''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
expression meaning "people's community", "folk community",
Richard Grunberger
Richard Grunberger (7 March 1924 Vienna, Austria – 15 February 2005) was a British historian who specialised in study of the Third Reich.
He was born in Austria to Jewish parents. After the 1938 Anschluss with Hitler's Germany, he was put on ...
, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", depending on the translation of its component term ''
Volk
The German noun ''Volk'' () translates to people,
both uncountable in the sense of ''people'' as in a crowd, and countable (plural ''Völker'') in the sense of '' a people'' as in an ethnic group or nation (compare the English term ''folk'') ...
'' (
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
with the English word "folk"). This expression originally became popular during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
as Germans rallied in support of the war, and many experienced "relief that at one fell swoop all social and political divisions could be solved in the great national equation".
The idea of a ''Volksgemeinschaft'' was rooted in the notion of uniting people across class divides to achieve a national purpose,
[Fritzsche, p. 39.] and the hope that national unity would "obliterate all conflicts - between employers and employees, town and countryside, producers and consumers, industry and craft".
After Germany's defeat in World War I, the concept of ''Volksgemeinschaft'' remained popular especially on the
right wing
Right-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that view certain social orders and Social stratification, hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this pos ...
of German politics, in opposition to the
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
advocated by
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
parties like the
Social Democrats
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...
and the
Communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
.
[Conan Fischer. ''The Rise of the Nazis''. Manchester University Press, 1995. p. 36.] The German Conservative Party became the
German National People's Party
The German National People's Party (german: Deutschnationale Volkspartei, DNVP) was a national-conservative party in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Before the rise of the Nazi Party, it was the major conservative and nationalist party in Wei ...
and the National Liberal Party reorganized itself into the
German People's Party
The German People's Party (German: , or DVP) was a liberal party during the Weimar Republic that was the successor to the National Liberal Party of the German Empire. A right-liberal, or conservative-liberal political party, it represented politi ...
, with the new names intended partly as references to ''Volksgemeinschaft''.
The concept was notoriously embraced by the newly founded
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
in the 1920s, and eventually became strongly associated with
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
after
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...
. In the Nazi vision of ''Volksgemeinschaft'', society would continue to be organized into classes (based upon talent, property, or profession), but there would be no class conflict, because a common national consciousness would inspire the different economic and social classes to live together harmoniously and work for the nation. There was also an important
racial
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
aspect to the Nazi ''Volksgemeinschaft'': only people of
Aryan blood could be members. This last stipulation marked a stark contrast with certain earlier uses of the term that had stressed not
social Darwinian
Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in We ...
survival of the fittest
"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase that originated from Darwinian evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection. The biological concept of fitness is defined as reproductive success. In Darwinian terms, th ...
but
solidaristic mutual aid.
Development
The word "Volksgemeinschaft" was probably first used in
Gottlob August Tittel Gottlob is a family name, which may refer to:
* Georg Gottlob, Austrian computer scientist
Gottlob is a given name, which may refer to:
* Gottlob Berger (1896–1975), senior German Nazi official
* Gottlob Burmann (1737–1805), German Romantic ...
's 1791 translation of a text written by
John Locke
John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...
, synthesising the expression "in any
''articular
The articular bone is part of the lower jaw of most vertebrates, including most jawed fish, amphibians, birds and various kinds of reptiles, as well as ancestral mammals.
Anatomy
In most vertebrates, the articular bone is connected to two oth ...
' place, generally". Among 19th century scholars who used the word "Volksgemeinschaft" were
Friedrich Schleiermacher
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (; 21 November 1768 – 12 February 1834) was a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional P ...
,
Friedrich Carl von Savigny
Friedrich Carl von Savigny (21 February 1779 – 25 October 1861) was a German jurist and historian.
Early life and education
Savigny was born at Frankfurt am Main, of a family recorded in the history of Lorraine, deriving its name from the cast ...
