Tag Archives: Germany

Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier

Posted on by

Chapter IV of George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier made many interesting points about poverty and housing conditions in Interwar England. Orwell developed a very in depth study of the living conditions and how this may have affected the psyche of the inhabitants.

The Interwar Period was very concerned with behavior and order, especially in the wake of the Great War’s chaos. Psychology was one way in which many scholars began to try to understand the actions of both society and the individual. This type of study also began to influence other academic areas, like History, Anthropology and Literature. Orwell demonstrates, in questioning the behavior of this group, how various areas of study had become more interwoven.

Orwell at one point in Chapter IV discusses how some impoverished families portrayed themselves as more economically comfortable. Many Corporation houses seem to have been filled with well-maintained furniture; these items seemed to belong in a more financially stable house—a family that is not living at or below the poverty line. Orwell argues “it is in the rooms upstairs that the gauntness of poverty really discloses itself.” (60) He believes that it is a matter of pride to protect the nicer, more valuable pieces of furniture so that the family can appear to be less impoverished. These had most likely been passed down within the family throughout generations. It is the items that need to be bought every few years or months that were more difficult for these families to afford (i.e. bedclothes), and therefore, fewer families in more desperate financial situations had access to many basic items, like bedclothes.

This excerpt shares some similarities with Leora Auslanders’s article “’National Taste?’ Citizenship Law, State Form, and Everyday Aesthetics in Modern France and Germany, 1920-1940.” Both pieces referred to the tendency to “keep up with the Joneses.” How did this idea, needing to present a better image to the public or society, reflect larger themes from this period? Was this a reaction to the chaos of the war? Or a reaction to the uncertainty of the period? Or would this type of behavior have occurred regardless of wars, death and economic troubles?

Disillusionment and Fear Following WWI

Posted on by

Following the First World War, a sense of disillusionment fell over Europe, and Germany especially. In his 1920 film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Robert Wiene depicts the bewilderment of the German people after losing the war, as well as a general apprehension about change in the world. On the surface, Wiene’s film may seem like merely a horror movie, but it is, like all art, influenced by the ideas and events of the time, giving us a glimpse of interwar thinking.

In the early 19th century, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein served as a cautionary tale about the dangers of science and attempting to play God. Bertrand Russell discusses the dangers of science, as well, in Icarus or The Future of Science, in 1924, a century after Shelley. At this point, technological advances are occurring in many fields, such as manufacturing and science. Russell warns, “physiology will in time find ways of controlling emotion, which it is scarcely possible to doubt.” He fears that someday people will be able to control others with hormone injections, and make them do their bidding. This fear is brought to life in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Dr. Caligari is a physiologist who controls one of his patients by keeping him asleep through hypnosis, then waking him and forcing him to murder people. Not only does this show the evil of playing God, in the end, the whole story was just the main character’s hallucination, who is himself an inmate at a mental institution. This represents the disenchantment of the time, especially in Germany. The German people thought that President Wilson’s Fourteen Points would be the basis of the peace treaty, but instead all of the guilt and economic burden of the war are placed on Germany’s shoulders, while at the same time, Germany is being stripped of her economic resources.

The time period after World War One was an awakening. The war had caused destruction and death of an unprecedented amount.  To express disillusionment with the world, many people turned to the arts. Why the arts? Why, especially, film? Why was and is film such a strong medium for conveying ideas? What is it about film that makes it so powerful? Or is film not powerful, and some other form of art is the best form of self and ideological expression? Why?

Changes in inter war society

Posted on by

In both Koenker’s article on Soviet tourism and Reagin’s article on German housewives we see a similarity in the attempts made by both governments to sway their citizenry to a specific ideology. In Russia the communist party decided to control all forms of tourism. They were determined to change the view of tourism from the “bourgeoise” experience of knowing “only one street in a new city, the street from the train station to the hotel.” To the Soviet of idea of a tourist on a bicycle who “could observe al parts of a city, from its outskirts to its bridges…” This proletarian shift dominated all aspects of Soviet tourism in the interwar period. In Germany we see another cultural shift in regard to the way housewives conducted their household responsibilities. Although the cultural change was no wear near as dramatic as the one happening in Russia their was still an attempt made by middle and upper class German ladies to make the life of the everyday “frau” a little easier. This attempt was focused mainly on home economics, the German government still regarded kitchen as the females “workplace”. The changes attempted by the Germans although less dramatic then in Russia were still steps taken by the government to influence social life.

