Tag Archives: Nazi Germany

Early Nazi Platform: Liberalism and Socialism?

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In 1920 the newly created Nazi party had to create a platform to stand for. To do so they wrote a 25 point program conveying their goals and demands that they saw as necessary to the future of Germany. The program expressed many changes for the German people, forefront among them ideas of socialism, expansionism, statism, and racism. In our discussion of the modern state I see another great step forward from fascism with the German extreme nationalism in this document.

The in all regards the platform attempts to build a stronger nation by homogenizing the population and enforcing strict centralized power both economically and politically. The Nazis want to create a single race of Germans (point 4) without the Jewish and “non German” people (points 4, 7, 8), and enforced by politically only appointing citizens (point 6). With a plan to have a new racial pure Germany they next sought to expand militarily shedding of the shackles of the 1919 treaty, and create a strong central government (points 1, 2, 3). All these show a direct attempt to instill a modern state in Germany with state control and a homogeneous society retaining a national identity.

These ideas are similar to many other documents of the time in regards to the modern state. The futurists and Mussolini’s definition of fascism obviously set much of the foundations for the political enlargements and conservative aggressiveness seen in the program. Works on eugenics influenced Hitler’s ideas about the Nazi’s goals. Even the hated Marxist Leninist communist doctrine is seen in the economic points about ensuring employment and working for the state.

Personally what I found most interesting was point 9 “All citizens must have equal rights and obligations”. This has the classic liberalist idea of rights, common in modern democracies and the trappings of socialist doctrine with obligations. This sounded very contradictory; can liberalism and socialism work together with their desired effect? By definition can one have rights and obligations? I think that the Nazis were able to make their system effective but to say that citizens had equal rights when many in the country lived in fear, had to share wealth, and the state tried to control everything that a true attempt at liberalism is possible.

Mazower, Chapter 5

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In Chapter 5 of Dark Continent, Mazower details the ideology of Hitler’s new order and the policies that were implemented to bring it about. At the beginning of the chapter, he explains the appeal of German Fascism (Nazism) to other European countries at the outbreak of World War II. He
illustrates this change in sentiment and perspective using statistics.

In one instance, Mazower uses France to explain this type of change in 1940. In June of 1940, France suffered a humiliating defeat in six-weeks at the hands of the German Army. This humiliation dramatically shifted how the French as a whole responded to the Nazi’s invasion. Mazower wanted to illustrate that the French began to support the Nazi political ideology, believing that supporting the new governments (the occupying government and Vichy France) was better than continuing the fight.

To emphasize this evolution, Mazower cites an increase in the number of students at the Berlitz in Paris studying German, and the decrease in students taking English classes. Mazower does not explain these numbers, however. There is no explanation listed for why this change in classes at university is important to the larger perspective of the war, or the political and social climates in France.

Mazower compares in the Berlitz example the number of students in German classes in 1939 and 1941. He does not offer any more information. There is no interpretation of these numbers. No possible reasons for the increase in students in these classes. Did the school pressure students to switch from English to German so that the occupying Nazis would not closely scrutinize the school and its practices? Did the students do this to avoid trouble from other students, faculty, administrators and Nazis?

It is interesting that Mazower uses this example, followed closely by an explanation about how positive attitudes towards the Nazi occupations throughout Europe were quick to disappear, including in France. He cites a radical change in perspective occurring within two to three months of the Occupation.

The issue with the argument Mazower makes using the numbers is that he does not provide enough context to explain why the number of students taking German increases. These numbers are used in isolation, with no information about how other occurrences in France affected this and no comparisons to other institutions in Paris or France.

Why would so many students (939 increased to 7,920) have decided to take German after the Invasion and Occupation of France?

Eugenics in Europe

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Eugenics, the science of improving a countries human stock through specific breeding, had a significant impact on interwar Europe. Stone and Auslander both give their interpretations of how eugenics affected Europe. Stone discusses how, contrary to popular belief, eugenics in Britain was not exclusively targeted towards class, but how it was inadvertently also about race. Auslander explains how eugenics in interwar Europe manifests itself in the citizens aesthetic lifestyle choices, which reflects the sense of the countries nationalist philosophies.

The reality behind the eugenics movement and Britain was not that it primarily focused on class, but focused on race as well. Similar to Nazi Germany, there were also revered, racist British eugenicists. For example, Rentoul, a famous British eugenicist, saw blacks as sexual beasts that shouldn’t breed with whites. “The negro is seldom content with sexual intercourse with a white woman, but culminates his sexual furor by killing the woman, sometimes taking out her womb and eating it”. (Stone, 96) This popularized racist though process led to British sterilization laws. The main issue with claiming that the movement was solely about class, was that there was too much overlap between the lower class, which consisted of a lot of immigrants, and race.  Although many saw these eugenics views as extreme, they still had an impact on the eugenics movement. After World War II, and the newfound widespread disdain for the extreme German eugenics movement, Britain claimed that their eugenics was class oriented, and they did this to disassociate with Nazi Germany.

Auslander describes the lifestyle choices and aesthetic tastes that the French, German’s, and Jew’s had in the interwar era when the national sense of belonging came from different ideologies. For example, Auslander gives us the idea that “…in Germany…citizens are understood to be born rather than made…”. (Auslander, 110) The foundation for German citizenship came from genetics, while French citizens were “French” through cultural adaptation. This reflects the national ideology of eugenics in the time period. Germany was more exclusive in the national sense, even if you were born in Germany but had non-German parents, you were not considered German. In France, however, anyone could be considered “French” as long as you spoke French, and engaged in the proper French activities.

Eugenics had a considerable influence on nationalist ideologies, a sense of belonging, and racism during the inter-war era in Europe. When confronted with the topic of racial exclusion in Europe during this era, almost all will point directly towards Nazi Germany. While it is true that Nazi Germany was the most extreme with their execution of eugenics philosophies, they were widespread throughout Europe at the time.