Did the Nazi Corrupt Volkish Ideals - Research Paper Example

 Did the Nazi Corrupt ‘Volkish’ Ideals The Nazi regime embraced volkish ideals in a temporarily successful attempt to give legitimacy to its movement. The question remains whether the Third Reich exaggerated the concepts of Volkism as a propaganda tool or if the idea of Volkism had evolved to the point where the transition to intense racism and genocide was a natural progression needing only formal and vigorous instigation. The horrific actions of the Third Reich were a culmination of centuries of German cultural bonding through the ideas Volkism founded and not a drastic misrepresentation of the general ideologies of the time. By the 1930’s Volkism had come to imply much more than its initial concepts of culture, heritage and value of a race to the German populous. The anti-Semitism and subsequent deeds that typifies Hitler’s reign had been building up among the German people for decades. The acceptance of the German public of Hitler and his government though irrational, was not unexplainable. To understand to what extent the Nazi Party distorted or extended the volkish ideology to fit its own agenda, one must first appreciate the original meaning and evolution of the concept prior to and during the rise of the Third Reich. This paper will briefly explain the history of volkish thought, its correlation to and how it became intertwined with the Nazi regime and explore the question; was Volkism a gentile concept unwittingly used as an of tool for propaganda or is it the underlying reason for the public sanctioning of aggressive military measures and racism? As the industrial age swept across Europe in the mid-1800’s it brought society new opportunities but also inadvertently served to increase the individual’s feeling of remoteness and a loss of personal belonging (Mosse, 1964, p. 13). As Germany became modernized, its people began to feel alone in their own culture and began to desire closer association to their community. “Joining the Volk was a way to intellectually rebel against this new, modern world. The Volk was an intermediary between the extremes of individuality and the quest for cosmic identity” (Mosse, 1964, p. 15). A major aspect in the Volk concept centered around the sense of belonging and familiarity along with a strong connection with the rural, pastoral locations of the homeland. Germans of the Volk saw themselves as biologically bonded to those of their community, country and was as one with spirit of the countryside from which they were born. This relationship with the natural surroundings legitimized a person’s existence and acted to cement the connection to other countrymen who are of same physical surroundings. “The features of this land justified the value of his soul. The German forest is dark, rich, dense, and mystic. Man was seen not as a vanquisher of nature, he was glorified as living in accordance with nature, at one with its mystical forces” (Mosse, 1964, p. 15). Throughout the 1800 and 1900s, Germans, as most all other cultures and countries, held a romantic notion of the medieval period. This general and fervent interest in German history further boosted the volkish idea of national unity. “There was a certain nostalgia for medieval times, seen by Germans as an age of innocence and wisdom. This medieval and rural utopia symbolized the intrinsic unity of people and landscapes” (Mosse, 1964, p. 20). The growth of mystic (occult) societies in Germany also played an important role in the spread of romantic nationalism during this period. The world-view shared by these societies was composed of numerous superficial notions such as “human beings can attain truth not with their reason but through their feelings and intuitions; every country possesses a national spirit; the German national spirit is a pagan spirit. These societies prepared the ground for the rise of Hitler and Nazism” (Howard, 1989, p. 106). Germans’ idealization of the past and their sense of communal bonding is hardly an unusual concept in human behavior but by the turn of the 20th century, Volkism had become an overly influential force. This seemingly benign patriotic ideology combined history, homeland and a sense of belonging, but as its intensity grew, it progressed to intolerance of those not of the ‘volk’ before progressing to hate and open displays of racism in many sectors of society. The Nazi regime originated from the most vocal fringe groups that supported ideas of bigotry and superiority. The uniquely German Volk philosophy was a romantic and emotion driven movement which naturally caused the citizens’ feelings to surge during military campaigns. The Third Reich carried out a campaign designed to deepen these romantic attitudes to rally support. Both romanticism and a belief in the Volk clearly demonstrated a propensity toward stirring emotion with irrationality following as its by-product which tends to lead to irrationality. Any person that replaces reason with emotion can be enticed into uncharacteristic thoughts and actions and are therefore more easily deceived. “Glorifying your people’s land and history is a small step away from believing your race is superior. The Volk amplified romanticism as an alternative to modernity. The Jew in Germany would come to symbolize all things modern” (Mosse, 1964, p. 17). During this rise of Nazism, the ethnic and romantic ideals of ‘Blood and Fatherland’ gained impetus. According to this notion, German