Public opinion is imperative for any political structure or party and must always be taken into consideration by the leaders. Even totalitarian regimes must have some degree of support, especially at the beginning of their rule. The support, or rather the lack of opposition, of the non-Jewish German people was necessary for the success of the Nazi regime in the 1930s.
The German people’s opinion of Nazi beliefs and legislation shifted throughout the party’s rise to power. Although it took some time for the party to garner support, by 1932 it received 37% of the popular vote. In 1933, when Hitler was appointed chancellor, many people had grown dissatisfied with the Weimar Republic. Later that year, the Nazi party began acting upon their anti-semitism.
The National Socialist German Worker’s Party was able to have public support before Hitler’s chancellorship because they appealed to multiple political leanings. In their 25 Points publication, released in 1920, they stood against big business and advocated for dividing their profits among small business owners. These early marks of socialism were popular among the working class. They also believed in a strong central government authority, which appealed to conservatives. The party also wanted all ethnic Germans to be part of a Greater Germany and they demanded a place at the table in peace negotiations, which they believed they missed out on in the Treaty of Versailles. These ideals were popular among nationalists and war veterans who believed in the unfairness of the Paris Peace Conference. These varying political ideologies combined with a growing discontentment in the then-current German government allowed the Nazi party to rise to power and popularity.
In April 1933, the Nazis sponsored a boycott of all Jewish businesses. At this time, they did not have the public on their side when it came to outright and active anti-semitism. Many Germans continued to purchase goods at Jewish stores whether because of better prices, because it was routine for them, or in some (but very few) cases outright opposition to the state-sanctioned boycott. At this point the Nazi party realized that Jewish social exclusion would have to be a gradual process and it could not happen overnight. It would take time to garner, if not support, indifference from the majority of the German population.
Over the next several years, the Nazis gradually segregated Jewish people from society. Later in 1933, they banned Jewish people from civil service jobs, including government offices and teaching positions. In June, they banned all political parties, other than the National Socialist German Worker’s Party. With these two measures, they essentially eliminated any government influence Jews could have. They also forced many organizations to either disband or continue under Nazi control. After under their power, the Nazis would exclude Jews from labor and extracurricular organizations.
All during this time, German people were beginning to abandon their Jewish friends. Being seen with Jews could mean discrimination for a German person. In 1934, it became illegal for a member of the Nazi party to be seen in public with a Jewish person and in 1935, party members could not associate with Jewish people at all, even in private. The Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, were seemingly ever-present, when in reality, they had civilian informants and agents. This threat also limited Germans’ willingness to be friends and neighbors with Jews. While many Jewish people understood the reasons their friends were limiting interactions to behind closed doors or at night, it certainly did not mean this transition was easy. In her book Between Dignity and Despair, Marion Kaplan highlights the fact that every rule had an exception. Even though many Germans abandoned their Jewish friends, there were a select few who chose to stand by them even though it could mean social suicide.
By 1935, the German public had grown indifferent to the plight of Jewish prejudice and discrimination. In September, at the NSDAP rally, the Nuremberg laws were passed. These laws spelled out what it meant to be a Jew and ended citizenship rights for anyone who was Jewish. They also introduced various techniques used to distinguish between a Jew and an Aryan, such as eye and skin tone color swatches. According to these new mandates, anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was counted as Jewish, regardless of their own faith. The Nuremberg Laws also prohibited marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Aryans, under the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor.” The Nuremberg Laws essentially sought to define a Jewish person in racial terms, rather than by religion.
These laws did not face any opposition from the German people. Many remained unaffected, and while they might have felt bad for the Jews that these laws applied to, they figured it was not their business to interfere. In some cases, as Kaplan discusses, these laws were a source of humor for Germans when a doctor unwittingly selected a Jewish child to highlight their preferable Aryan features, causing much amusement for the school children. Opposition to the Nuremberg Laws was not present also perhaps because of a renewed sense of German nationalism. At the NSDAP rally in 1935, Hitler encouraged the Hitler youth movement and spoke out against Communism, which was already a major concern for most Europeans at the time. The summer Olympics were held in Berlin in 1936, so the German people enjoyed a period of pride in their country. The rest of the world also virtually ignored the Nuremberg Laws, instead focusing on Hitler’s hatred for Communism, as demonstrated by newspapers. A newspaper in Scotland, for example, contained a very short article mentioning the Nuremberg rally, but merely said that Hitler was renewing his efforts to fight Bolshevism.
