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This paper is meant to contribute to the knowledge about totalitarianism by means of analysis of the totalitarian mass vote that is to provide a basis for conclusions upon motivations of voters of totalitarian parties. This paper is focused upon the analysis of the phenomenal rise of the Nazi vote from 1927 to 1933 in Germany and in Austria in order to learn more about those who limit their support of totalitarianism to their ballots. Selected data from the Austrian Communist vote since 1945 are then presented in support of the author's hypothesis that a mass vote for a totalitarian party is not motivated by ideological commitments or even by endorsement of a political programme but simply represents a non-specified protest of discontent. In Germany, the Nazi's mass vote was recruited from former non-voters and minor party voters who returned to voting for minor parties or not at all during the party's brief, but spectacular decline just before it came into power. In Austria, there was but little non-voting and but limited voting for minor parties. However, Austrian defectors to Nazism did not turn to dictator Adolf Hitler directly from their old party, instead, they first either refrained from voting or voted for insignificant splinter groups before they finally turned to Hitler.

This article presents information on the social structure of German politics. Wherever opposing interests meet in German society, there is a tendency to seek authoritative and substantive rather than tentative and formal solutions. It is too early to say with any degree of confidence which direction German social and political development is going to take. For one matter, there is the fundamental instability of the political and social systems of both Germanies of the present caused by the fact of the division of the country which remains a latent source of nationalist revival. But even apart from the re-unification issue, developments in the Western part of Germany are in the balance. While it is felt that the social condition of the Federal Republic holds out more hope for the maintenance of liberty than there has ever been in German history, all that can safely be concluded from these remarks is that one of the developments to watch is that of the attitude to conflict implied by Germany's social and political institutions.