blood and the German fatherland were holy and those ethnic minorities within the country that did not belong to the German race were seen as contaminating German blood and tarnishing the German fatherland. This stream of thought brought to bear an enormous influence on the Nazi ideology, which viewed “the spilling of blood as part of a holy crusade” (Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, 1991, p. 189). Volkish ideology is abstract, idealistic and meshed well with romantic thinking. Neither philosophy addressed social, economic or political issues of German society. The growing Volkish sentiment led Germans to only identify with people of their same German heritage to the exclusion of other races. Those not of Germany were not considered Volk. Each race had its own territory, but the Jews were seen as having no specific homeland and were regarded as foreigners with no connection to the land they occupied and had inhabited for many generations. As aliens, they were considered, even before the rise of the Third Reich, detrimental to the purity of Germans. From this degeneration of human value, the Nazi regime convinced the citizens that foreigners were subhuman and could be righteously exterminated. The abstract, idealistic principles of the Volk became a planned mission of human extermination and territory expansion through war. In late 19th century Germany, Jews were not allowed to own land by mandate of law and Christians were not allowed to lend money by religious decree. Not surprisingly, many Jews made their living by lending money to Christians. Anti-Semitism grew exponentially from a tolerated race to one of disdain following each poor harvest season. A farmer who had to borrow money either before or after a no-yield harvest was forced to forfeit his land if the debt could not be paid. As Jews were the lone lenders and were already viewed as encroaching on Volk lands, the fact that they increasingly owned German soil made for becoming an easy target of racial scorn. Jews were perceived as gaining German heritage and identity itself by the loathsome act of foreclosures in rural areas, the heart of the volkish ideal. These socially inflammatory factors, a strong sense of Volkism and the perception of an invading race stealing coveted land made all Jews an adversary of Germany. In addition, Germans blamed Jews for attempting to sabotage (modernize) the social and political structures by proliferating liberalism and communism (Burleigh & Wippermann, 1991, p. 36). Volkism had an influence on the brightest minds of the day in Germany giving the ideology further credibility to those that would use its powerful social impact to advocate racism. Many German scientists and philosophers claimed that racial cleanliness was not only reasonable but scientific. Academic scholars and clergymen alike advocated racial cleansing as well. “According to their Christian beliefs, all men were descended from Adam. But many races existed that could not be explained by the Bible. Many debates raged about the origins of mankind and the superiority of certain races” (Poliakov, 1996, p. 327). With beginnings in turn of the century Germany and certainly more substantially during the Nazi regime, the philosophical debates were not primarily focused on which race was superior but the ethical implications of the genocide of all non-Aryans or at least those that were detriments to the Volk (people). “Aryan is a Sanskrit word that literally means the Persians who settled in Iran and northwest India. To racial thinkers, however, this word came to mean a people who were not of Jewish origin and usually blond haired or blue eyed” (Poliakov, 1996, p. 326). These debates of racial cleansing that had its beginnings with Volkish ideals and severely exacerbated by circumstances dictated by existing lending laws were made a matter of government policy when Adolph Hitler assumed power. Afterwards, those German scientists and philosophers who did not previously advocated ethnic cleansing as a solution to racial purity either changed their mind, remained silent, defected or were killed. Aryan women were encouraged to populate Germany as part of the ethnic purity mandate which was deemed vital to the very survival of the Volk. Volkish romanticism encouraged passionate affiliation between countrymen but combined with ethnic circumstances in Germany was the very foundation of anger and hatred against those considered alien to German soil. Those of right-wing philosophical thought in Germany applied Social Darwinism to their purity argument. The widely utilized origin if man theory was growing in popularity at the time and “when applied in the social sciences projected human social institutions onto the nonhuman world as ‘natural laws.’ It then invoked those laws to justify the human social arrangements as ‘natural’. It also applied the maxim ‘survival of the fittest’ to society” (Biehl & Staudenmaier, 1995). Social Darwinism was a major source of justification for romantic nationalism and racism. Anglo-American social Darwinism conceived the ‘fittest’ as the most aggressive and intelligent individual entrepreneur in a capitalist society whereas German interpretation conceived the ‘fittest’ only in terms of ethnicity. This narrow interpretation of Social Darwinism persuaded many in Germany to believe that the ‘fittest’ race would ultimately endure by annihilating all its challengers in its struggle for survival (Biehl & Staudenmaier, 1995). “It may be said that if Darwinism in England was an extension of laissez faire individualism projected from the social world to the natural world. In Germany, it was a projection of German romanticism and philosophical idealism” (Gasman, 1971, pp. 22-23). In the early 1900’s, tensions between Jews and Germans were accelerating, but it was Germany’s loss of the First World War that intensified a humiliated nation’s concept of Volkism and unity. “By 1933 the German right was captured by Volkish ideas” (Mosse, 1964, p. 6). Millions of Germans accepted the removal of alien ethnicities as the only solution to Germany’s problems.  