¹ Führer befiehl… Selbstzeugnisse aus der “Kampfzeit” der NSDAP. Dokumentation und Analyse, ed. by Tyrell, Albrecht (Düsseldorf, 1969), p. 352Google Scholar; and Ausgewählte Dokumente zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus 1933–1945, ed. by Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf and Jochmann, Werner (Bielefeld, 1961ff.).Google Scholar The official figures quoted in these sources have been reduced 10–15% to reflect the degree of fluctuation in party membership Tyrell believes took place; this assumption is examined in ch. VI below. See also Mein Kampf (Boston, 1943), II, ch. 11Google Scholar, for Hitler's distinction between “passive” supporters, or voters, and “active” members of the Nazi movement: “Being a supporter is rooted only in understanding, membership in the courage personally to advocate and disseminate what has been understood. Understanding in its passive form corresponds to the majority of mankind which is lazy and cowardly. Membership requires an activistic frame of mind and thus corresponds only to the minority of men.”

² Browder, George C., “Problems and Potentials of the Berlin Document Center”, in: Central European History, V (1972), pp. 362–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Another approach, employing computer techniques, has been suggestively applied by Kater, Michael H. in a series of articles beginning with “Zur Soziographie der frühen NSDAP”, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, XIX (1971), pp. 124–59Google Scholar, and most recently “Sozialer Wandel in der NSDAP im Zuge der nationalsozialistischen Machtergreifung”, in: Faschismus als soziale Bewegung, ed. by Schieder, Wolfgang (Hamburg, 1976), pp. 25–67.Google Scholar Jürgen Genuneit of Hamburg University is also completing a computer-based dissertation on the socio-economic structure of the early NSDAP. I owe several suggestions for the present paper to correspondence and conversations with both these scholars.

³ Pridham, Geoffrey, Hitler's Rise to Power: The Nazi Movement in Bavaria 1923–1933 (London, 1973), p. 1.Google Scholar The pioneer study of the Nazi movement at the local level by Allen, William S., The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1930–1935 (Chicago, 1965)Google Scholar, deals with the subject of party membership in “Thalburg” (that is, Northeim) too imprecisely. Thus his statement that the town itself “had only about forty actual members of the NSDAP prior to 1933” apparently is based solely upon the recollections of three non-Nazi citizens some thirty years later and, moreover, seems highly improbable in view of the “astounding” activity of the Northeim Ortsgruppe during that period which he records (ibid., pp. 72, 314, note 21). Elsewhere Allen asserts that “in January, 1933, there were fewer than a hundred dues-paying Nazis” in Northeim (ibid., p. 233), a figure no more exact or particularly credible.

⁴ Anzeiger für das Fürstentum Lübeck (hereafter AFL), Eutin, 4 May 1932; Denkschrift zur Eingliederung des oldenburgischen Landesteils Lübeck in die Provinz Schleswig-Holstein am 1. April 1937, ed. by [Hermann, ] Diercks, (Plön, 1937), p. 178Google Scholar; and Heberle, Rudolf, Landbevölkerung und Nationalsozialismus. Eine soziologische Untersuchung der politischen Willensbildung in Schleswig-Holstein 1918–1932 (Stuttgart, 1963), p. 42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ The remaining parties polled the following totals in 1928: SPD 1,356; DNVP 1,042; DVP 424; DDP 337; Reich Party 153; Center 118; and KPD 27. Two years later, the DNVP dropped 76.6% to 244 votes, the Reich Party 62%, the DDP/State Party 29%, the DVP 26%, and the SPD 8.4% to 1,242 votes. Other than the Nazis, only the Center and the KPD upped their vote (to 135 and 35 respectively), while the newly formed Conservative People's Party probably collected its 148 votes from among former supporters of the DNVP. Reichstagswahl am 20. Mai 1928, Stadtarchiv Eutin (hereafter SAE), No 585; and ibid., No 588, Reichstagswahl am 14. September 1930.