Koeneker’s article really struck me, mainly cause it was a topic I had never given though to. Although it is obvious through studying the Soviet Union that the communist party were involved in all aspects of life, its very interesting to see the amount of importance they put on such a “minor” issue in the scheme of things. When thinking of the Soviet worker tourism is one of the last things you would think of. The Soviet’s used tourism as another way to indoctrinate their citizenry, and keep the workers happy, and content. This show’s the depth that the Soviet state went to control their citizens.

Several points came to me when reading these two articles. Why did the Soviet’s focus so much on changing a clearly “upper class” pursuit? Why not just eliminate tourism all together. In Germany why was their such a focus on the improvement of house hold economics when the country was clearly lagging behind other western countries in regard to their infrastructure?

The Impact of German and Soviet Organizations

Posted on by

In Koenker’s The Proliterian Tourist in the 1930s, and Reagin’s Comparing Apples and Oranges, both authors place emphasis on specific societal institutions.  Tourism in the Soviet Union became very politically focused during the inter-war period.  In Germany, the ideals of consumption were promoted by housewives.  Both articles provide basic insights into each organization and their various contributions to society.  It is clear that in both the Soviet Union and Germany, tourism and housewife organizations were utilized for the promotion of political and social ideologies.

Koenker’s description of tourism was both intriguing and surprising; she argued that a concept as seemingly casual as tourism had intentions of a larger political scheme, which was to promote socialism, and stray away from the bourgeois life.  While there are many obvious ways in which they implemented this change, it is shocking that the Soviets would turn to organizations like tourism to solve these issues.  This essay is substantial, because it depicts the significance of everyday activities with regards to a larger political agenda.

Comparing Apples and Oranges was similarly striking in terms of highlighting Germany’s reliance on everyday institutions to solve social and political issues. What was surprising in this article was the reliance on women to solve such substantial issues.  During the inter-war period, it was clear that the woman’s place was in the home.  While this article supports that ideal, it argues that being a housewife was actually a crucial responsibility. Housewife organizations were responsible for promoting German manufactured goods, rationalization, and natural ingredients.  It is surprising that women, as second-class citizens at that time, would be relied upon for such pressing issues.

Why were everyday organizations like tourism and housewife organizations targeted as catalysts for political change? Why were these specific groups believed to be beneficial to the political agendas of the Soviet Union and Germany?

Influencing Culture

Posted on by

“The Proletarian Tourist in the 1930s: Between Mass Excursion and Mass Escape” by Diane P. Koenker and “Comparing Apples and Oranges: Housewives and the Politics of Consumption in Interwar Germany” by Nancy Reagin both focus on the politicization of different aspects of daily life and leisure. Koenker’s article illustrates the way in which the Soviet government propagated tourism as a means to turn this leisure activity into a political action and elevate the proletariat culturally. Similarly, Reagin’s article highlights how the various housewife organizations in Interwar Germany politicized daily activities, like grocery shopping, and changed how German culture was perceived and remembered.

The way in which culture changed in Germany based on the opinions of these housewives’ organizations is very intriguing. The points made in this article bring up questions about larger implications for culture: how were other aspects of daily life in Interwar Europe determined and influenced by campaigns such as these? The fact that organizations determined national attitudes about daily choices—the types of food people ate (wheat bread vs white bread) and where they shopped—is incredible. That the pre-existing cultural climate allowed for this level of influence points to the chaos and loss present during this period. Europe had drastically changed in the span of four years and the following decades were filled with attempts to find a new equilibrium. These measures, encouraged by these German organizations, were meant to help find a new balance and help restore order and security to Germany.

Koenker writes about how the USSR attempted to influence its culture with tourism. The government wanted this practice to expand beyond the Bourgeoisie to the Proletariat, but this failed. Tourism in the USSR quickly turned from another avenue of collectivization to a new form of individualism and independence; this did not reflect the new governmental policies that encouraged a collective philosophy to truly mirror the ideals and principles of communism. These practices never became part of the essential culture, like food choices quickly became in Germany. Why did these two similar campaigns work so differently? Perhaps because the German organizations targeted daily practices rather travel, a leisure activity that occurs more rarely.