The growing tendency towards Volkism among the German people was seized upon by the Nazi’s propaganda machine as they sought to gain power. “As for the millions of German people who accepted and supported the Third Reich, they were only the products of their history” (Mosse, 1964, p. 9). The Swastika was chosen as the symbol of the Nazi party because of its roots in German history which appealed to Volkish thought. According to German mythology, the Swastika was the symbol of Thor, the god of war. For the egomaniacal politics of the Nazi party, the ancestral folklores and an idealistic view of culture that Volkism supported appealed significantly to their nationalistic tendencies and to their agenda as well. The Nazis blamed capitalism, which they claimed was controlled by the Jews, for Germany’s economic crisis. Hitler’s political campaign goals included fanning the flames of racial hysteria by placing all of the blame for the problems of Germany on the Jews. This one-subject emotional appeal to an already attentive audience helped to shadow other public concerns and hide much of his political deficits. “By getting himself accepted as the political savior by ever larger groups, Hitler was able to make the discrepancies of the economic and social program appear as negligible” (Holborn, 1969, p. 922). In his rise to power, Hitler garnered support by holding rallies, but his oratories were hardly credible or persuasive on an intellectual level. Usually, his speeches were predictable, repetitious and lacked substantive arguments. The influence of minds was spawned by the delivery of the speeches which possessed energy and a hypnotic, rhythmic pulse to them. This, combined with the in-place infection of mass Volkish emotions built up over decades produced a mass hysteria within the thousands of people packed together in a confined area. “What one witnesses at Hitler’s rallies is an ‘alteration of consciousnesses such as psychologists generally associate with a mystical experience” (Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, 1991, p. 199). Though the Nazis capitalized on growing nationalistic emotions that were originally derived from Volkism, the emotional aftermath of WW1 combined with an already unstable social environment served as the catalysts that led to Hitler’s ascension. The perception of Volk alone was energizing and evoking emotion but the sweeping public outcry following the 1918 German surrender provoked a ground-swell of patriotism that took the concept to its furthermost extreme. Had Germany won WW1 or reached a truce without surrender, the Volkish ideas of homeland and identity would still have been at the root of tensions but the public most likely would have not had the emotional drive to endorse romantic conquests such as what Hitler implemented. But the intensity of the racism that existed in pre-Nazi Germany was indeed sustained by the general disposition of German Volkish thinking. These viewpoints held by many Germans well before the Third Reich began, allowed its existence but was not necessarily the cause. Nazism is but one horrific historic example of the destructive cost of rampant romanticism of heritage and ethnicity. The Volkish movement from cultural distinction to racism and then to mass murder in Germany supports the argument that under suitable conditions, and within a relatively short amount of time, an individual as well as a society can be incited to become fervent hate-filled racists. It is possible for the romantically inclined to be brutal and unforgiving in one instant and become instantly very emotionally connected and reduced to tears. There is no boundary to socialised madness once reason is discarded for emotions. Volkism was based on emotion nationalism, a concept corrupted by racism and furthered by Nazism. References Baigent, M.; Leigh, R. & Lincoln, H. (1991). The Messianic Legacy. London, Corgi Books. Biehl, J. & Staudenmaier, P. (1995). “’Ecology’ and the Modernization of Fascism in the German Ultra-right.” Introduction to Ecofascism, Lessons From the German Experience. Scotland: AK Press. Burleigh, M. & Wippermann, W. (1991). The Racial State. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press. Gasman, D. (1971). The Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism. Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League (Eds.). London: Macdonald & Co. Holborn, H. (1969). History of Modern Germany, 1840-1945. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Howard, M. (1989). The Occult Conspiracy: The Secret History of Mystics, Templars, Masons and Occult Societies. London, Rider & Co. Mosse, G.L. (1964). The Crisis of German Ideology. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. Poliakov, L. (1996). The Aryan Myth. Trans. Edmund Howard. USA: Barnes and Noble Books. Read More