Editing Joseph Goebbels (section)

===1928 election===
The ban on the Nazi Party was lifted before the ''[[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]]'' elections on 20 May 1928.{{sfn|Longerich|2015|pp=99–100}} The Nazi Party lost nearly 100,000 voters and earned only 2.6 per cent of the vote nationwide. Results in Berlin were even worse, where they attained only 1.4 per cent of the vote.{{sfn|Evans|2003|p=209}} Goebbels was one of the first 12 Nazi Party members to gain election to the ''Reichstag''.{{sfn|Evans|2003|p=209}} This gave him immunity from prosecution for a long list of outstanding charges, including a three-week jail sentence he received in April for insulting the deputy police chief Weiß.{{sfn|Longerich|2015|p=94}} The Reichstag changed the immunity regulations in February 1931, and Goebbels was forced to pay fines for libellous material he had placed in ''Der Angriff'' over the course of the previous year.{{sfn|Longerich|2015|pp=147–148}} Goebbels continued to be elected to the ''Reichstag'' at every subsequent election during the Weimar and Nazi regimes.{{sfn|Reichstag databank}}

In his newspaper ''Berliner Arbeiterzeitung'' (''Berlin Workers Newspaper''), Gregor Strasser was highly critical of Goebbels' failure to attract the urban vote.{{sfn|Longerich|2015|pp=100–101}} However, the party as a whole did much better in rural areas, attracting as much as 18 per cent of the vote in some regions.{{sfn|Evans|2003|p=209}} This was partly because Hitler had publicly stated just prior to the election that Point 17 of the party programme, which mandated the expropriation of land without compensation, would apply only to Jewish speculators and not private landholders.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=189}} After the election, the party refocused their efforts to try to attract still more votes in the agricultural sector.{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=209, 211}} In May, shortly after the election, Hitler considered appointing Goebbels as party propaganda chief. But he hesitated, as he worried that the removal of Gregor Strasser from the post would lead to a split in the party. Goebbels considered himself well suited to the position, and began to formulate ideas about how propaganda could be used in schools and the media.{{sfn|Longerich|2015|p=116}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1978-043-14, Horst Wessel.jpg|thumb|upright|Goebbels used the death of [[Horst Wessel]] (pictured) in 1930 as a propaganda tool{{sfn|Longerich|2015|p=124}} against "Communist subhumans".{{sfn|Siemens|2013|p=143}}]]

By 1930 Berlin was the party's second-strongest base of support after Munich.{{sfn|Gunther|1940|p=67}} That year the violence between the Nazis and communists led to local SA troop leader [[Horst Wessel]] being shot by two members of the KPD. He later died in hospital.{{sfn|Longerich|2015|p=123}} Exploiting Wessel's death, Goebbels turned him into a martyr for the Nazi movement. He officially declared Wessel's march ''Die Fahne hoch'' (''Raise the flag''), renamed as the ''[[Horst-Wessel-Lied]]'', to be the Nazi Party anthem.{{sfn|Longerich|2015|p=124}}