Despite Massive Leftist Propaganda that Hitler Was the Paid Agent of Capitalism, He Garnered Only Limited Financial Support from Big Business; Nazis Campaigned to Rescue Germany from "High Capitalism"

Like Mussolini during 1921–22, Hitler worked during 1931–32 to establish ties with influential sectors of society, cooperating part of the time with the right and trying to reassure businessmen that they had no reason to be apprehensive of Nazi “socialism.” Yet despite massive leftist propaganda that Hitler was the paid agent of capitalism, Hitler garnered only limited financial support from big business. While there was considerable support for Hitler among small industrialists, most sectors of big business consistently advised against permitting him to form a government. The Nazi Party was primarily financed by its own members.

When Hindenburg’s presidential term expired in 1932, Hitler decided to challenge his reelection, knowing that Hindenburg was reluctant to appoint him chancellor. Though Hindenburg failed by a narrow margin to gain an absolute majority in a three-way race with Hitler and the Communist candidate, in a runoff he easily bested Hitler by 53 to 37 percent. Hindenburg’s right-wing advisers then convinced him to appoint as chancellor another right-wing Center Party figure, the aristocrat Franz von Papen. This he did in mid-July. Papen’s goal was much the same as Brüning’s: to convert the German government into a more authoritarian and rightist presidential system. Seeing the Nazis as his main rival, he obtained permission to hold new elections, but in the balloting of July 31 the Nazi vote zoomed to 37 percent, giving the party 230 Reichstag seats and making it the largest single party in Germany. Papen could not possibly dominate such a parliament with only a minority of votes behind him. Soon after the parliament convened in September, he called yet another election, hoping this time to break the Nazis’ momentum. In this he was partially successful; for the first time the National Socialist vote fell, but only to 33 percent and 196 Reichstag seats.

During the electoral campaigns of 1932, the Nazis claimed that only they could save Germany from civil war. They promised security from Marxism but campaigned vigorously against “reaction” in the form of Papen’s right-wing “cabinet of barons,” promising also to rescue Germany from “the American system, or high capitalism.”

--Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-45 (London: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2003), 167-168.