⁶ The returns in the town were: NSDAP 2,182 (55% of the total vote); SPD 1,021 (25.8%); DNVP 378 (9.5%); KPD 122 (3%); Center 115 (2.9%); State Party 66 (1.6%); and DVP/Economic Party 57 (1.4%). AFL, 31 May 1932.

⁷ Although Eutin lay geographically within the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, until April 1937 under a Regierungspräsident it was the administrative center of a substantially independent 540-square-kilometer enclave called “Landesteil Lübeck” belonging to the state of Oldenburg, whose capital was some 200 kilometers away to the southwest beyond the Weser River. For the political and constitutional history of this relic of eighteenth-century Kleinstaaterei, see Peters, Gustav, Geschichte von Eutin (Neumünster, 1958)Google Scholar; also Schücking, Walther, Das Staatsrecht des Grossherzogtums Oldenburg (Tübingen, 1911), pp. 18ff.Google Scholar

⁸ Führer befiehl, op. cit., pp. 150, 192–93, 224–25, 258; Stoltenberg, Gerhard, Politische Strömungen im schleswig-holsteinischen Landvolk 1918–1933Google Scholar. Ein Beitrag zur poli-tischen Meinungsbildung in der Weimarer Republik (Düsseldorf, 1962), pp. 143ff.Google Scholar; Orlow, Dietrich, The History of the Nazi Party: 1919–1933 (Pittsburgh, 1969), pp. 117–18Google Scholar; and Loomis, Charles P. and Beegle, J. Allen, “The Spread of German Nazism in Rural Areas”, in: American Sociological Review. XI (1946), pp. 724–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ US National Archives (hereafter USNA), microfilm publications, microcopy T-81, roll 164, frames 302405–24. The original document is now deposited in the Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein (hereafter LASH), Ace. 52/1968.

¹⁰ Cf. Browder, “Problems and Potentials”, loc. cit., p. 366; letters from Professor Kater and Dr Tyrell to the author, 17 November and 4 December 1974; and Merkl, Peter, Political Violence under the Swastika: 581 Early Nazis (Princeton, 1975), p. 636 and note 3.Google Scholar

¹¹ Cf. Gaugeschäftsführer Gau Schleswig-Holstein der NSDAP to Ortsgruppe Eutin, 8 July 1931, USNA, T-81, roll 175, fr. 317799: “It is understandable that national headquarters makes mistakes precisely in matters of filing.”

¹² Cf. Gottfried Wolf to Kreisleitung Provinz Lübeck u. Ortsgruppenleitung Eutin der NSDAP, 15 June 1934, BDC/PK; also Gaugeschäftsführer Gau Schleswig-Holstein der NSDAP to Ortsgruppe Eutin, 9 and 30 January 1932, USNA, T-81, roll 164, frs 303265 and 303283. At least one treasurer apparently reported members to Munich as no longer belonging to the party while continuing to collect and pocket their dues!

¹³ As Table 5 indicates, four only formally joined the party after 1 May 1932. One, admitted on 1 August, may have had his application pending three months earlier. Two others, who entered on 1 May 1933 as members of nearby Ortsgruppen, had resided in Eutin a year before where they were already staunch supporters of Hitler's movement and were probably therefore listed. The remaining individual became a Nazi on 1 May 1937, the same day as did his brother, who first joined the NSDAP in 1929 but whose membership was later declared invalid; both may have been victims of a dishonest Eutin treasurer.

¹⁴ Cf. Einführung in die Berufszählung. Systematische und alphabetische Verzeichnisse zur Berufszählung 1933, ed. by the Statistisches Reichsamt [Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, CDLIII, 1] (Berlin, 1936), pp. 16–20.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Ibid., pp. 28ff.

