National Socialism and Consumption

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Jonathan Wiesen
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The United States ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Benito Mussolini ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Third Reich

Many important works in the field of consumer studies focus on the United States and post-World War II Western Europe, with the former often cast as the paradigmatic example of consumer society. Notwithstanding the disruptions of the Great Depression and less-severe business cycles, these societies offer plentiful images of bustling stores, widening economic opportunities, and the emergence of politicized citizen-consumers. The unique violence of the movements – whether manifested in the militant machismo of Benito Mussolini or the genocidal thrust of National Socialism – sets fascism apart from other twentieth-century developments. This article addresses some of the questions that emerge from a consideration of fascism and consumption, focusing in particular on National Socialist Germany, where consumption served a uniquely harsh end. It explores how Nazism envisioned the function of buying, selling, and consuming; the extent to which consumption was shaped by the state's ideological priorities; Nazi visions of consumption; realities of consumption and marketing in the Third Reich; and the debate on consumption and consent.

Hitler, for Example: Registers of National Socialist Exemplarity in Contemporary Germany

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Nitzan Shoshan
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Far Right ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Moral Exemplars ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Third Reich

Abstract This article examines whether and how the figure of Adolf Hitler in particular, and National Socialism more generally, operate as moral exemplars in today’s Germany. In conversation with similar studies about Mosely in England, Franco in Spain, and Mussolini in Italy, it seeks to advance our comparative understanding of neofascism in Europe and beyond. In Germany, legal and discursive constraints limit what can be said about the Third Reich period, while even far-right nationalists often condemn Hitler, for either the Holocaust or his military failure. Here I revise the concept of moral exemplarity as elaborated by Caroline Humphry to argue that Hitler and National Socialism do nevertheless work as contemporary exemplars, in at least three fashions: negativity, substitution, and extension. First, they stand as the most extreme markers of negative exemplarity for broad publics that understand them as illustrations of absolute moral depravity. Second, while Hitler himself is widely unpopular, Führer-substitutes such as Rudolf Hess provide alternative figures that German nationalists admire and seek to emulate. Finally, by extension to the realm of the ordinary, National Socialism introduces a cast of exemplars in the figures of loving grandfathers or anonymous fallen soldiers. The moral values for which they stand, I show, appear to be particularly significant for young nationalists. An extended, more open-ended notion of exemplarity, I conclude, can offer important insights about the lingering afterlife of fascist figures in the moral life of European nationalists today.

Mobilizing on Germany’s Frontier

2020 ◽  
pp. 163-204
Author(s):  
Caroline Mezger
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Personal Accomplishment ◽  
Youth Leadership ◽  
Children And Youth ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
German Children ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Military

Chapter 4 investigates the World War II mobilization of the Western Banat’s ethnic German children and youth into National Socialist organizations. It explores the evolution of the region’s (now mandatory) Deutsche Jugend, showing how—through the coordinated efforts of the German minority school system, the local youth leadership, and the military—almost all children and youth deemed to be “German” officially joined the organization. Not all individuals forced into the Deutsche Jugend, however, saw its activities as an onerous burden. Rather, even decades later, some of its former members appreciated their engagement with the Deutsche Jugend as a key “nationalizing” experience and as an avenue of great personal accomplishment. Within the organization, being “German” once again officially entailed defending the Third Reich, a calculation which would bring thousands of youth voluntarily and coercively into the arms of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS.

Problems and Potentials of the Berlin Document Center

1972 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 362-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Browder
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
The United States ◽  
German History ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Political Purpose ◽  
Organizational Arrangement ◽  
Finding Aids ◽  
The Third Reich

Although most students of contemporary German history, especially of the National Socialist period, are aware of the United States Document Center at Berlin (BDC) and its general holdings, that archive is not being exploited to its potential. This is primarily because the Document Center was created and organized for the political purpose of compiling information on the activities of individual Nazis. For this reason, the holdings lend themselves most readily to the study of individual involvement and to quantitative research on the personnel of various groups and agencies of the Third Reich. Unfortunately, this same organizational arrangement makes it extremely difficult and time-consuming to pursue a non-biographical or non-quantitative research problem. Nevertheless, the collections contain information to be found nowhere else—information on institutional, political, social, and economic problems which go well beyond the scope of an individual's involvement or beyond the sociological data which might be compiled from the personnel files. Unfortunately, there are no adequate finding aids for the Document Center, and a general vagueness of knowledge about the full extent of its holdings seems to plague even veteran users and the document center personnel themselves.

