The Nazis and social cleavages : a longitudinal study of Weimar voting behaviour / by Per Christer Wilhelm Crantz.

The present study explores the evolution of the social support bases of National Socialism as signified by the outcomes of the seven elections to the Reichstage from 1924 to 1933. The percentaged voting results of the NSDAP and rival parties were examined for their correlations with occupational, religious and other demographic data collected in the German census of 1925. The results were also broken down by density of demographic groups. The study found that the sequence in which large portions of demographic groups came to lend their support to the NSDAP appeared to correspond inversely to the degree of resistance of these groups to the party. Here, the group's degree of interrnal integration appeared to be the important factor. This finding provides an empirical foundation for Juan Linz's theory of to talitarian regimes. Concurrently with the seemingly sequential conquest by the NSDAP of groups came the narrowing of social cleavages.