POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION September 1930: Nazis win 18% of national vote, and SPD resolves to “tolerate” Heinrich Brüning June-July 1931: Bank crisis, and unemployment soars March-April 1932: Brüning secures the reelection of Hindenburg with support from SPD and then bans SA June 1932: Hindenburg appoints Franz von Papen Chancellor, who lifts SA ban and holds new elections

“Red Warfare” (1930): “Man or machine?” “God or devil” “Blood or gold?” “Race or half-breed?” “Folksong or jazz?” “National Socialism or Bolshevism?”

But Hitler reviewed his Stormtroopers alone at Harzburg

Thousands of Stormtroopers march the streets of Brunswick in October 1931

Hitler reviews the SA columns, Brunswick, October 1931

“We workers are now awake. We vote National Socialist” (July 1932): The Communist bum exalts the Soviet Union and class warfare; the SPD labor boss, “agitation and mass rallies.”

SA “Storm Center” [Sturmlokal], Berlin, “Hot lunches” are offered beneath the banner, “Death to the Reactionaries!”

Ernst Thälmann at a Communist rally in Berlin in 1932

KPD campaign headquarters in Hamburg: “March under the Banner LENIN” “Vote for a Soviet Germany” “To the Friend, our Open Hand; To the Enemy, Our Fist”

Campaign posters flooded urban space in 1932

A SAALSCHLACHT: Nazi rally in Bavaria, April-May 1932 After political opponents stormed the podium, the police dissolved the meeting as a threat to public order

Horst Wessel ( ): A Berlin SA leader who was either assassinated by Communists or died in a dispute of his earnings as a pimp

The Center Party campaigned against the extremism of Left and Right but sometimes lumped the SPD with the KPD

“What have you promised, and what have you brought us, you Papens and Hitlers? We trust Brüning!” (Center Party, 1932) „Brüning: The last Bastion of Freedom and Order“ (Center Party, July 1932)

Heinrich Brüning at a rally of the “People’s Front” (Berlin, July 1932): Catholic youth and Christian trade unionists guarded the hall

The SPD also campaigned against the extremism but sometimes took shots at the Center Party

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS WERE PREPARED TO FIGHT TO DEFEND THEIR RALLIES March by the Republican Reichsbanner, founded in 1925 Carl Severing addressed SPD rally in July 1932

“The People Will Die from this System!” (SPD, July 1932) “The Worker in the Realm of the Swastika!” (SPD, July 1932)