Who voted Nazi? What the election posters suggest and why we need to be careful when using them.

Why posters are helpful At elections there was a secret ballot, so we can never be absolutely sure how people voted We have hundreds of autobiographies explaining why some voted Nazi, but are these TYPICAL and RELIABLE?

We need to compare this evidence with numerous autobiographies, speeches, leaflets etc. But these posters do broadly indicate who the Nazis were trying to attract and how, (if we can read them accurately).

Can you find 6 reasons for voting Nazi that these posters were trying to promote?

Marks 3 marks if you can work it out without a written clue 2 if you can work it out with a written clue 1 if you can partly work it out, without a written clue. First team to get 15 marks wins!

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Enlarged view 

 Work and bread

Clue: what does the number refer to? 

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Slide 1 “Free Saxony (a part of Northern Germany) from Marxist trash!”

Slide 2 “Two million dead. Did they die in vain? Never! Front soldiers! Adolf Hitler is showing you the way!”

Slide 3 “Freedom and Bread.”

Slide 4 Notice the sword through the Jewish star of David. The red words coming from the snake are: usury, Versailles, unemployment, war guilt lie, Marxism, Bolshevism, lies and betrayal, inflation, Locarno, Dawes Pact, Young Plan, corruption, Barmat, Kutistker, Sklarek [the last three Jews involved in major financial scandals], prostitution, terror, civil war.

Slide 5 Work and bread, (regarded by the Nazis as one of their most successful posters)

Slide 6 The text: “5,600,000 unemployed demand work! The need of the unemployed is the need of the whole people! On Friday evening, 15 January 1932, at 8 p.m., there will be sixteen mass meetings for the unemployed.”

Slide 7 “Enough! Vote Hitler!”

Slide 8 Workers of the mind and hand! Vote for the front soldier Adolf Hitler!”

Slide 9 Break the Dawes plan. Vote for the Nazis.

Slide 10 Our last hope

Credits I am very grateful to Calvin University for allowing me permission to reproduce small images from their authoritative collection of German propaganda posters which can be found on their site. It is well worth a visit and contains many more examples which you might like to use.site.