprojekte über Wahlen und das Wahlverhalten in der Weimarer Republik und Österreich. Beide Forschungsteams arbeiten unter der Leitung von J. Falter an der Hochschule der Bundeswehr in München. Der größte Teil ihrer Arbeit greift, neben anderen Quellen, auf die vielbenutzte Datensammlung 'German Weimar Republic Data 1919 - 1933' (ICPSR Nr. 0042) zurück, die in der BRD vom Kölner Zentralarchiv für europäische Sozialforschung betrieben wird. (KWübers.)'The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Stiftung Volkswagenwerk are funding two separate but thematically connected research projects on elections and voting behaviour in Weimar Germany and Austria. The two research teams, headed by J. Falter, are based at the Hochschule der Bundeswehr in Munich (German Military University, Munich). Much of their work is, among other sources, drawing on the widely used ICPSR data set 'German Weimar Republic Data 1919 - 1933' (ICPSR No. 0042) which is distributed in West Germany by the Cologne Zentralarchiv für empirische Sozialforschung.' (author's abstract

Die "Märzgefallenen" von 1933: neue Forschungsergebnisse zum sozialen Wandel innerhalb der NSDAP-Mitgliedschaft während der Machtergreifungsphase (1998)

"Certain is that the takeover by the National Socialists at the end of January 1933 led to the flood of applications for membership that year. The 'Märzgefallenen', as they have been cynically referred to as per party jargon, quickly came to represent a majority among party members. As a result, the NSDAP leadership began to question whether the party would remain one belonging to the cadres and elites, or whether it would become a de-politicized one of the masses. Observers today are all certain that the massive influx to the party fundamentally changed the social and intellectual makeup of the party. This article considers the development of party membership until 1933, specifically focusing on the social development of the party as a result of the 'takeover'. The analysis in the article is supported by data from the central membership register of the NSDAP." (author's abstract

Kontinuität und Neubeginn: die Bundestagswahl 1949 zwischen Weimar und Bonn [1981]

"The goal of the following analysis is to consider the hardly researched Bundestag elections as a link between the first and second German Republics in their historical context. Due to the lack of available data - there are no surveys available - an aggregate data analysis has been used to develop results about the socio-economic voting patterns from a temporal and spatial perspective. The economic and political factors in the election campaign are investigated in order to analyze the election. The Weimar roots of the election results are also presented in order to compare the results between 1928 and 1949. The relationship between the performance of the most important parties in the Bundestag elections of 1949, those parties' percentages of votes in the Landtag elections in 1946/ 7, and the Bundestag elections of 1953 are considered. The analysis of the socio-economic composition of the election results follows, whereby the influence of social factors on the election results is considered in the development leading up to the 1953 Bundestag elections. These factors include: (1) religious influences; (2) economic influences; (3) influence of socio-economic background. Then, the isolated relationships between the individual influence factors are illustrated in a causal model with latent variables. The results of the study are discussed." (author's abstract

Autobiografische Anmerkungen

As a comparatively young boy I became strongly interested in both historical and political issues. This had to do, of course, with German history and the Cold War of the 1950s. As a student, I concentrated on historical and social studies, majored in political science and turned, due to my interest in the voters of the extremist NPD, into an empiricist and voting behavior specialist. Using theories and methods of voting behavior research for the analysis of the NSDAP electorate, I very soon discovered that much of what we believed about Nazi voting was empirically unfounded or flawed. So, in order to create substantial knowledge on the subject, I worked for more than twelve years on the question of “Who voted for Hitler?” After that, and until now, I have been working on the NSDAP party membership, a work still in progress. These topics, however, comprise only a smaller part of my scientific work. A much bigger part deals with modern voting behavior, political attitudes, extremist voters, the methodology of the social sciences, etc. These latter aspects of my career as a scientist are not dealt with in depth in the following

Wählerbewegungen zur NSDAP 1924-1933: methodische Probleme - empirisch abgesicherte Erkenntnisse - offene Fragen [1980]

"Although extensive research on National Socialist voting behavior has been conducted on a national as well as an international scale, a critical view of the results show that today's knowledge of NSDAP voters has not yet reached a sufficient empirical foundation. A far-reaching consensus on the social and economic situation, party political background and personal motivations of NSDAP voters still relies on a fragmentary, incomplete basis. Particularly the German research landscape needs to catch up with the progress of the international academic community working on NSDAP voting behavior. Two errors are characteristic and frequent in historical election research: the error of 'arbitrary' selection and the error of naive disaggregation. Both lead to a mix of social-statistic correlations with individual correlations resulting in intuitive interpretations that are often unfounded. A closer look on statistical data and the application of methods used in modern election research would help to avoid common false conclusion." (author's abstract