Ägyptologen im Dritten Reich: Biographische Notizen anhand der sogenannten „Steindorff-Liste“

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 120-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Schneider
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Second World War ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
John Wilson ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second World

Abstract The history of Egyptology in the Third Reich has never been the subject of academic analysis. This article gives a detailed overview of the biographies of Egyptologists in National Socialist Germany and their later careers after the Second World War. It scrutinizes their attitude towards the ideology of the Third Reich and their involvement in the political and intellectual Gleichschaltung of German Higher Education, as well as the impact National Socialism had on the discourse within the discipline. A letter written in 1946 by Georg Steindorff, one of the emigrated German Egyptologists, to John Wilson, Professor at the Oriental Institute Chicago, which incriminated former colleagues and exonerated others, is first published here and used as a framework for the debate.

scholarly journals PLANS OF THE NAZI LEADERSHIP OF THE THIRD REICH FOR THE OCCUPATION OF THE USSR

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-67
Author(s):  
Grigoriy Yu. Volkov
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Personal Traits ◽  
The Third ◽  
Thinking Process ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
German Reich

The victory over the Axis powers had virtually preserved Russia in world history. It was a great celebration not only of the armed forces, but also of ideas. The article widely uses Soviet and modern publications, by both Russian and foreign scientists, dedicated to the East Front of World War II. The criminal essence of Adolf Hitler’s personality, his personal traits, way of thinking is shown, the analysis of his statements, offi cial speeches, private conversations, «table speeches», «Mein Kampf» is carried out. It also reconstructs the thinking process of other Nazi civil and military leaders who acted together with their Führer in pursuit of the common goal. The article for the fi rst time, taking into account the logic of thinking of the leadership of the third Reich, traces literally by years that the war against the USSR was conceived as a total genocide and carefully worked out in all directions. The author concludes that the bloody and inhuman logic of the leadership of the German Reich, big entrepreneurs and bankers, members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and the Schutzstaffel, generals and soldiers of the Wehrmacht, and a virtual legion of various offi cials clearly shows that they were all united in their desire to «stop Russian history».

scholarly journals Morality and Language of National Socialism

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-99
Author(s):  
Andreas Buller ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Public Language ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Socialist Morality ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Relationship Of

This article presents an analysis of the diaries of the well-known German philologist of Jew­ish origin Victor Klemperer, who kept them in the Third Reich. From the perspective of these diaries, the author of the article examines the three central problems of the totalitarian language: the problem of its genesis and dissemination, the problem of the relationship of language with the ideology and morality of Nazi society, and, finally, the problem of per­sonal responsibility, especially the responsibility of public persons for the public language. Klemperer asks himself a question that we must ask ourselves as well: how can the language of a minor extremist (racist, religious, revolutionary) minority become the language of the majority? Furthermore, under what conditions does this linguistic change happen? Under what conditions does the totalitarian language emerge and spread? The danger of the totalitarian language is that it creates a seemingly legitimate basis to exclude a particular group or even specific groups from the society, thereby turning certain people into outsiders. The totalitarian language allows people to draw, mark and select. But behind this linguistic selection there is always a certain morality that implies concrete moral convictions and ethi­cal ideas. And so it was with the morality of National Socialism. The National Socialist morality was characterized by the spirit of racism and anti-Semitism, which manifested it­self primarily in the language of National Socialism. For this reason, we need to study the National Socialist language. But it also presupposes the study of National Socialist morality. This morality appears from time to time in the modern German language, esp. in the language of modern German extremists and racists. It poses a great danger to our soci­ety. In this respect, the study of the language of extremism can help us a lot, not only in or­der to recognize the close relationship between language and morality, but also possibly to avoid social catastrophes.