Germany and Pronatalism

Posted on by

fw6-20

 

(Image courtesy of “Politicizing Pronatalism: exploring the Nazi Propaganda of Women through the Lens of Visual Propaganda”, by Katherine Rossy)

 

This image, taken from the Nazi party’s magazine for women, Frauen Warte, depicts a mother taking care of her baby daughter while her husband goes off to war. This particular image is from a 1937 issue, two years before World War II began. At this point in history, Germany is Nazi-occupated and Hitler’s power is rising. The picture illustrates clear gender roles that show the woman as a loving creature whose duty it is to make children just as it’s the men’s duty to fight. The Nazi Regime preached pronatalism to those “worthy” enough to reproduce, which was the Aryan race in their eyes. It was these women’s duty to make good German children. While women were getting more and more involved in the workforce, it goes to show that their first and foremost priority, at least as taught by the state, was to heighten the birthrate of the German population. Because of the alarmingly high divorce rates, and this new “modern woman, the state became highly concerned about the now declining birthrate. While this sparked Pronatalism regimes across Nazi Germany, it wasn’t an isolated situation. Several other countries across Europe began to outlaw abortion and contraception to rebuild the importance of the family unit.

 

The “Seeds” of Eugenics

Posted on by

323

 

In this overt example of interwar propaganda, the practice of eugenics is promoted through a poignant visual and textual analogy to agriculture.  The double meaning of the key term “seed” is utilized in a comparison between spreading healthy plant seed for a bountiful harvest and spreading healthy human “seed” for the purposes of procreation, specifically the creation of a physically fit, mentally proficient, racially pure population.

The first block of text that appears at the top of the poster, “Only healthy seed must be sown!”, alludes to the exclusionist principles of eugenics.  People who were deficient in physical or mental health were considered unfit to procreate.  More generally, anyone incapable of making an economic contribution to the state through gainful employment were subject to the scorn of negative eugenics (Mazower, 96).  Such members of the population were considered sources of “bad seeds,” so to speak, a threat to the purity and longevity of the nation in question.

The textual motif of the poster stands in contrast to the bright and optimistic image of the farmer, portrayed as a literally shining example of the robust and productive citizens that eugenicists aimed to create.  As Mark Mazower states in Dark Continent, eugenicists “believed that it was indeed possible to produce ‘better’ human beings through the right kind of social policies.” (91)  This logic was employed by several European nations during the interwar period, most notably Great Britain, Russia, and Germany, the latter applying the simplistically and deceptively positive term “racial hygiene” to the practice of eugenics. (Mazower, 92).

This poster is a pithy snapshot of the dangerous ideological ground being tread by interwar governments in Europe.  While the calculated and “logical” attributes of eugenics (as discussed in class) held several appeals for the recovering European governments after WWI, the concomitant dehumanization of the population in the eyes of the state may have in fact planted the “seeds” of social tension and injustice that helped steer the continent toward WWII. (Mazower, 97-98)

Image Source: http://www.niea.unsw.edu.au//sites/default/files/projects/323.jpg

Eugenics in Interwar Europe

Posted on by

“Eugenics is the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage,” states Francis Galton in his article, Eugenics: It’s Definition, Scope, and Aims in July 1904. Eugenic ideas spread through out Europe following the First World War. While eugenics is supposed to be about race quality, it became prevalent in interwar Europe mainly due to fear, and the need to transfer blame.

In National Self-Sufficiency, John Maynard Keynes states that England’s vast trading network was “the explanation before man and the justification before Heaven of her economic supremacy.” This statement reflects the views of most European countries; their respective races were superiorto all others. After WWI, Europe began to lose control of its colonies. For example, the British were facing resistance to their rule in India. In addition to this, natives of those colonies were immigrating to the mother nations; there were Algerians in France and Chinese in England, to name a few. To nations that had been mainly of homogenous race up to this point, this immigration was a shock and an unwelcome change. Fear began to spread among whites of these people with different skin color, culture and language. Whites needed a way to establish themselves as the superior race and to keep their race pure. Thus, they turned to eugenics.

