Map of the German Election of 1932

[libertango]

German Election of 1932
Originally uploaded by halobrien.

jrittenhouse just pointed to a page full of links of maps of the shorelines during the most recent ice age and other paleoclimatology.

Being the strange holographic artifact my memory is, this reminded me of a map I saw some time ago. Previous attempts to find it again have been unsuccessful, but this time my google-fu is strong. I found the original post at Davos Newbies where I first saw the map. The post Lance Knobel points to appears to be gone. I found a higher resolution copy at CatholicApologetics.net.

Here's how to read the map: The higher a district is in 3-D effect, the more catholic it is; the flatter, the more protestant. The redder a district is, the higher the vote percentage for the NSDAP (more popularly known as the Nazis); the greener, the lower a vote percentage.

What this would appear to show is that NSDAP support was strongly driven by sectarianism. However, I don't have the original source, so I can't say how solid that conclusion may be, or the validity of the data (alas).

Also interesting to note is how the former DDR, or East Germany, was almost wholly protestant, and almost wholly NSDAP.

I'm mostly putting this into Flickr, and then blogging it, in an effort to rescue the data and the map, which I think appears to be well done.

Also recommended: the Strange Maps blog.

Comments

German election map

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I know the map has to be viewed at an angle, rather than straight down, to get the high vs. low effect. Still, I find maps viewed at an angle to be irritating, partly because low-lying areas behind high-lying areas become hard to see. The two variables could be conveyed in other manners, such as using depth of tone for the second one.

But it's a fascinating map anyway. I would guess that the strong isolated pockets of anti-Nazi voting in the far eastern part of the country represent areas inhabited largely by ethnic Poles.