In his book Why Hitler Came into Power, Theodore Abel examines the political and social forces in Germany in the late 1920s and into the 1930s that enabled Adolf Hitler not only to become Chancellor of Germany but also how Hitler's National Socialist principles could become so embodied in the German national consciousness. The book was written in 1938 at the height of Hitler's power by a man who had observed the rise to power of Hitler and who had undertaken a scientific study of the Nazi phenomenon by interviewing National Socialists through the pretense of an essay contest by which rank-and-file members of the Nazi party could offer insights into their personal lives and their beliefs. The study Abel produced was not given much attention when it was published in 1938 for several reasons, including questions about his methodological approach, questions about the reliability of his sample, and because his conclusions simply did not mesh with the prevailing wisdom on the subject. The book has recently been republished and provides an insight into the Nazi era through the words and attitudes of those who made Hitler their leader and who followed him ultimately to destruction.
The prevailing wisdom that Abel violated held that National Socialism was a revolt of the lower middle class and was a movement supported by elements of the "undereducated, economically marginal Kleinbnrgertum (petty bourgeoisie) desperately afraid of proletarianization during a period of acute economic distress and social dislocation" (xv). Harold Lasswell made the classic formulation that National Socialism was a psychological reaction on the part of the lower middle class to the political traumas of the postwar era and to the loss of its former economic position and social status. Abel also found evidence for such discontent on the part of this social class, but Abel also emphasized that he found a wide variety of motivational factors among his responden...