Another reason that the Nuremberg Laws faced little opposition is because many German citizens benefitted from these laws. By defining who was and who was not a Jew, the laws expanded previously legislature to people not defined as “Jews” at the time. Since 1933, Jews had been increasingly excluded from public life, including positions in the public service, banking, and various types of business ownership. In order to create a stronger, more “ideal” German state, Nazi leadership would confiscate Jewish property and give to to Aryan people. This practice would continue throughout the Third Reich and World War II, as the Nazis took over Eastern Europe and confined Jewish people to ghettos. The Nuremberg Laws expanded the definition of Jew, therefore allowing more property to be confiscated and making more job openings for Aryan Germans. German support for the Nuremberg Laws grew therefore, because it made room for more opportunities for Aryan workers, families, and students.
Over the next three years, legislation that targeted Jews increased and the annexation of Austria in 1938 applied these laws to Austrian Jews alongside German Jews. In Austria, Hitler was welcomed with open arms and a positive public opinion. Perhaps because Hitler himself was born in Vienna or perhaps because anti-semitism was already a widely held belief system, or because Austria was home to a large German population, the general populace of Austria was perfectly fine with joining the Third Reich.
In November of 1938, the state sponsored pogrom, Kristallnacht “The Night of Broken Glass” occurred. In one night, over 700 Jewish business, 250 synagogues and countless homes, schools, and graveyards were destroyed and looted. In those dark hours, many SS and Gestapo soldiers carried out the violence, but they could not have done so much damage without others. Some Germans saw this night as an adventure, and opportunity to smash things with no repercussions. Other opportunist Germans saw this as an easy scheme to loot goods and valuables from homes and businesses. Many members of the Hitler’s Youth organizations also took part, perhaps more for the spectacle of it all rather than raging anti-semitism, although enough Germans took part for that reason as well.
In the aftermath, however, many Germans displayed displeasure at the destruction, not for moral reasons, but for more pragmatic ones. They did not like the fact that cleaning efforts and rubble disrupted their daily lives, their commute to work, their trip to take their kids to school, or an errand to the butcher’s. They also did not support the destruction of private property that could have been later placed in Aryan possession. Other Germans, especially Catholics, were uncomfortable with the synagogues and religious symbols that were damaged and destroyed. Overall, German public disapproval of the pogrom was not so much about the anti-semitic beliefs behind it or because of a sense of a humanitarian crises, but rather a material concern for the destruction of property. German public opinion of Kristallnacht was similar to the public opinion throughout the Third Reich: the majority of Germans did not support it, but Nazi rule thrived on the lack of concern expressed by many.
By keeping their policies somewhat under the radar, or at least by not letting them disrupt the Aryan’s lives, the Nazis were able to carry out many more drastic measure against Jews in the years following 1938. Although at first anti-Jewish measures made by the Nazi government were not condoned or supported by the German public, the regime would later thrive on the indifference displayed by Germans. The Nazi party never needed full support from the public for their legislation to succeed, they only needed a lack of opposition, which the majority of the German public provided.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hitler and Dangers of Bolshevism. The Evening Telegraph and Post (Dundee, Scotland), Monday, September 30, 1935; pg. 5; Issue 18360. British Library Newspapers, Part IV: 1732-1950.
Bergen, Doris L. War & Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
Kaplan, Marion A. Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Stackelberg, Roderick. Hitler’s Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Stackelberg, Roderick and Sally Anne Winkle. The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts. London: Routledge, 2002.
Steinweis, Alan E. Kristallnacht 1938. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
MaryBeth Ames 