Abstract
Reich President Hindenburg dissolved the Reichstag in July 1930 after
it had refused to support Chancellor Brüning’s proposed budget. New
elections were scheduled for September 1930. This photo shows supporters
of the DNVP on the back of a truck campaigning in Berlin’s working-class
neighborhood of Neukölln. While the top (right) sign features the name
of the party’s well-known chairman Alfred Hugenberg in order to win
votes, the bottom sign reveals the nationalist agenda’s antisemitic
element. The message reads: “We fight against the surrender of Germany
to international Jewish capital.” It picks up on a theme that had been
an integral part of anti-Semitic discourse since the 1920s, namely the
theory of an international Jewish conspiracy exerting worldwide
influence on politics and finance. Among the party supporters on the
truck are men in civilian clothes as well as uniformed
Stahlhelm members, who wave the
Imperial flag to signal their opposition to the Republic.