¹⁶ Die Erwerbstätigkeit der Reichsbevölkerung, ed. by the Statistisches Reichsamt [Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, CDLIII, 2] (Berlin, 1936), p. 5Google Scholar; and Reithinger, Anton, Stand und Ursachen der Arbeitslosigkeit in Deutschland (Berlin, 1932), p. 7.Google Scholar

¹⁷ In keeping with the 1933 census, all professionals, managers and farmers are counted as independent. However, only merchants, businessmen, store-keepers and handicraftsmen listed separately in the “Branchenverzeichnis der Stadt Eutin” in the Adressbuch (Einwohnerbuch) für Eutin und den gesamten Landesteil Lübeck (Landesteil des Frei-staats Oldenburg) 1932 (Kiel and Eutin, 1932), pp. 42–54, are considered to have been proprietors of their own shop or firm.

¹⁸ The official Partei-Statistik, ed. by the Reichsorganisationsleiter der NSDAP (3 vols; Munich, 1935)Google Scholar, is unsuitable for several reasons. It contains numerous distortions and possibly even deliberate falsifications. Cf. Kater, “Zur Soziographie”, loc. cit., p. 126; Führer befiehl, p. 379; and Pridham, Hitler's Rise to Power, op. cit., pp. 186ff. Its occupational categories are also broader than those which can be determined for a more limited group such as the Eutin membership (cf. Partei-Statistik, I, p. 70).

¹⁹ Although four of these occupations were included among the “technically trained employees” in the 1933 census, the organist, the band leader and both meat inspectors were listed in the 1932 Branchenverzeichnis as independent. Other than the surgeon, the corporation lawyer was the only Eutin party member holding a doctoral degree and should therefore probably be classified as an “employee in a managerial position”.

²⁰ A completely satisfactory solution to the many problems raised by the all too elastic occupational designation of “Kaufmann” seems impossible in view of the absence of more exact data. No doubt some others were independent, such as those who operated their business under a name other than their own and therefore do not appear in the Adressbuch as proprietors. But to include all merchants in one category, as does Professor Kater (“Zur Soziographie”, pp. 134–35), surely overlooks an important distinction.

²¹ Cf. Theodor Geiger, Die soziale Schichtung des deutschen Volkes. Soziographischer Versuch auf statistischer Grundlage (Darmstadt, 1967), p. 87Google Scholar: “Craftsmen have long since passed the point when [for instance] a brush maker with five journeymen thought he owed it to his reputation to describe himself as a ‘manufacturer’.” Although this lone “manufacturer” among Eutin's Nazis had been a salesman rather than a handicraftsman, nevertheless as late as 1935 he apparently employed fewer than 20 workers. Report by the mayor of Eutin to the Regierungspräsident in Eutin on the results of the “Wahlen der Vertrauensmänner in den Betrieben”, 23 April 1935, SAE, No 3482.

²² Cf. “Innungsverzeichnis”, in: Jahresbericht der Handwerkskammer zu Altona für das Kalenderjahr 1935 (Altona-Ottensen, n.d.), pp. 35ff.Google Scholar SAE, No 1191.

²³ On the attraction of handicraftsmen particularly in Schleswig-Holstein towards the NSDAP beginning in November 1929, see Wulf, Peter, Die politische Haltung des schleswig-holsteinischen Handwerks 1928–1932 (Cologne and Opladen, 1969), esp. pp. 93–98, 130–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; more generally also Winkler, Heinrich August, Mittelstand, Demokratie und Nationalsozialismus. Die politische Entwicklung von Handwerk und Kleinhandel in der Weimarer Republik (Cologne, 1973), esp. pp. 157ff.Google Scholar

²⁴ This comparison can only be made very tentatively in view of the problems raised by the occupational designation “Kaufmann” (see note 20). Whereas 253 residents of Eutin were entered in the September 1930 voters' list as either “merchants”, “store-owners”, or “businessmen”, a careful analysis of the Branchenverzeichnis counted altogether 243 businesses (excluding those of handicraftsmen) in the town. According to these figures, virtually 100% of all individuals in this category were therefore independent – a highly unlikely conclusion when the situation prevailing among the Nazi merchants alone is recalled: over 50% of these could not be identified as independent shop-owners. This discrepancy, the only one in the cross-tabulation of occupations in the Ortsgruppe and in the town, cannot be accounted for.

