Apostasy or religiosity? The cultural meanings of the Protestant vote for Hitler

More than twenty years after research into the social roots of Nazism began in earnest, there is little to indicate that scholarly interest in the subject is waning. A steady stream of works on the social composition of both the Nazi electorate and membership continues to flow. But while various theoretical tendencies have gained or contested a place in historical scholarship -- most recently culturalist and gender approaches -- work on the social base of Nazism has by and large proven immune to these influences. In particular, one important culturalist departure being taken in wider historical enquiry has been largely absent in the discussion on 'who voted for Hitler': popular piety. This article explores the reasons for this oversight. Scholars have already established that Protestant confessional adherence was a better predictor of who voted for Hitler than any other single factor, like class, geography or gender. But none of them have gone one step further to consider Protestant religiosity as an explanation. By linking two strands of scholarly examination -- the social history of Nazism and the social history of religion -- that have previously been treated separately, Steigmann-Gall seeks to demonstrate the potential for Protestant religiosity, more than just nominal confessional affiliation, to provide answers to the puzzling questions which remain about the nature of Nazism's social base.