Nazi Germany Flashcards
Initial limits to Hitler’s power
Weimar Constitution controlled the chancellor’s powers
Hindenburg retained the powers of the president
Cabinet of 11 contained only 2 Nazis
Only 1/3 of Reichstag were Nazi party members
Tooze - Hitler extension of war
Extended the boundaries of war to include a wholesale campaign of genocide that stands unrivalled in its intensity, scope and deliberateness
Steber & Gotto - centrality of the VM
Central social concept - it was within it, and via it, that visions of community were expressed, negotiated and put into practice
Steber & Gotto - semantics of ‘volk’
Multi-layered historical semantics - clearly included all members of the race, living and dead, and the future generations
Timeless entity whose qualities were revealed in its individual members
Steer & Gotto - Nazi view of pre-1933 ‘volk’
Had become debased and deprived of its vigour - they were determined to fix this through social engineering
Any belief that private lives would not be affected and distance could be kept from politics was illusory
Steber & Gotto - demand and offer to the individual
Nazi society demanded a lot from the individual, but also had a lot to offer:
A place for individual happiness and success was promised to all those who belonged to the chosen community
Also meant that happiness and success was denied to all those declared unfit to belong
Steber & Gotto - VM pre-war
The priorities of the VM had been the affective integration of its members, and the implementation of racist segregation
Mechanisms of selection based on racial biology put in place
Steber & Gotto - VM post-war
VM utopia was now projected as a valiant ‘community of struggle’ in a transformation of its image the regime had engineered as it prepared for hostilities
While Germans on the home from profited from plundering of occupied areas and Jewish property, ‘solidarity’ was also expected
Final increasingly fragmented ‘community of fate’ at the end of the war
Kershaw - previous interest of social history
Interested in gulf between the Nazi promises and the reality of class divisions
Tim Mason captured failure to win over industrial workers
Fairly clear-cut that Nazism had not been able to transcend class society
Kershaw - post-1980s focus of the scholarship
Holocaust dominates every consideration of Nazism, so that all aspects of the regime are seen through that prism
Kershaw - impact of studies of everyday lives
Have shifted the perspective away from opposition and dissent of the regime towards conformity, even active complicity and willing consent
Regime and society thereby seem more in unison, as research from below has showed myriad supportive actions from below
Kershaw - questionable nature of emphasis on complicity
Before, through expanding the concept of resistance, it had seemed practically all Germans had been opposed to Hitler
Now, practically all seem to have bee complicit with Hitler’s crimes
Kershaw - VM as a vehicle
With its integration of people and exclusion of minorities, the VM is increasingly seen as the conceptual vehicle for the complicit society
This is also added to by the cultural turn, which takes Nazi ideology seriously rather than dismissing it
Willing cooperation and complicity seem in need of a concept to embrace the success of Nazism in winning over much of Germany to a genocidal project - VM now seen as real success story in this way
Kershaw - three key ways of defining the VM
As changed social and power relations
As a term of ‘affective integration’, emphasising it s mobilising force, the vision of a better society
As denoting inclusion and exclusion as defining characteristics of Nazi society, with obvious implications for Nazi racial policies
Kershaw - view of VM success in class integration
First view stresses the attractiveness to members of the working class of the chance for social mobility and status advancement
Kershaw - ways for VM to gain ‘concrete shape’
Strength through Joy, ‘democratisation’ of consumption through state-directed production, greater mobility for women
Kershaw - nature of 2nd approach to the VM
It is the promise rather than any supposed reality of social and political unity that is crucial
It has said it would be a mistake to take the terms of the VM to mean social reality
Kershaw - origin of the political force of the VM
Arose from its ‘promise and the potential for mobilisation, not as a gauge of society’
People thought things were getting better, and that society was egalitarian
Realities were interpreted through the lens of community rather than the lens of class
Kershaw - WW1 for VM
WW1 gave lasting currency to a sense of national solidarity and unity
As the Nazis gained hold over visions of the war, they emphasised the need to recreate the solidarity of the ‘trench community’