²⁵ This figure was perhaps somewhat reduced from that of almost two years earlier (when the voters' list for the election of September 1930 was compiled); notices of bankruptcy and closures appeared with increasing frequency in the AFL after the fall of 1931. On the other hand, some employees who thereby lost their jobs probably decided to go into business on their own, on however small a scale, thus maintaining and possibly even slightly increasing the number of economic “independents” among the population.

²⁶ The 1933 census described foremen as specially qualified employees who had risen from the ranks of the skilled workers and who now directed the work of others, but conceded that it was not always clear whether an individual in this group as regards his social outlook should more properly be considered an employee or a worker. Cf. note 14.

²⁷ The latter was one of the three Nazis elected a town senator (Ratsherr) in 11 1931Google Scholar and described as such in the membership list. Since this post was only honourary, however, it seems more appropriate to include all three under their regular occupations.

²⁸ Cf. LASH, Regierung Eutin, A III 2a, “Die Beamten der Regierung. Präsident, Räte, sowie ausserordentliche Mitglieder”; also private information from retired mayor Dr Hans-Ulrich Ricklefs.

²⁹ Cf. Milatz, Alfred, Wähler und Wahlen in der Weimarer Republik, 2nd. ed. (Bonn, 1968), p. 41Google Scholar; and Führer befiehl, pp. 136ff. By the beginning of 1932, the Nazi Pupils' League (NS-Schü.lerbund) counted a further 30 members in Eutin. Kreisleiter Eutin to NSDAP Gau Schleswig-Holstein, 19 January 1932, USNA, T-81, roll 164, fr. 303278.

³⁰ The total number of Eutin women in this category was actually somewhat higher; a large percentage of those entered in the 1930 voters' list as having “no stated occupation” (category 12 of Table 2) doubtless also belonged to it.

³¹ Cf. Partei-Statistik, I, p. 16.

³² See for example Kocka, Jürgen, “Zur Problematik der deutschen Angestellten 1914– 1933”, in: Industrielles System und politische Entwicklung in der Weimarer Republik, ed. by Mommsen, Hans, Petzina, Dietmar and Weisbrod, Bernd (Düsseldorf, 1974), esp. pp. 795–802.Google Scholar

³³ But cf. Kele, Max H., Nazis and Workers: National Socialist Appeals to German Labor 1919–1933 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1972), esp. pp. 156, 203, 215Google Scholar, who emphasizes the relatively large working-class element in the NSDAP before 1933.

³⁴ Cf. Geiger, Soziale Schichtung des deutschen Volkes, op. cit., pp. 77ff.

³⁵ Ibid., p. 55 and passim.

³⁶ For a similar picture of the party's overall leadership corps in North Germany, see Orlow, History of the Nazi Party, op. cit., pp. 58, 119–21.

³⁷ Krebs, Albert, Tendenzen und Gestalten der NSDAP. Erinnerungen an die Frühzeit der Partei (Stuttgart, 1959), pp. 56–57Google Scholar, who claims that this demand “was never asserted by the NSDAP as bluntly as its enemies maintained”. Dr Pridham's conclusion, however, that in Bavaria women were virtually unknown among party leaders (Hitler's Rise to Power, pp. 203–04) was true as well for Eutin.

³⁸ The pivotal significance of the years 1914–18 especially for future Nazis is stressed by Merkl, Political Violence, op. cit., pp. 28, 55, 154ff., 319, 321; and Loewenberg, Peter, “The Psychohistorical Origins of the Nazi Youth Cohort”, in: American Historical Review, LXXVI (1971), pp. 1457–1502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁹ This grouping corresponds rather closely to the experience of 15 Eutin party members for whom specific evidence of military service is randomly available. In all, 13 fought at the front including one born in 1901; but two others born the same year did not take part in the war. Eight who did were born between 1894 and 1899 (group 4), three others in 1888 and 1892 (group 5). A final man, born in 1875, was called up as a reservist in November 1916 – an exceptional example of patriotic duty, as he himself readily pointed out.

