Ben Wilson

So in November of 1932, new elections are held, and this is when the NSDAP hits its wall.

Party coffiers were empty.

There's huge election fatigue.

People are frustrated that the Nazis kept refusing to participate in government.

And the results show 2 million people defect from voting for the NSDAP.

Seats fell from 230 to 196.

And the biggest winners were the far left communist parties.

People are basically saying, all right,

We tried things, the status quo didn't work.

We tried voting for the far right, for the National Socialist Party, and they refused to participate in government.

So that didn't work either.

I guess let's try the communists.

Let's try the Marxists.

You know, maybe they can make things work.

So 1932 is a huge setback for the National Socialists and for Hitler in particular.

And it seemed like a repudiation of his strategy not to accept the vice chancellorship from von Papen.

It's like, what were you doing, man?

You should have just participated in government.

That's what everyone else thinks.

There were genuine questions about whether the Nazi movement had passed, whether the movement would slowly, it was too big to just go to zero, right?