scholarly journals Social Penetration and Police Action: Collaboration Structures in the Repertory of Gestapo Activities

1997 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus-Michael Mallmann
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Research ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
The Third ◽  
Exchange Processes ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Social Penetration ◽  
Police Action ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Totalitarian Regimes

SummaryThe twentieth century was “short”, running only from 1914 to 1990/1991. Even so, it will doubtless enter history as an unprecedented era of dictatorships. The question of how these totalitarian regimes functioned in practice, how and to what extent they were able to realize their power aspirations, has until now been answered empirically at most highly selectively. Extensive comparative research efforts will be required over the coming decades. The police as the key organization in the state monopoly of power is particularly important in this context, since like no other institution it operates at the interface of state and society. Using the example of the Gestapo's activities in the Third Reich, this article analyses collaboration structures between these two spheres, which made possible (either on a voluntary or coercive basis) a penetration of social contexts and hence police action even in shielded areas. It is my thesis that such exchange processes through unsolicited denunciation and informers with double identities will also have been decisive outside Germany in the tracking of dissident behaviour and the detection of conspiratorial practices.

Enemies of the People

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Ryan Stackhouse
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
The Third ◽  
The People ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Case Files ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The Relationship

How do terror and popularity merge under a dictatorship? How did the Gestapo deal with critics of Nazism? Based on hundreds of secret police case files, Enemies of the People explores the day-to-day reality of political policing under Hitler. Examining the Gestapo's policy of 'selective enforcement', J. Ryan Stackhouse challenges the abiding perception of the Gestapo as policing exclusively through terror. Instead, he reveals the complex system of enforcement that defined the relationship between state and society in the Third Reich and helps to explain the Germans' abiding support for Hitler and their complicity in the regime's crimes. Stories of everyday life in Nazi Germany paint the clearest picture yet of just how differently the Gestapo handled certain groups and actions, and the routine investigation, interrogation, and enforcement practices behind this system. Enemies of the People offers penetrating insights into just how reasonable selective enforcement appeared to Germans, and draws unavoidable parallels with the contemporary threat of authoritarianism.

The Language of Ideology: Lingual Manipulation of Readers in German Literature of the Third Reich

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Michael Press
Keyword(s):  
German Literature ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
The Third ◽  
Historical Argument ◽  
Underlying Basis ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Post War ◽  
German People

In recognizing more than just hyperbole in their critical studies of National Socialist language, post-war philologists Viktor Klemperer (1946) and Eugen Seidel (1961) credit persuasive words and syntax with the expansion of Hitler's ideology among the German people. This popular explanation is being revisited by contemporary philologists, however, as new historical argument holds the functioning of the Third Reich to be anything but monolithic. An emerging scholarly consensus on the presence of more chaos than coherence in Nazi discourse suggests a new imperative for research. After reviewing the foundational works of Mein Kampf (1925) and Myth of the Twentieth Century (1930), the author confirms Klemperer and Seidel’s claim for linguistic manipulation in the rise of the National Socialist Party. Most importantly, this article provides a detailed explanation of how party leaders employed rhetorical language to promote fascist ideology without an underlying basis of logical argumentation.

Issues Surrounding the Development of the Neo-Nazi Scene in East Berlin

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Brothers
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Culture ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich

The rise of neo-Nazism in the capital of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was not inspired by a desire to recreate Hitler's Reich, but by youthful rebellion against the political and social culture of the GDR's Communist regime. This is detailed in Fuehrer-Ex: Memoirs of a Former Neo-Naxi by Ingo Hasselbach with Tom Reiss (Random House, New York, 1996). This movement, however, eventually worked towards returning Germany to its former 'glory' under the Third Reich under the guidance of 'professional' Nazis.

A war hero or a Hitler soldier?

2019 ◽  
pp. 50-57
Author(s):  
Pavel Gotovetsky
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
National Committee ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Third Reich

The article is devoted to the biography of General Pavlo Shandruk, an Ukrainian officer who served as a Polish contract officer in the interwar period and at the beginning of the World War II, and in 1945 became the organizer and commander of the Ukrainian National Army fighting alongside the Third Reich in the last months of the war. The author focuses on the symbolic event of 1961, which was the decoration of General Shandruk with the highest Polish (émigré) military decoration – the Virtuti Militari order, for his heroic military service in 1939. By describing the controversy and emotions among Poles and Ukrainians, which accompanied the award of the former Hitler's soldier, the author tries to answer the question of how the General Shandruk’s activities should be assessed in the perspective of the uneasy Twentieth-Century Polish-Ukrainian relations. Keywords: Pavlo Shandruk, Władysław Anders, Virtuti Militari, Ukrainian National Army, Ukrainian National Committee, contract officer.

«The enemy of my enemy»: actions of Azerbaijan «Musavat» party in Germany (1933–1939)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Й. Шнелле
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Second World

В данной статье рассматриваются отношения "Мусават", бывшей правящей партии Азербайджанской Республики и наиболее активной партии азербайджанских эмигрантов, с Третьим Рейхом в довоенный период. В 1933–1939 гг. Германия сыграла большую роль для партии «Мусават» в поисках союзников в борьбе против СССР. Мусаватисты некоторое время сотрудничали с Антикоминтерном в области антикоммунистической пропаганды и в 1939 г. были под покровительством Внешнеполитического управления НСДАП. Тем не менее положение «Мусават» в Германии оставалось неустойчивым вплоть до начала Второй мировой войны, надежды этой партии на эффективную поддержку со стороны Берлина не оправдались. The article examines relations between «Musavat», the former leading party of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and the most active party of Azerbaijan immigrants, and the Third Reich during the pre-war period. In 1933–1939 Germany helped the party in search for anti-Soviet allies. Members of «Musavat» collaborated with the Anti-Comintern in Anti-Bolshevik Propaganda activities in 1939, they were under the NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs protection. Never the less «Musavat» party haven’t gained a steady position till the beginning of the Second World War, it’s hopes for effective help and support from Berlin were not realized.

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