⁴⁰ See for example Orlow, , History of the Nazi Party, pp. 56–57Google Scholar; and Merkl, , Political Violence, pp. 12–13Google Scholar and Pt III, passim.

⁴¹ Cf. Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-Lexikon des Deutschen Reichs, 5th completely rev. and exp. ed., ed. by Uetrecht, E. (Leipzig and Vienna, 1912–1913)Google Scholar; and Müllers Grosses Deutsches Ortsbuch, 8th rev. and exp. ed., ed. by Miiller, Friedrich (wuppertal-Barmen, 1949).Google Scholar Some half-dozen birthplaces could not be identified beyond dispute because of the duplication of town names.

⁴² Most places of birth with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants (30% of the total) were either villages or else large landed estates which characterized the East Holstein countryside before World War I. Cf. Statistische Beschreibung der Gemeinden des Fürstentums Lübeck, ed. by Kollmann, Paul (Oldenburg, 1901), esp. pp. 190–91Google Scholar; and Heberle, Land-bevölkerung und Nationalsozialismus, op. cit., esp. 63ff.

⁴³ See for example Schoenbaum, David, Hitler's Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany (Garden City, N.Y., 1966), pp. 46f.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Cf. Merkl, , Political Violence, pp. 105ff.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ He was a bank clerk from Lübeck, born in 1903, who only lived in Eutin between April and December 1923; he joined the party on 25 October. According to the ZK, he did not re-enter the NSDAP until 1937.1 am grateful to Jürgen Genuneit for this reference.

⁴⁶ Cf. Diercks, “Kampf und Aufstieg der NSDAP in Eutin”, in: Denkschrift, op. cit., p. 49.

⁴⁷ For one additional Nazi identified, no membership number or date of entry could be found.

⁴⁸ The party had received 148 votes in the Reichstag election of December 1924, and only three more than that in 1928, although 220 voters in the town simultaneously supported the NSDAP in the Landtag ballot (the Nazis had not put up an independent slate in the previous state election). A total of 28 Eutiner had voted for General Ludendorff, the party's candidate in the first presidential election in March 1925. AFL, 27 April 1925 and 21 May 1928; and Diercks, “Kampf und Aufstieg”, loc. cit., pp. 48, 60–61.

⁴⁹ Ibid., pp. 74, 76. About one-third of the eligible voters in Eutin supported the Nazi-Nationalist initiative. Volksentscheid über das “Freiheitsgesetz” am 22. Dezember 1929, SAE.No 587.

⁵⁰ The NSDAP obtained 39.45 and 52%, respectively, of the votes cast in the town during these elections. AFL, 15 September, 25 November and 1 December 1930; also Diercks, , “Kampf und Aufstieg”, pp. 83–84, 86.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Eight times as many Eutin voters as in the 1928 Landtag election cast their ballots for the Nazis – a total of 1,735. AFL, 18 May 1931.

⁵² Cf. Orlow, , History of the Nazi Party, pp. 117–18, 153Google Scholar, and chs IV and V passim. The strong trade-union and social-democratic attachments of Eutin workers at least until the end of 1931 may explain the relative lack of Nazi propaganda success among them. Rathkamp, Johannes and Broschko, Karl, Geschichtlicher Überblick über die Vereins-und Organisatons bewegung der Eutiner Arbeiterschaft (Eutin, 1929)Google Scholar; and interview with former Eutin Reichsbanner leader Adolf Buhrke, Hamburg, 14 01 1975.Google Scholar

⁵³ Cf. Orlow, , History of the Nazi Party, pp. 131ff.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ For a general assessment of the significance of members' dues and internally generated revenue for the party's continued existence before 1933, see Bullock, Alan, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, rev. ed. (New York, 1962), pp. 132–33, 171–72.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ These are now deposited in LASH.

