Unemployment and the rise of the Nazis | Letter

John Plowright reflects on how unemployment was viewed by Germans and the fear the KPD sparked

Philipp Ruch believes that the impact of the 1929 Wall Street crash cannot explain the Nazi breakthrough at the 1930 Reichstag election, as the full effects of Black Thursday “didn’t fully arrive in Germany until July 1931” ( ‘Hitler was a lazy criminal who slept in until noon’: why most of what we think we know about the rise of the Nazis is wrong, 1 October ). But unemployment more than doubled between 1928 and the 1930 election, and that fact alone might be thought sufficient to explain the change in Nazi fortunes. Not so, says Ruch, for “in regions where unemployment was high, the Nazi party performed relatively poorly. If anything, unemployment was a factor contributing to anti-fascist resilience.”

This, however, marks a failure to appreciate how rising unemployment was seen by most Germans at the time. Not only did they see it as signifying one aspect of the failure of the coalition parties in government to manage the economy competently, but they also rightly regarded it as fuelling the rise of the Communist party of Germany (KPD), with it being the other great political beneficiary of the Wall Street crash along with the National Socialist German Workers’ party. As the KPD grew, so the Nazi party grew, as it was perceived as the only party with the resolve and the numbers (thanks to the brownshirts) to stop the communists seizing power on the streets.

The fact that the KPD proved a damp squib should not blind us to the fact that the party once inspired genuine, strong and very widespread fear. John Plowright Repton, Derbyshire