,
Carl Theodor Welcker
Carl Theodor Georg Philipp Welcker (* 29 March 1790, in Oberofleiden – 10 March 1869, in Neuenheim bei Heidelberg) was a German legal scholar, law professor, politician, and journalist.
Biography
Education and early career
He studied ...
,
Johann Caspar Bluntschli
Johann Caspar (also Kaspar) Bluntschli (7 March 1808 – 21 October 1881) was a Swiss jurist and politician. Together with fellow liberals Francis Lieber and Édouard René de Laboulaye, he developed one of the first codes of international law a ...
,
Hermann Schulze
Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, also Hermann Schulze, (29 August 1808 – 29 April 1883) was a German politician and economist. He was responsible for the organizing of the world's first credit unions. He was also co-founder of the German Progre ...
,
Wilhelm Dilthey, and
Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (; ; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and ...
.
[Götz. ''Ungleiche Geschwister: Die Konstruktion von nationalsozialistischer Volksgemeinschaft ...''](_blank)
/ref> Most influential was perhaps Ferdinand Tönnies' theory in his work '' Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft'' ("Community and Society") of 1887. Decades later, in 1932, Tönnies joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.
Saskia Esken has been the ...
to oppose the rise of Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
and protest against their use of his concept. He had his honorary professorship removed when Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
came to power.
In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, the Emperor Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Despite strengthening the German Empir ...
proclaimed before the ''Reichstag'' the ''Burgfrieden'' ("peace in the castle" or "truce in the castle", a kind of "unity within a besieged castle" for the duration of the conflict), announcing that henceforward all of the regional differences between the different states of the ''Reich''; between rich, middle class and poor; between Roman Catholics and Protestants; and between rural and urban no longer existed and the German people were all one for the duration of the war. During the war, many Germans longed to have the sense of unity that the ''Burgfrieden'' inspired continue after the war, and it was during this period that many ideas started to circulate about how to convert the wartime ''Burgfrieden'' into a peacetime ''Volksgemeinschaft''.
In the aftermath of World War I, the idea of ''Volksgemeinschaft'' was used to interpret economic catastrophes and hardship facing Germans during the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
era as a common experience of the German nation and to argue for German unity to bring about renewal to end the crisis. It was invoked by the Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
social anarchists
Social anarchism is the branch of anarchism that sees individual freedom as interrelated with mutual aid.Suissa, Judith (2001). "Anarchism, Utopias and Philosophy of Education". ''Journal of Philosophy of Education'' 35 (4). pp. 627–646. . ...
Gustav Landauer
Gustav Landauer (7 April 1870 – 2 May 1919) was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of social anarchism and an avowed pacifist.
In 1919, he ...
(who was killed for his participation in the Bavarian Soviet Republic
The Bavarian Soviet Republic, or Munich Soviet Republic (german: Räterepublik Baiern, Münchner Räterepublik),Hollander, Neil (2013) ''Elusive Dove: The Search for Peace During World War I''. McFarland. p.283, note 269. was a short-lived unre ...
) and Erich Mühsam
Erich Mühsam (6 April 1878 – 10 July 1934) was a German-Jewish antimilitarist anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic, for which h ...
(who died in Oranienburg concentration camp
Oranienburg was an early Nazi concentration camp, one of the first detention facilities established by the Nazis in the state of Prussia when they gained power in 1933. It held the political opponents of Nazi Party from the Berlin region, mos ...
) in articulating their vision of a peaceful, non-coercive mutualist society. However, it was subsequently adopted by the Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
to justify actions against Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, profiteers, Marxists
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectic ...
, and the Allies of World War I
The Allies of World War I, Entente Powers, or Allied Powers were a coalition of countries led by France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy, Japan, and the United States against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Em ...
, whom the Nazis accused of obstructing German national regeneration, causing national disintegration in 1918 and Germany's defeat in World War I.