East, West, and the Return of ‘Central’: Borders Drawn and Redrawn

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Lee ◽  
Robert Bideleux
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The European Union ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The Impact ◽  
East West

Western Europe has not only met but also married Eastern Europe, even if there are rumours that it was a marriage of convenience, consummated in ‘EU Europe’. Nevertheless, a significant outcome of the cohabitation has been the resurgence of debates about the status, location, and distinctiveness of ‘Central Europe’; the changing nature of borders and borderlands; and the emergence of ‘new’ East/West divides. Because World War II was predominantly fought on the Eastern Front, almost 95 per cent of Europe's fatalities of war and genocide were in Central and Eastern Europe (including Germany and Austria). These mass killings, combined with the paramount role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of the Third Reich, led to substantial reconfigurations of the borders and ethnic compositions of European states. This article examines the reconfigurations of European territories at the close of World War II, the drastic redrawing of European borders during 1945–1948 and again in the late 1980s and 1990s, the impact on European borders of the European Union and its ‘deepening’ and ‘widening’, and Europe's new East/West divide.

Modern Dance in the Third Reich, Redux

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Manning
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
National Socialists ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Modern Dancers ◽  
New Research

This chapter reviews the literature on modern dance in Germany under National Socialism (1933–1945). In the current consensus, three interrelated explanations are advanced for why so many modern dancers collaborated with the National Socialists: shared roots in the life reform and physical culture movement at the turn of the twentieth century; crises during the Weimar Republic that culminated in the Great Depression; and the changing cultural policy of Goebbels’s Cultural Ministry. This chapter probes varied interpretations of how and why Mary Wigman, Rudolf Laban, and other modern dancers adapted their mode of Ausdruckstanz as Deutscher Tanz (“German dance”) and poses new research questions. The complex question of modern dance in the Third Reich is viewed in relation to changing historiographic models for understanding Germany between the two world wars.

German Schoolteachers, National Socialism, and the Politics of Culture at the End of the Weimar Republic

2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-82
Author(s):  
Marjorie Lamberti
Keyword(s):  
Weimar Republic ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
School Teaching ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
National Congress ◽  
The Third Reich

In the Third Reich a high percentage of the civil servants in the cadres of functionaries of the National Socialist Party on the local and district levels were teachers. It is thus not surprising that some historians who studied the elementary school teaching profession in the Weimar Republic began their research with assumptions about the “ideological affinities” of teachers to fascism and discussed “the specific predispositions that made it easy for them to identify with National Socialism.” The German Teachers' Association, one scholar wrote, “proved to be more a precursor than an opponent of fascism.” At its national congress in May 1932, another historian related, the representatives of the chapters voted for a policy which, in effect, abandoned the democratic republic and “indirectly helped those political forces that would create a dictatorship in Germany within a year.” In 1932 and 1933, on the other hand, recruiters for the National Socialist Teachers’ League often complained about “hard and difficult soil” and “unpenetrable” regions.

Secret suffering: the victims of compulsory sterilization during National Socialism

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-487
Author(s):  
Stefanie Westermann
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Human Reproduction ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Third ◽  
Compulsory Sterilization ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Genetically Determined ◽  
The 19Th Century

From the second half of the 19th century, eugenics claimed the medical and social need to intervene in human reproduction. During National Socialism, 300,000–400,000 people in Germany were subjected to compulsory sterilization because they had psychological diseases, impairments and social behavioural problems, which were regarded as genetically determined. After the end of the Third Reich, these interventions were not recognized as National Socialist injustice, and the victims were initially excluded from ‘compensation’. As shown in letters and interviews, the victims of compulsory sterilization suffered physically and psychologically throughout their lives. In particular, feelings of social ‘inferiority’, and of shame and suffering from compulsory childlessness and broken relationships, are found in many of the sources examined.

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