⁵⁷ Cf. Orlow, , History of the Nazi Party, p. 101Google Scholar; also Jochmann, Werner, Nationalsozia-lismus und Revolution. Ursprung und Geschichte der NSDAP in Hamburg 1922–1933 (Frankfurt/M., 1963), pp. 266–68.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Cf. for example Der NSDAP Kreis Lübeck. Werden, und Wachsen, . Die Kampfjahre, ed. by the Kreisleitung Lübeck der NSDAP (Lübeck, 1935), pp. 11, 18Google Scholar; and Merkl, , Political Violence, p. 602.Google Scholar In Hesse, on the other hand, only one in three party members belonged to the SA at the end of 1931. Schön, Eberhart, Die Entstehung des National-sozialismus in Hessen (Meisenheim am Glan, 1972), pp. 140, 142.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Cf. Kater, Michael H., “Zum gegenseitigen Verhältnis von SA und SS in der Sozial-geschichte des Nationalsozialismus von 1925 bis 1939”, in: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, LXII (1975), pp. 343–44.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Tyrell, for example, records that “the fluctuation was relatively heavy, several Gauleiters reported between 10 and 15%” (Führer befiehl, p. 352).Google Scholar See also note 1. Following the re-founding of the NSDAP in 1925, membership numbers (with relatively few exceptions) were assigned in sequence as applications were received from the different Gau offices and processed by party headquarters. The numbers of those who quit or were ejected from the movement, however, were not given to new members, which resulted in a steadily increasing discrepancy between the nominal and the actual size of the party. Cf. Orlow, , History of the Nazi Party, pp. 79, 110–11.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Kater, , “Zur Soziographie”, p. 127.Google Scholar

⁶² Diercks, , “Kampf und Aufstieg”, pp. 49f.Google Scholar; LASH, Regierung Eutin, A IV 4 and 10, “Provinzialrat (Landesausschuss)-Wahlen” and “Deutscher Reichstag-Wahlen”; and SAE, No 2502, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) 1933–1947, and No 2547, Entnazifizierung von Verwaltung und Wirtschaft 1945–1953. Cf. also correspondence between the Gauleitung Schleswig-Holstein and the Geschäftsstelle der NSDAP, Munich, 3 August, 1 and 3 December 1925, and reports from the former to the latter, 3 March, 18 May and 30 June 1927, and 25 August 1928, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Sammlung Schumacher, 208 I, Vol. 2.

⁶³ Workers may have been the chief victims of the local practice of excluding unemployed members unable to pay dues, to which Gau headquarters took strong but apparently futile exception. Cf. correspondence between the Geschäftsstelle Eutin and NSDAP Gau Schleswig-Holstein, 15, 22 and 27 April 1931, USNA, T-81, roll 175, frs 317877ff.

⁶⁴ The nearest was only two numbers removed (it belonged to the leader of a neighbouring Ortsgruppe), and at least six others were within a hundred of the closest Eutin number. This proximity is not surprising, though, since headquarters received applications from the different Gau business offices and thereupon distributed new party numbers en bloc according to Gau membership (interview with Professor Dietrich Orlow, Hamburg, 21 01 1975).Google Scholar The question is: did an individual Ortsgruppe also receive a closed block of numbers? It appears from the Eutin example that they indeed did.

⁶⁵ That is: 412 from Table 5; plus the 310 “missing numbers”, minus both the 52 newly identified Eutin Nazis among these and also the 54 from the original list for whom party numbers could not be found (on the conservative assumption that all of these held numbers among those “missing”): plus the 49 other new Eutin numbers discovered; plus, finally, 21 additional “missing numbers” from extended or new series derived from those same numbers.

⁶⁶ By comparison, the closest large city, Lübeck, counted 1,170 party members among its population of 130,000 (that is, 11%) in March 1932. Der NSDAP Kreis Lübeck, op. cit., p. 87. However, there were only about 1,000 National Socialists in a second Hanseatic city-state, Bremen, with over a half-million inhabitants when Hitler came to power. Schwarzwälder, Herbert, Die Machtergreifung der NSDAP in Bremen 1933 (Bremen, 1966), p. 9.Google Scholar