There is an ongoing debate among historians as to whether a ''Volksgemeinschaft'' was or was not successfully established between 1933 and 1945. This is a notably controversial topic of debate for ethical and political reasons, and is made difficult by the ambiguous language employed by Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
and the Nazis when talking about the ''Volksgemeinschaft''.
Nazi ''Volksgemeinschaft''
In the aftermath of the November Revolution of 1918 that marked the end of the German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
and the beginning of the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
, there was strong animosity amongst many Germans towards the Weimar Republic and the social democrats
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...
who sponsored its creation. This was combined with anxiety in the 1930s and with the severe economic crisis in Germany and abroad, in which many Germans faced unemployment. This situation resulted in increasing popularity for the Nazi Party, including amongst workers, small business owners, and others who desired a government that would resolve the economic crisis. While ascending to power, Hitler promised to restore faith in the ''Volk'' and to bring wholeness while accusing other politicians of tearing at German unity.
Upon rising to power in 1933, the Nazis sought to gain support of various elements of society. Their concept of ''Volksgemeinschaft'' was racially unified and organized hierarchically. This involved a mystical unity, a form of racial soul uniting all Germans,[The Volk]
including those living abroad. Nevertheless, this soul was regarded as related to the land, in the doctrine of " blood and soil". Indeed, one reason for "blood and soil" was the belief that landowner and peasant lived in an organic harmony. Aryan Germans who had sexual relations with non-Germanics were excluded from the people's community.
The Nazis solidified support amongst nationalists and conservatives by presenting themselves as allied with President Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fr ...
, who was considered a war hero of World War I in Germany. On 21 March 1933, special celebrations were held to mark the re-opening of the Reichstag following the Reichstag fire, and the Nazis called this event Potsdam Day
Potsdam Day, also known as the Tag von Potsdam or Potsdam Celebration, was a ceremony for the re-opening of the Reichstag following the Reichstag fire, held on 21 March 1933, shortly after that month's German federal election.
Adolf Hitler an ...
. Potsdam Day was used to celebrate military tradition, the Hohenzollern dynasty
The House of Hohenzollern (, also , german: Haus Hohenzollern, , ro, Casa de Hohenzollern) is a German royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenb ...
of Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
, the sacrifices of World War I and the "hero of Tannenberg," President Hindenburg. The image of Hitler and Hindenburg shaking hands was reproduced on thousands of postcards, representing "the union of the new and old Germany," a way for the Nazis to portray themselves as connected to the aristocratic traditions of the past.
Having organized Potsdam Day to gain conservative support, the Nazis sought to gain the support of workers by declaring May Day
May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Festivities may also be held the night before, known as May Eve. T ...
, a day celebrated by organized labour
The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other.
* The trade union movement ...
, to be a paid holiday named the "Day of National Work" and held celebrations on 1 May 1933 to honour German workers.[Fritzsche, p.45.] The regime believed that the only way to avoid a repeat of the disaster of 1918 was to secure workers' support for the German government. The regime also insisted through propaganda that all Germans take part in the May Day celebrations, not just workers, in the hope that this would help break down class hostility between workers and burghers.[Fritzsche, p. 46.] Songs in praise of labour and workers were played by state radio throughout May Day 1933, as well as an airshow in Berlin and fireworks. The Nazis added strongly nationalist themes to the celebrations, and Hitler spoke of workers as patriots who had built Germany's industrial strength and had honourably served in the war, while claiming that they had been oppressed under economic liberalism
Economic liberalism is a political and economic ideology that supports a market economy based on individualism and private property in the means of production. Adam Smith is considered one of the primary initial writers on economic liberalism ...
.[Fritzsche, p. 47.] Hitler praised the virtues of labor, and was quoted in the ''Völkischer Beobachter
The ''Völkischer Beobachter'' (; "'' Völkisch'' Observer") was the newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 25 December 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from 8 February 1923. For twenty-four years it formed part of the official pub ...
