John Plowright responds to Philipp Ruch's claim that the 1929 Wall Street crash cannot explain the Nazi breakthrough at the 1930 Reichstag election, as its full effects “didn’t fully arrive in Germany until July 1931”. Plowright notes that unemployment more than doubled between 1928 and the 1930 election, which alone might explain the change in Nazi fortunes. However, Ruch argues that in regions where unemployment was high, the Nazi party performed relatively poorly, suggesting unemployment contributed to anti-fascist resilience.
German Views on Unemployment
Plowright contends this overlooks how most Germans saw rising unemployment at the time. They viewed it as a sign of the coalition parties' failure to manage the economy competently and rightly regarded it as fueling the rise of the Communist party of Germany (KPD), the other great political beneficiary of the Wall Street crash alongside the Nazi party.
Fear of Communism
As the KPD grew, so did the Nazi party, perceived as the only party with the resolve and numbers, thanks to the brownshirts, to stop the communists seizing power on the streets. The fact that the KPD proved a damp squib should not blind us to the genuine, strong, and very widespread fear it once inspired.
