I think the best showing that the Nazis ever had in a more or less free election was 43.9% in the March 1933 election which was held shortly after the Reichstag fire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_election,_1933)
I don't know if Germany had any sort of public opinion polling in the 1930s. I suspect that during the periods of Hitler's initial successes (like reviving the German economy, taking back the Rhineland, etc.) his popularity would have been very high. People here might recall that the elder George Bush was scoring favorable rating of 90%+ following the 1991 Gulf War. It is likewise important to note that the Nazis never risked submitting themselves to a free election again following the passage of the Enabling Act in the Reichstag which gave Hitler the power to rule by decree.
Jim F.
-- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote: My apologies if this is a hackneyed subject.
As part of my current Leni Riefenstahl kick, I bought and watched (rewatched actually since I saw it when it first came out ages ago) the Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, which if you don't know is a biography of Frau Riefenstahl. So, in the course of trying to exonerate herself and her work, Riefenstahl (who looks damn good for a 90-year-old) claims repeatedly that 90% of the German public supported Hitler and she was just part of the era, and so on and so forth.
90%!?!? I know the NSDAP led a mass movement and all, but this seems like an exaggeration to me. How much support did they actually have?
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