Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

cities (Geoffrey Pridham,
Hitler’s Rise to Power. The Nazi Movement in Bavaria, 1923–1933,
London, 1973, 80.) The turn-out was the lowest (75.6 per cent) of any Weimar Reichstag election (Falter
et ai, Wahlen,
71).
    266 . See e.g.
RSA,
III/2, 202 for Hitler’s criticism in April 1929 of the ‘20, 30 and more parties’ and politicized economic interest groups, a reflection of the division in all areas.
    267 . Falter
et al., Wahlen,
44.
    268 . The Völkisch-Nationaler Block put up its own candidates in 1928 and, to the NSDAP’s pleasure, gained only 0.9 per cent (266,430 votes) of the vote and not a single seat (Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 91).
    269 . Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 85–7. The party subsequently acknowledged publiclythat ‘the election results of the rural areas have proved that with a smaller expenditure of energy, money, and time, better results can be achieved than in the big cities’
VB,
31 May 1928, cit. in Noakes,
Nazi Party,
123).
    270 . Noakes,
Nazi Party,
121–3).
    271 . Falter
et al., Wahlen,
71; and Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 85–6, for derisory levels of support for the NSDAP in eastern regions. For the drop in votes for the DNVP, see also Baranowski,
Sanctity,
127–8.
    272 .
TBJG,
I.1, 226 (22 May 1928), for Goebbels’s appreciation of the importance of his immunity from prosecution. Hanfstaengl,
15 Jahre,
192, recalled Göring’s satisfaction at free first-class travel on the Reichsbahn and other material advantages from becoming a Reichstag deputy. According to Hanfstaengl, Göring had threatened Hitler with an ultimatum: he was to be put on the candidate’s list, or he and Hitler would part as opponents. Hitler conceded.
    273 . Cit. Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 81, from
Der Angriff,
30 May 1928.
    274 . Orlow, i.132.
    275 . Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
293; and see Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 91.
    276 . Orlow, i.137–8;
RSA,
III/1, 22, 35. For Hitler’s passivity and near contemptuous indifference at the proceedings of the conference, condemning them to pointlessness since those attending looked all the time for decisions from Hitler that never came, see Krebs, 131–2(misdated to October).
    277 .
RSA,
III/1, 56–62. For Gregor Strasser’s organizational plan, see Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 94; Orlow, i.139–41.
    278 . Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 95.
    279 .
RSA,
II/2, 847.
    280 .
RSA,
III/1, XI; also
RSA,
IIA, XIV, XIX.
    281 . Tyrell,
Führer,
289.
    282 .
RSA,
III/1, 3.
    283 . Wilhelm Hoegner,
Der schwierige Außenseiter. Erinnerungen eines Abgeordneten, Emigranten und Ministerpräsidenten,
Munich, 1959, 48; Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 90.
    284 . The ban was terminated on 28 September 1928 (
RSA,
III/1, 236 n.2). Hitler had spoken on 13 July to around 5,000 in Berlin, but at a closed party meeting.
(RSA,
III/1, 11–22;
TBJG,
I.1, 245 (14 July 1928)).
    285 .
RSA,
III/1, 236–40;
TBJG,
I.1, 291 (17 November 1928). Goebbels commented that the hall was closed by the police with 16,000 inside. The VB’s estimate (see
RSA,
III, 236 n.2) was 18,000.
    286 .
RSA,
III/1, 238–9.
    287 . RSA, III/1, 239.
    288 . See Sefton Delmer,
Trail Sinister,
London, 1961, 101–2.
    289 . Bernd Weisbrod,
Schwerindustrie in der Weimarer Republik,
Wuppertal, 1978, 415–56.
    290 . Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
297–8; Kolb,
Die Weimarer Republik,
90. The annual average for 1929, at a little under 2 millions, was around half a million higher thanthe previous year. There was also a sharp rise in the numbers of workers on short-time (Petzina
et al.,
119, 122).
    291 . Joseph P. Schumpeter,
Aufsätze zur Soziologie,
Tübingen, 1953, 225.
    292 . Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
296.
    293 . See Winkler,
Weimar,
ch.10; Peukert,
Die Weimarer Republik,
ch.7.
    294 . Ten per cent of the working-age population and 18 per cent of trade unionists were unemployed in 1926 (Petzina
et al.,
119). For the extensive alienation of working-class youth, see Peter D. Stachura,
The Weimar Republic and the Younger Proletariat,
London, 1989. The particularly severe impact of unemployment on youth is dealt with by Dick Geary, ‘Jugend, Arbeitslosigkeit und politischer Radikalismus am Ende der Weimarer Republik’,
Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte,
4/5 (1983), 304–9.
    295 . See Larry Eugene Jones, ‘The Dying Middle: Weimar Germany and the Fragmentation of Bourgeois Polities’,
Central European History,
5 (1969), 23–54; and his book,
German Liberalism and the Dissolution of the Weimar Party System, 1918–1933,
Chapel Hill, 1988.
    296 .