volksgemeinschaft did the nazis achieve a social revolution between 1933- 1939?
TRANSCRIPT
What is meant by Volksgemeinschaft?
Hitler aimed to create a ‘national people’s community’
Weltanschauung- shared ideals- a common world view
Volksgenossen- Fellow GermansBlut und Boden- Blood and soil
Outsiders
What problems are there with the concept of Volksgemeinschaft?
What do you think Hitler was really trying to achieve?
Role of Women
‘One might be tempted to say that the world of women is a smaller world. For her world is her husband, her family, her children and her house’
Kinder, Kirche, Kuche- Children, Church, Kitchen
Family as the ‘germ cell of the nation’ State backed motherhood- made an
attractive financial proposition
How did women fit in with Nazi ideology?
Volkisch ideas about role of women – subservient wife, prolific mother, guardian of moral virtue & racial purity
Three K’s – Kinder, Küche, KircheRestrictions – women excluded from judiciary,
medicine & civil service; university places limited to 10%Incentives – free loans to newlyweds,, tax rebates,
medalsNuremberg Laws, 1935 – banned sexual intercourse
between Germans & JewsLebensborn – impregnation by SS officersOrganisations – National Socialist Womanhood;
German Women’s Enterprise
Interpretations
Reactionary- in response to the Weimar trend- full employment, vote, fashion, freedom of women- Nazis picked up on a Depression era reaction
Contradictions in Nazi policy- family unit, but Hitler Youth, sterilisation programme, euthanasia programme, Lebensborn programme- birth outside marriage
Nazi economic recovery-women stayed in employment
Ideology versus economic need- many laws relaxed as demand for workers increased
Success?
Did women absorb Nazi propaganda?Nazi family values an extreme version of CatholicismIncrease in social services for womenUnable to reconcile social policy with
political,economic and military ambitionsNo evidence that policies were unpopular- secured
the approval - ‘tolerance’ by womenModernism versus traditionalist tendencies within the
Third ReichFamily used a tool of the totalitarian state-
reproduction
Church
Shared values?- family / state / nationalism (Lutheranism) anti- communism
Church an obstacle to achieving total controlHitler speaks of a need for ‘Positive
Christianity’ Catholic 32% population / Protestant 58%-
Lutheran / CalvinistCatholic Zentrum / BVP political partiesProvincial religion- protestant state based
Third Reich and Religion
Reich Church- ‘coordination’ of Protestant churches
German Christians- ‘racial based’ Christianity (Ludwig Muller)
Confessional Church- breakaway from Reich Church- (Niemoller) (Bonhoffer)
German Faith Movement- ‘pagan’ Nazi Faith (Alfred Rosenberg)
Interpretation
‘Only insititution which had both an alternative ideology…and retained organisational autonomy’
Subservience to the stateEnsuring the survival of insititution through
cooperation- self defence- rather than political oppostion
Individuals rather than Institutions opposing the regime
Highlights the limits of the Totalitarian State
Overall- did Hitler break down the classes?How much had society changed by 1945?Descriptions of life in the 1930s before the outbreak
of war (Lutz Niethammer 1986)- comments about life - ‘quiet’, ‘good’, ‘normal’
People seem more concerned with employment, economic stability, order and peace.
Class structures probably not altered as a result of Nazi rule.
‘Revolution of form, not substance’- Hitler’s aim to deceive the people. VMS a propaganda gimmick.
Conclusions continued
Social effects were at times contradictory- sometimes modernising/ sometimes reactionary
Deep social divisions and discontent existed beneath the propaganda- this was dealt with by repression.
If a social revolution was achieved it was as a result of the elimination of people
Strongest argument for social revolution is based on the regime’s social destruction- things changed as a result of war- but this was not intentional. Nazi Germany had an impact on society beyond its own existence.