The Rise of Nazism - Essay Example

The Rise of Nazism 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. 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: 13). Throughout the 1800’s and 1900’s, Germans, as most all other cultures and countries did, 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: 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: 106). During this the 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: 189). 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 the status of 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. 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, 1991: 36). 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 concepts of Volkism and unity. “By 1933 the German right was captured by Volkish ideas” (Mosse, 1964: 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: 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: 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: 199). Though the Nazi’s capitalized on growing nationalistic emotions that were originally derived from Volkism, the emotional aftermath of WWI 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 evoked 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 WWI 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 not have had the emotional drive to endorse romantic conquests such as what Hitler implemented. References Baigent, Michael; Leigh, Richard & Lincoln, Henry. (1991). The Messianic Legacy. London: Corgi Books. Burleigh, Michael & Wippermann, Wolfgang. (1991). The Racial State. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press. Holborn, Hajo. (1969). History of Modern Germany: 1840-1945. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Howard, Michael. (1989). The Occult Conspiracy: The Secret History of Mystics, Templars, Masons and Occult Societies. London: Rider & Co. Ltd. Mosse, George L. (1964). The Crisis of German Ideology. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. Read More