'' as declaring that "I only acknowledge one nobility—that of labour." The event proved convincing, as the next day the ''Berliner Morgenpost'', a newspaper which had been associated with the political left in the past, praised the regime's May Day celebrations. At the same time, however, the Nazis sought to destroy independent working class organizations, seeing them as incompatible with the trans-class unity of the ''Volksgemeinschaft''. On 2 May 1933, one day after the celebrations, the trade union movement was banned, and "stormtroopers sealed off and took over the operations of the socialist Free Trade Unions and incorporated them into what became the German Labor Front".
The Nazis continued social welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...
policies initiated by the governments of the Weimar Republic and mobilized volunteers to assist those impoverished, "racially-worthy" Germans through the National Socialist People's Welfare
The National Socialist People's Welfare (german: Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt, NSV) was a social welfare organization during the Third Reich. The NSV was originally established in 1931 as a small Nazi Party-affiliated charity active loc ...
organization.[Fritzsche, p. 51.] This organization oversaw charitable activities, and became the largest civic organization in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. Successful efforts were made to get middle-class women involved in social work assisting large families.Richard Grunberger
Richard Grunberger (7 March 1924 Vienna, Austria – 15 February 2005) was a British historian who specialised in study of the Third Reich.
He was born in Austria to Jewish parents. After the 1938 Anschluss with Hitler's Germany, he was put on ...
, ''The 12-Year Reich'', p 46, The Winter Relief
The ''Winterhilfswerk des Deutschen Volkes'' ( en, link=yes, Winter Relief of the German People), commonly known by its abbreviated form ''Winterhilfswerk'' (WHW), was an annual donation drive by the National Socialist People's Welfare (german: ...
campaigns acted as a ritual to generate public feeling.[Richard Grunberger, ''The 12-Year Reich'', p 79, ] These efforts also served to reinforce the racial ideology of the Nazis and the idea that the ''Volksgemeinschaft'' was a racial community, because Jews and other non-Aryans were excluded from social welfare benefits, as were Germans who opposed Nazism or who were deemed "unfit" for other reasons.
The ''Volksgemeinschaft'' was intended to create a sense of uniformity amongst its members; Fritz Reinhardt, state secretary for the finance ministry, introduced numerous tax breaks for lower and middle class Germans, narrowed pension gaps between blue and white collar workers, and lowered the entrance standards for civil service exams. The ubiquitous uniforms within Nazi organisations were intended to suppress visible class differences in dress and create an image of unity. Between 1933 and 1939, upward mobility was twice as likely as between 1927 and 1933. The Second World War assisted in this, as social status and class did not affect whether one received Reich services. Wartime rationing was implemented in an egalitarian manner, which greatly pleased the working class – a secret wartime report by the Social Democrats stated that "the working classes thoroughly welcome the fact that 'the better off' have, in practical terms, ceased to be that."
Nevertheless, in many ways the Nazi ''Volksgemeinschaft'' served only as a symbolic unity, while real differences of status and wealth continued to dominate daily life. The Nazis disparaged sophisticated forms of address such as ''gnädige Frau'' ("gracious lady") and the associated practice of kissing a lady's hand, but Hitler was routinely shown engaging in that same practice in press photographs. Old titles of nobility were shunned, but the Nazi Party hierarchy created numerous new titles. Elegant evening dress and other public displays of wealth were sometimes derided and sometimes encouraged. The Nazi Party claimed to administer justice impartially to all ethnic Germans regardless of their social origins, and Nazi propaganda emphasized instances where upper class individuals were found guilty by the courts as evidence of this, but at the same time the Nazi Party provided many opportunities for corruption and vested interests among its members. On one occasion the arrest of a ''Reichsbank'' director was widely publicized by the Nazi press, while his subsequent release was never mentioned.
