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Childers, Thomas. The Nazi voter: the social foundations of fascism in

Germany, 1919-1933. The university of North Carolina press: Chapel Hill

and London.Juan Vargas

Critical Book Review

Dr. Cook

September 30, 2014

The Nazi voter review

Almost everyone in modern society knows or at least has

heard the name Adolf Hitler, without questioning one of the most

brutal and despicable men in the whole history. Guilty of many

things including multiple war crimes and the slaughter of more

than 11 million humans, among these approximately two thirds of

the Jews that lived in Europe at such time. But truth be told

very few know what brought him into power, and the things that

happened in Germany during those years, where misery and death

were an everyday thing.

Few are able to talk about the facts like Thomas Childers,

a career historian who earned a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1976 after

graduating from the University of Tennessee, where he started a

career as a historian, the same year he would start working as a

teacher in Pennsylvania State where his main focus was European

history and the two great wars. That same year he would publish

his very first book The Nazi Voter.

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The Nazi Voter is basically a study of the voters in the

country and city and how these two affected the German

constituency. The book basically talks about how the Nazi were

created, what social groups were among them, what conditions

they had and what were the things they promised the people.

Childers utilizes much of the data available in this day and age

to inspect each of the national elections during the Weimar era,

by doing this he pretends to figure out and give new insight

about how Hitler came into power, who voted for him and why.

Thomas Childers also gives the reader a critical explanation of

how the Nazi campaign worked and how it achieved some of its

goals.

The author of The Nazi Voter points out continuously during

the book how the opinion of the people was divided during a

post-world war era, with crime rates on the rise the population

was demanding safety. When the need for and anti-criminal entity

started to be provided by the new political party, the Nazis,

the popularity of such group increased greatly, the people acted

in the best perceived interest; little did they know about what

was to come. The unusual thing in this book is that the author

uses an uncommon sample that goes from 1920 to November of 1932,

Childers gives the reader numerous tables and graphs including

even data regressions, all of this in an attempt to clarify and

provide comprehensive analysis of how the electoral parameter of

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Germany was shifting into a socialist-fascist environment. This

would later result in catastrophic events. He also uses many

types of evidence to support his arguments.

Childers examines much of the educational material of the

Weimar era, he argues that all of the content included in such

books is somewhat supporting the ideals that the parties sought

to project into their audience. The author seems to lack

specific opinions about the people of such era and for this

reason he continuously makes inferences about the opinions of

the electors, but such give the reader a valuable insight of

what was the environment in which the elections at this point of

time were being held.

The author talks about how the existing parties started

dissolving not during the depression in the 1930s but instead

during the rampant inflation that would take place during 1922

and 1923. Through history it has been continuously linked the

rise of Hitler and the hyperinflation that took place during the

1920s. The economic uncertainty, increasing poverty and

instability lead the people to not ask but demand for change,

they thought this revolutionary and his ideas of socialism

combined with some fascist aspects would be the key to change

the current situation.

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Childers argues that the political parties of the Weimar

era struggled to meet the demands of their supporters to end the

harsh policies the people was under. The policies were a

countermeasure to the rampant inflation, but the people did not

understand what was going on. The situation was so extenuating

the people started to get tired, a ninety percent tax rate was

not something people was going to endure for a long time. Things

would have to change and the one to make this change would be

Hitler, sadly it would not be quite what they were expecting

because things were about to be even worse.

The Nazi voter is indeed an interesting book to read in

order to understand the development and the things that happened

during the Weimar era. It is a book that develops well the why

and how of the coming into power of Hitler. Unfortunately it has

too many graphs and tables of numbers that for many readers like

this one can quickly turn the book into something tedious and

boring to read. Though an aspect of history of such

transcendence is indeed developed through the book, it is

somewhat questionable why Childers would take such a long period

as the polling sample. This makes the reader wonder how many

details were omitted because of the countless amount of events

that took place during the Weimar era. Indeed a very informative

book to read but sadly not a pleasant one.