In 1928, Germany had an election the NSDAP (the Nazi party) did poorly. They had 810,000 votes out of 40 million voters. That is only 2. 6 per cent of all the votes, which gave them 12 seats in parliament. They did so badly that people did not see Hitler as a threat no more. Therefore, they lifted the ban on him, now he could give speeches wherever he likes. The result was a surprise to all the other political parties as well as Hitler himself, because he had spent four year changing the party and its image.
In 1924, Hitler was realised from prison after serving 4 years imprisonment in Lansbach Castle. 924 Hitler promised that he would not start any putsch, other wise the ban on the NSDAP would be lifted. Hitler realised, if wanted power then he has to follow the democratic method. Even though he hated democracy, and it would take much longer then a revolution, he knows he had no other choice; this method was called the path of Legality. The path of Legality is not the path that he wanted to go down but he knew that if he tried to start a putsch again then he would be sent to prison for life, this time around.
Moreover, he could not take that risk; Hitler would make the same mistake two times in a row. Now Hitler was beginning to see himself as a leader too, because he had a lot of time to think through all the mistakes he has made and to improve the party further, while he was in prison. Hitler was not allowed to make public speeches in some cities, even though NSDAP is once again a legal party, because Hitler had such strong influence on people with his oratorical skills. While Hitler was in prison, the NSDAP started to fight and split in to smaller branches.
Therefore, he had to join them together and show them who the leader is. Hitler realised, for them to win a place in government he has to change the whole image of the party. The Nazi party is not a small local party any more; it is going to become a national party, so they had to have members of their party all across the country. Hitler made network of parties, each party was in their own Gaue, and it was led by a Gauleriter, then the Gaue was sub-divided further into Kreis, which were lead, by Kreislriter.
Germany was divided into 35 Gaue and its boards were very clear and organised. Before, it was very difficult to separate each region because it was so unorganised. Each of the regions main aim were to, focus on propaganda, speeches, giving out leaflets; they also raised funds for the party to run, nd they were supporting their candidate standing in for election. The Nazi members would try to get very important people in a community to join their party, so that people who admire these people would become members of the party too. They got a lot of member in that way.
Hitler also realised that a lot of the party are trying to attract the working classes vote, so it would be very difficult to gain all much support from them. So they have to look at different classes like the mittlestand, they are usually the worst hit when anything goes wrong and there is not that many parties for them too chose from. Therefore, the mittlestand became one of the Nazis targets and potential voters. The Nazi has also targeted the Farmers because they were going through a rough time and they want support from the government.
The party would say one thing to the Mittlestand and another to the farmers, it did not really mater what is said as long as the Nazis get in to power, they are only saying all of this to get the votes, they have no intention of for filling any of the polices that they have told these people. However, the downfall of the party is, Hitler have given each region a lot of independence. Therefore, they can do what ever they want in their region as long as they are campaigning for the party. So different regions seemed to have slightly different policies to another, or have diverse strategise of campaigning to another.
It also brought a lot of rivalry in to the party, various regions started to compete with each other to get the attention of their leader, Hitler. Hitler encourage this practice, this could be because he believe in Darwins theory, the survival of the fittest. Hitler believed that through this process he could see who is a natural leader or the strongest leader of all the Gaue. During this period, the Nazis were getting a lot of support from the younger generation, teenagers, young voter. Their main interest was Hitler and to have him as a leader, as well as the excitement of getting involved in an extreme, radical party.
Hitlers confidence of becoming the fhrer has been boosted by the support and respect he is getting from his party members as well as supports. Gerg Stressa, 1927, we have the outstanding leader who holds not only supreme power but also the love of his followers, a much stronger binding force. This shows that his followers too believe that he is the supreme leader, and he is the on to lead Germany to stability and power. The only thing that he really had not changed was the SA. Hitler had to remodel them so they would not be as threatening as they looked.
Hitler had to change them from a military look to more of a peace loving march banned. The leader of the SA, Rhm said that he would resign if Hitler went ahead with his plan to tone down the SA. Hitler did not care what Rhm said, so he carried on with his plans, and Rhm was soon replaced by von Pfeffer (an ex-Freikorps leader). Hitler did not want to lose too much of the military style so they kept their uniforms and training but made it seem like they were not a private army. On Sundays the SA would go out on to the streets and marching, playing the drums and give out leaflets, it looked like a marching band.
It was illegal to have a private army so this was the perfect way of hiding the SA. After all those dramatic changes the Nazis had a very disappointing result at the election on 1928, this could be because, the German economy at the time was very stable and many a lot of the people were very happy with the way every thing was going. Therefore, they did not see the point in voting for an extreme party. The Germans were heavily relaying on foreign money but they were managing to stand on their feet. The Germans were producing more then they were before the war this just shows how far the Germans have come.
The Dawes Plan and then the Young Plan helped Germany a lot with the reparations and many other situations. They helped to withdraw the French troops in the Ruhr; troops were taken out of the Rhineland too. The annual payment of the reparation was reduced to a more realistic figure, loans were given to Germany to boost there economy and financial problems. The Allies would keep an eye on the German Mark so it would spiral out of control like the one it did the last time Germany became a permanent member in the League of Nations, now they were not an outcast no more.