In propaganda
Nazis gave a great deal of prominence to this new "folk community" in their propaganda, depicting the events of 1933 as a '' Volkwerdung'', or a people becoming itself.[Richard Grunberger, ''The 12-Year Reich'', p 18, ] The ''Volk'' were not just a people; a mystical soul united them, and propaganda continually portrayed individuals as part of a great whole, worth dying for. A common Nazi mantra declared that ethnic Germans must put "collective need ahead of individual greed" and oppose class conflict, materialism, and profiteering in order to ensure the survival of the ''Volk''—a widespread sentiment in this era. To exemplify and encourage such views, when the ''Hitlerjugend
The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926 ...
'' and ''Bund Deutscher Mädel
The League of German Girls or the Band of German Maidens (german: Bund Deutscher Mädel, abbreviated as BDM) was the girls' wing of the Nazi Party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only legal female youth organization in Nazi Germany ...
'' collected donations for ''Winterhilfswerk
The ''Winterhilfswerk des Deutschen Volkes'' ( en, link=yes, Winter Relief of the German People), commonly known by its abbreviated form ''Winterhilfswerk'' (WHW), was an annual donation drive by the National Socialist People's Welfare (german: ...
'' (Winter Relief), totals were not reported for any individuals, only what the branch raised. The ''Winterhilfswerk'' campaigns themselves acted as a ritual to generate public feeling. Organisations and institutions such as Hitlerjugend, Bund Deutscher Mädel, Winterhilfswerk, but also the Reich Labour Service and, above all, the Nazi party were portrayed as exemplifications and concrete manifestations of the "Volksgemeinschaft".
Hitler declared that he knew nothing of bourgeois or proletarian, only Germans. ''Volksgemeinschaft'' was portrayed as overcoming distinctions of party and social class. The commonality this created across classes was among the great appeals of Nazism.
After the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,Dan Moorhouse, ed schoolshistory.org.uk, accessed 2008-05-31.Known in German as the or was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party ( or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff and othe ...
, Hitler, in the trial, omitted his usual pre-putsch anti-Semitism and centered his defense on his selfless devotion to the good of the ''Volk'' and the need for bold action to save them.[Claudia Koonz, ''The Nazi Conscience'', p 21 ] The Versailles settlement had betrayed Germany, which they had tried to save. Thereafter, his speeches concentrated on his boundless devotion to the ''Volk'', though not entirely eliminating the anti-Semitism. Even once in power, his immediate speeches spoke of serving Germany.[Claudia Koonz, ''The Nazi Conscience'', p 31 ] While the Reichstag fire was used to justify anti-Communist and anti-Semitic violence, Hitler himself spoke on a new life, honor, and unity in Germany. Similarly, the Night of the Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives (German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Ad ...
was justified as a peril to the people so great that only decisive action would save them. Goebbels described Hitler after that event as suffering "tragic loneliness" and as a Siegfried
Siegfried is a German-language male given name, composed from the Germanic elements ''sig'' "victory" and ''frithu'' "protection, peace".
The German name has the Old Norse cognate ''Sigfriðr, Sigfrøðr'', which gives rise to Swedish ''Sigfrid' ...
forced to shed blood to preserve Germany.
Devotion to this ''Volk'' is common in Nazi propaganda. An account, for instance, of a SA brawl depicted its leader as uncouth and therefore a simple, strong, and honest man of the people. ''Sturmabteilung
The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi ral ...
'' speakers were used, in part, for the appeal of their folksy manner. One element of Horst Wessel
Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel (9 October 1907 – 23 February 1930) was a Berlin ''Sturmführer'' ("Assault Leader", the lowest commissioned officer rank) of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), the Nazi Party's stormtroopers. After his killing in 1 ...
's life that was fictionalized out of the movie ''Hans Westmar
''Hans Westmar'' (full title: ' "Hans Westmar. One of many. A German Fate from the Year 1929") was the last of an unofficial trilogy of films produced by the Nazis shortly after coming to power in January 1933, celebrating their '' Kampfzeit'' ...
