Jürgen W. Falter & Dirk Hänisch: Die Anfälligkeit von Arbeitern gegenüber der NSDAP bei den Reichstagswahlen 1928-1933 [1986]

»Workers’ Vulnerability toward the NSDAP during the Reichstag Elections in 1928-1933». Going against popular assumptions declaring the NSDAP as a middle-class phenomenon, the NSDAP managed to appeal voters from all population classes in Germany after 1928. Based on a complete and corrected data set, a bi- and trivariate analysis of the correlation between NSDAP and working-class population shows that, apart from the overrepresentation of the Protestant middle class, no other party had as much of a catch-all party character as was the case for the NSDAP. Members of the working class were reluctant to vote NSDAP only when they were integrated in a proletarian or Catholic-political (Zentrum-oriented) milieu. Based on these new results, the long upheld thesis of a middle-class voter phenomenon for the NSDAP has to be rejected.