Laurie Marhoefer > Quotes

“Moreover, the fact that more than a third of the electorate voted Nazi in 1932 was a hugely significant factor in the Republic’s fall and in the rise of Hitler. But most of those voters were not motivated by a broad discontent with the Republic, including with its sexual politics, as some studies have asserted.54 Rather, voters were radicalized, driven to the extreme parties, and drawn to the polls by specific issues, such as the economic crisis, the fear of communism, and the trauma of unemployment.55”
― Laurie Marhoefer, Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis

“It was brought down by a confluence of factors – among them I would highlight the Depression, the breakdown of the democratic process that began in 1930 and is in part attributable to the president and the arch-conservatives around him, the miscalculations of the leaders of several major political parties, and the swell of voters’ affinity for the radical parties of the Left and the Right.”
― Laurie Marhoefer, Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis