Nazi ideology: some unfinished business (original) (raw)
Related papers
2019
Much of the discussion of German National Socialism has historically focused on of Adolf Hitler as the architect of the Nazi state. While recognizing Hitler's central role in the development of National Socialism, this thesis contends that he was not a lone actor. Much of the ideological and structural development National Socialism was driven by senior individuals within the party who were able to leverage their influence to institutionalize personal variants of National Socialism within broader party ideology. To explore the role of other ideologues for helping me examine this subject matter of this thesis though the complimentary lens of political science and for opening potential new professional and academic pathways to me in the process. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the recently retired Dr. Cheryl Riggs, one of the most rigorous, thorough, and thought-provoking professors with whom I have ever had the honor to study. Further, I wish to express my thanks to program coordinator Dr. Jose Muñoz, and the faculty of the Masters in Social Science and Globalization Program at California State University San Bernardino for creating a truly interdisciplinary academic program from which I have tremendously benefited. Finally, I would like to express my eternal gratitude to my family for their thoughtful critique and support throughout a lengthy research and writing process. Without your support, this thesis could not have been completed. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .
Review of \u3ci\u3eWeimar Germany\u27s Left-Wing Intellectuals\u3c/i\u3e, by Istvan Deak
1970
Book Reviews 449 of doctrinaire individuals used to feed slogans to a Mittelstand thirsting for a way out of its dilemmas. The Marxist revolutionary and sometime National Bolshevik Ernst Niekisch used his Resistance Press to advocate a reconciliation between socialism and nationalism in response to western domination and the Versailles treaty, while the extremely conservative Oswald Spengler sought to save Prussian values by postulating a Prussian socialism aimed at integrating the working class into the value system of the past. Finally, Ferdinand Fried and his colleagues on Die Tat played upon the misery which united all elements of the Mittelstand during the depression and upon the breakdown of the international economy to advocate a Third Front which would unify the disaffected Mittelstand in support of a new autarkic order in a German-dominated Mitteleuropa. Lebovics is careful to point out that the relationship between social conservatism and nazism was a parallel rather than a direct one. Both movements appealed to the Mittelstand, and the Nazis were "vulgar" social conservatives. The author suggests that, "deviations notwithstanding," there was a correspondence between the theoretical tendencies in the two movements, the social conservative Center (Sombart and Spann), Left (Niekisch), and Right (Spengler) having counterparts, respectively, in Gottfried Feder, the Strasser brothers, and Fritz Thyssen. Ultimately, it was Hitler who determined Nazi economic policy by implementing the social conservative doctrine of the primacy of politics over economics and subordinating the fate of the nation to a racism alien to most social conservatives and to an imperialism beyond their wildest dreams. While Lebovics correctly emphasizes Hitler's opportunistic acceptance of private property in order to win over big business, he gives undue emphasis to Hitler's connection with Emil Kirdorf, whom the author erroneously identifies as the head of the defunct Zentralverband deutscher Industrieller. Such minor criticisms should not detract from the excellence of this book which should encourage further research into the Mittelstand and into the way in which social conservative ideas were "molded into the cliches at the beerhall Stammtisch, at the innumerable meetings of the societies and clubs to which so many members of the middle class belonged, at the political rallies, and in the pages of magazines of political commentary" (p. 179).
Ideological Derivations of Nazism and Its Subsequent Rise-An Analytical Study
The Article in hand is synoptic view of Nazism. Much has been written about the origin and various dimensions of this German movement as well as regarding its consolidation and decline. It is very ironic that the most significant aspect relating to Nazism i.e. the basic factors and ideologies by which on one side Nazism gained popularity among masses but on the other hand these dry factors also caused its decline hardly attract any attention of historians. Here an effort has been made to estimate and highlight these very factors which were both ingredients and components of Nazi Ideology which, in turn, gave way a unique ideology to the German as well as European political literature.
The Nazi Regime—Ideology, Ascendancy, and Consensus
Understanding Willing Participants, Volume 2, 2018
In this chapter, Russell delineates the Nazi regime’s construction and promulgation of an ideology that saw many ordinary and mildly antisemitic Germans condone or feel indifferent about the infliction of harm on Jews and other “sub-humans.” Much like the Obedience study’s persuasion phase (see Volume 1), Russell argues that the Nazi regime ensured that Germany’s “informational and social field” underwent a “calculated restructuring.” A key consequence of this indoctrination process for many Germans was that the harming of certain others was morally inverted into a social good.
Judaism, or anti-Semitism; pp. 720-21), he very often used viilkisch and nationalist terms that were associated with the Nazi anti-Jewish policies in those years. In the new version of his fifth volume in particular, antiliberal, anticapitalist and romantic, nationalist expressions (pp. 669-70) were used frequently. But all to no purpose: even the new version, and the many articles Schnabel wrote in those years could not persuade the Nazi censor to lift the ban on his book, or restore his academic position.
At the end of the 1920s the NSDAP, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, developed a peculiar propaganda tool towards the blue-collar workers: a Workers' Literature (in German Arbeiterliteratur), a literature focusing on factory and factory work, published mainly on the party periodicals. This literature takes the name of 'nationalsozialistische Arbeiterliteratur' (or NS-Arbeiterliteratur, national socialist workers' literature). The aim of the Hitler party was to gain the consent of the dreaded blue-collar workers by supporting a literature written especially for them on the model of the communist and socialist literature. In my doctoral thesis I investigated the whole history of the Nazi Arbeiterliteratur from its beginnings, at the end of the 1920s, until World War II . In this short paper I will focus only on the period of the Weimarer Republic, trying to illustrate how the Nazis used their literature of propaganda to attract blue-collar workers during the so-called Kampfzeit, literally the years of battle, before Hitler's takeover.