Not only was Europe physically destroyed by WWI, the global economic crisis of 1929 ruined its still weak economies. A general sense that someone needed to be blamed was felt through out the continent; who better to blame than these new races or less superior races within European nations? Especially in Germany, who shouldered the majority of the blame, according to the Treaty of Versailles, for WWI, this need was felt; the blame was placed mainly the Jews. During WWI, Jews held the majority of the seats in German parliament, and were the ones who agreed to a cease-fire. After the war, German officers came forward and said that they could have won if it weren’t for the armistice. This fueled hatred for the Jews. Eugenics became popular as a scientific way to justify this hatred. In this German eugenics propaganda poster, Germans are being told that they must take the burden for degenerates and those who are not as genetically fit. Taking these attitudes into account, it is not surprising that the Holocaust occurred.

Eugenics was a recognized science in Europe during the interwar period. Eugenists and those who supported eugenics were not extremists, but were close to mainstream thought. Eugenics was driven by fear and the search for an outlet for blame, and was itself an underlying factor in the Second World War.

source for picture: http://www.disabilityhistory.org/dd_camp2.html

naziprop

Eugenics in the Modern Socialist State

Posted on by
Nazi Eugenics Poster

Nazi Eugenics Poster

With the rise of the modern socialist state, states now found themselves responsible for the well-being of their citizens. Because of the physical and mental capabilities of some citizens, many countries in Europe during the inter-war period began to advocate and implement eugenics programs in order to decrease the strain and burden on the bureaucratic system.

States such as France and Germany began to give benefits to its working class; the right to vote, improved health care, education, etc to name a few. All of these rights have costs and benefits to the state, costs that are worth every penny IF the citizen is a healthy and productive member of society. However, in the case of unproductive members (mentally challenged, “undesirables”, crippled, etc) they can act as a burden on the state. Thus, in order to provide for productive members in times of an economic crisis, citizens began to advocate and help implement eugenics into European society.

As demonstrated above, eugenics were not promoted by showing the end result of the people in question; rather, eugenics was promoted through propaganda using imagery designed to show the dead weight that the “unproductive” citizens were sharing with those who were productive. The ubermensch German is shown to carry the sick and deformed as part of their duty to the state while the freeloaders ride on his shoulders. This sort of imagery in the times of a recession agreed with citizens view points on making sure that they survived the crisis. Because of this agreement, citizens began to implement such programs as eugenics, leading to the Holocaust.

 

Photo Credit: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/05/04/is-eugenics-reemerging-if-so-what-would-happen-to-these-heroes-with-special-needs/

Eugenics in Interwar Europe

Posted on by

film-eternal-jew

http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/archive/film-eternal-jew/

This is a German poster for a government scripted movie, entitled the “The Eternal Jew”. It is described as a documentary, but a cursory glance at the poster reveals that it is a eugenics motivated propaganda film. The features of the Jew on the cover are deliberately depicted as ugly and evil, reminiscent of a witch from the tales of the Brothers Grimm. This movie was released in 1940, and represents the exaggerated European eugenicist view of “degenerates” (Stone, 98) during the interwar period.

The Nazi racialization of the state is well known, but according to Stone, race was a primary criterion even in Britain (Stone, 95). The image of a class based British Eugenicist Society was created by the Society after the Second World War and the disastrous culmination of racial eugenics in the Third Reich (Stone, 98-9). The difference between British eugenics and continental eugenics was their motive. Britain used eugenics to maintain the social hierarchy within the nation (Stone, 94), and to maintain supremacy over the Empire (Stone, 97). On the other hand, Italian and German ‘research’ was motivated by state ideology. Additionally, the methods implemented were very different. While Britain (Stone, 98), Italy (Willson, 84-6), and Germany (Mazower, 76) all advocated pro-natalism in a racial capacity, the former two were only able to legislate moderate laws, which were largely ineffective (Willson, 92-3), whereas the latter had more control over state policy and policing. Thus Eugenics had a greater effect in a German State that believed that blood descent, rather than assimilation, was the only claim to citizenship (Auslander, 110). Finally, while France believed that one could become a citizen through assimilation (Auslander, 110), they were still a colonial power who believed in the natural savageness of their colonial subjects.

In conclusion, it can be noted that Eugenics was an important debate in interwar Europe, but to varying degrees of implementation and success. State policies on women and families might have been influenced by these debates, but it must also be remembered that Europe had just suffered a large population loss due to the Great War. Therefore, these policies were also influenced by economic motives.