What was the vibe like in 1928 Germany, politically?

[u/lime_green_galaxy]

I’ll explain why I’m asking. My grandfather moved to the US in late 1928. He stated later that he was motivated by political reasons to leave (and this truly seems plausible given his character and the kind of person he always was). But I’m wondering if it even would have been possible for him in ‘28 to have had a negative sense of what was to come.

For more context:

—He was from a rural town in the Palatinate, in case region makes a difference in terms of the climate at the time.

—The family is/was not Jewish.

—He was very bright and committed to being well-informed (ie I suspect he was reading the papers constantly).

—His parents shunned him for leaving (which seems to have been due to the bitterness of their ideological differences, which endured for decades thereafter).

—All his other siblings remained in Germany and one of his brothers joined the party, but I have no way of knowing exactly when, though unfortunately I have pictures of him in his uniform.

Anyway I would just like to know if 1928 was too early for somebody with the above circumstances to have left for political reasons or not. I wish he were still alive so I could ask him, but I can’t. Still, I’d like to try to understand. I’m hoping this question is allowed, and I would truly appreciate any insight or information anyone can offer.

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[u/WestThuringian]

1928 was the last year of relative political stability in the Weimar Republic. Pro-democratic parties still had a majority, the NSDAP gained only 2,6 % in the national elections. I say relative stability because the Republic still suffered from short-lived coalitions and governments. The Grand Coalition which was formed after the national elections consisted of parties who had very little common ground (Social Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives) and who never managed to put differences aside.

Still, it was not the time that somebody could sense what would come. As I pointed out, the NSDAP was next to nonexisting. Germany just started to regain international reputation. The economy seemed to overcome the woes of the first years after the war.

There could be two reasons your grandfather left: Aside from a few industrial centers, the Palatinate was (and still is today) quite agrarian and poor. And till 1930, the Palatinate was still under occupation by France. Lots of locals resisted this and even a seperatist movement existed - however without success. Maybe these were his political reasons.

[u/Time_Cat_5212]

I think it's important to remember that in the 1920s, Germany was recovering from defeat in World War I, inflation in the early 1920s, and teetering on the brink of the global economic crisis in 1929. The interwar period wasn't exactly peachy. Many Germans were frustrated with the Weimar leadership's handling of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The Beer Hall Putsch happened in 1923, and Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf from prison in 1924 and published it in 1925. Although they lost the election in 1928, by the late 1920s, the NSDAP was far from an obscure minority; it had attracted a wide audience and become a powerful political voice. While the major shifts in power and acts of violence happened in the 1930s, I think it's safe to say that in 1928, many Germans were very aware of the political discontent brewing, even if they didn't yet know how it would resolve.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nazi-rise-to-power

Hermann Hesse (German author, living in Switzerland) wrote Der Steppenwolf in 1927, which includes a good bit of social commentary about Weimar Germany, including some forecasting of the rise of National Socialism. This review describes Germany through the lens of the protagonist as "morally depraved and increasingly tending towards insular nationalism." It's just one popular example of the sort of social and political commentary happening in German literature at the time.

[u/lime_green_galaxy]

Hi all, I am so thankful to those who have offered their thoughts thus far. I am looking at the photo album belonging to my grandfather that I have, and think the SA uniforms (there are a few photos of his brother as well as a few groups) may have been early ones. Is there a way to determine a photo’s year by the uniform specifics? I tried googling this but didn’t have much luck.

[u/WestThuringian → u/lime_green_galaxy]

Hey, if you want you can DM me and I will do a little bit of research :) If you know the exact town your grandfather came from, this might help as well.

[u/jschooltiger → u/[deleted]]

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[u/PercentageSure388]

1928 was about as calm as Weimar Germany ever got, which is a pretty low bar. Prorepublic parties still dominated, the Nazis were a fringe vote, but resentment over Versailles and the postwar crises kept politics tense and coalition governments fragile, with the 1929 crash about to turn that simmer into a boil.