'' was the willful provoking of violent conflicts with Communists; Westmar preaches class reconciliation, and his death unifies students and workers. These ideas were also propagandized to the ''Sturmabteilung'', whose violent, rebellious and confrontational past had to be transformed into a community organization to be useful in a Germany where Nazis held official power.
This unity was what justified Nazi propaganda; its pejorative connotation had sprung solely from its selfish use, and the Nazis' honorable goal, the unity of the German people, made it honorable for them.
It also justified the one-party state as all that was needed in a society with a united will, where Hitler implemented the will of the ''Volk'' more directly than in a democracy. Attacks on Great Britain as a plutocracy also emphasized how the German, being able to participate in his ''Volk'', is freer than the Briton.
In his pamphlet ''State, Volk and Movement'', Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt (; 11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, political theorist, and prominent member of the Nazi Party. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. A conservative theorist, he is noted as ...
praised the expulsion of Jews from political life without ever using the term "Jew" and using "non-Aryan" only rarely, by praising the homogeneity of the people and the ''Volksgemeinschaft'' ensuing; merely Gleichschaltung
The Nazi term () or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied b ...
was not sufficient, but Nazi principles must continue to make the German people pure. Even Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
's "collective unconscious" was preferred to Freudian
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
concepts because of its communal element.
The ''Volksgemeinschaft'' was also depicted in films on the home-front during World War II, with the war uniting all levels of society, as in the two most popular films of the Nazi era, ''Die grosse Liebe
''The Great Love'' (German: ''Die große Liebe'') is a 1942 German drama film directed by Rolf Hansen and starring Zarah Leander, Viktor Staal and Grethe Weiser. It premiered in Berlin in 1942 and went on to become the most commercially success ...
'' and ''Wunschkonzert
''Wunschkonzert'' (''Request Concert'') is a 1940 German drama propaganda film by Eduard von Borsody. After '' Die große Liebe'', it was the most popular film of wartime Germany, reaching the second highest gross.
Background
The popular music s ...
''. The ''Request Concert'' radio show, on which the latter film was based, achieved great popularity by broadcasting music claimed to be requested by men in the armed forces. Attempts to get women of "better classes" to take factory jobs were presented as breaking down class barriers and so helping create a true people's community. Failure to support the war was an anti-social act; this propaganda managed to bring arms production to a peak in 1944.
Categories of Germans
Nazi legal theory divided all Germans into two categories, namely the ''Volksgenossen'' ("National Comrades") who belonged to the ''Volksgemeinschaft'' and the ''Gemeinschaftsfremde'' ("Community Aliens") who did not. In addition to the duties and responsibilities shared by those in the community, the National Comrades were expected to build and create a "Volksgeist
''Geist'' () is a German noun with a significant degree of importance in German philosophy. Its semantic field corresponds to English ghost, spirit, mind, intellect. Some English translators resort to using "spirit/mind" or "spirit (mind)" to ...
" ("''Volk'' spirit") that would encompass the best aspects of the German people. As such, community aliens could not belong, since they were deemed an undermining element in the very foundations of the "Volksgemeinschaft".
The modern German historian Detlev Peukert
Detlev Peukert (September 20, 1950 in Gütersloh – May 17, 1990 in Hamburg) was a German historian, noted for his studies of the relationship between what he called the "spirit of science" and the Holocaust and in social history and the Weimar ...
wrote the following about the purpose of Nazi social policy:
The goal was an utopian ''Volksgemeinschaft'', totally under police surveillance, in which any attempt at nonconformist behaviour, or even any hint or intention of such behaviour, would be visited with terror.
Criminals, if deemed unable to be part of the people's community, were severely punished, even executed for crimes that did not provide for the death penalty, such as doubling the sentence the prosecution asked for when a defendant had not helped put out a fire, thus showing a disregard for the life of his "Volksgenossen" and community. In support of this, Peukert quoted two articles from the projected "Law for the Treatment of Community Aliens" of 1944, which though never implemented owing to bureaucratic quarrels showed the intentions of Nazi social policy:
Children and youth
In their desire to establish a total state, the Nazis understood the importance of “selling” their ideology to the youth. To accomplish this, Hitler established Nazi youth groups. Young boys from 6–10 years old participated in the '' Pimpfen'', similar to the cub scouts
Cub Scouts, Cubs or Wolf Cubs are programs associated with Scouting for young children usually between 7 and 12, depending on the organization to which they belong. A participant in the program is called a Cub. A group of Cubs is called a 'P ...
. Boys from 10–14 years old participated in the ''Deutsches Jungvolk
The ''Deutsches Jungvolk in der Hitlerjugend'' (; DJ, also DJV; German for "German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth") was the separate section for boys aged 10 to 13 of the Hitler Youth organisation in Nazi Germany. Through a programme of outdoor a ...
'', and boys 14–18 years old participated in the ''Hitler Jugend
The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926 ...
'' (Hitler Youth).[Walter S. Zapotoczny,]
Rulers of the World: The Hitler Youth
The two older groups fostered military values and virtues, such as duty, obedience, honor, courage, strength, and ruthlessness. Uniforms and regular military drills were supplemented by ceremonies honoring the war dead. Most importantly, the Hitler Youth did their utmost to indoctrinate the youth of Germany with the ideological values of Nazism. Youth leaders bore into the youth a sense of fervent patriotism and utter devotion to Hitler, including military training so as to be ready to join the Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
. By 1939, when membership in the Hitler Youth became compulsory, each new member of the Jungvolk was required to take an oath to the Führer
( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or " guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Nazi Germany cultivated the ("leader princip ...
swearing total allegiance.
Young girls were also a part of the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany. Girls from 10 to 14 years old were members of the '' Jungmädelbund'', while girls fourteen to eighteen belonged to the ''Bund Deutscher Mädel
The League of German Girls or the Band of German Maidens (german: Bund Deutscher Mädel, abbreviated as BDM) was the girls' wing of the Nazi Party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only legal female youth organization in Nazi Germany ...
''. Hitler youth girls were instructed in the principles of service, regimentation, obedience, and discipline. Girls were taught to be dutiful wives and mothers. Members of the ''Bund Deutscher Mädel'' were educated in the skills needed for domestic chores, nursing, and hygiene.
In the early years of the Nazi regime, bonfires were made of school children's differently colored caps as symbolic of the abolition of class differences. But by the end of the 1930s, most Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
officials were recruited from wealthier families, and the use of differently colored sashes had returned to schools.Richard Grunberger
Richard Grunberger (7 March 1924 Vienna, Austria – 15 February 2005) was a British historian who specialised in study of the Third Reich.
He was born in Austria to Jewish parents. After the 1938 Anschluss with Hitler's Germany, he was put on ...
, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44.
Daily life in Nazi Germany was manipulated from the beginning of Nazi rule. Propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
dominated popular culture and entertainment. Finally, Hitler and the party realized the possibilities of controlling Germany's youth as a means of continuing the ''Reich
''Reich'' (; ) is a German language, German noun whose meaning is analogous to the meaning of the English word "realm"; this is not to be confused with the German adjective "reich" which means "rich". The terms ' (literally the "realm of an emp ...
'' as they wanted the generation of Germans to follow to be dedicated to the strengthening and preservation of the German ''Volk'' and of the "Greater German Reich".
See also
* Blood and soil
* ''Gemeinschaft'' and ''Gesellschaft''
*Heidegger and Nazism
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
*Integralism
In politics, integralism, integrationism or integrism (french: intégrisme) is an interpretation of Catholic social teaching that argues for an authoritarian and anti- pluralist Catholic state, wherever the preponderance of Catholics within t ...
*Nazi propaganda
The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation o ...
References
{{Authority control
German nationalism
German words and phrases
Politics of Nazi Germany
Nazi terminology
Nazism