Volksgemeinschaft
Volksgemeinschaft is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community", "national community", or "racial community", depending on the translation of its component term Volk. This expression originally became popular during World War I as Germans rallied in support of the war, and many experienced "relief that at one fell swoop all social and political divisions could be solved in the great national equation". The idea of a Volksgemeinschaft was rooted in the notion of uniting people across class divides to achieve a national purpose, and the hope that national unity would "obliterate all conflicts - between employers and employees, town and countryside, producers and consumers, industry and craft".
After the November Revolution of 1918, the overthrow of the constitutional monarchy, and Germany's defeat in World War I, the concept of Volksgemeinschaft remained popular, especially on the right wing of German politics, in opposition to the class struggle advocated by Marxist parties like the Social Democrats and the Communists. The monarchist German Conservative Party became the German National People's Party and the National Liberal Party reorganized itself into the German People's Party, with the new names intended partly as references to Volksgemeinschaft.
The concept was notoriously embraced by the newly founded Nazi Party in the 1920s, and eventually became strongly associated with Nazism after Adolf Hitler's rise to power. In the Nazi vision of Volksgemeinschaft, society would continue to be organized into classes, but there would be no class conflict, because a common national consciousness would inspire the different economic and social classes to live together harmoniously and work for the nation. There was also an important racial aspect to the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft: only "people of Aryan blood" could be members.
Development
The word "Volksgemeinschaft" was probably first used in Gottlob August Tittel's 1791 translation of a text written by John Locke, synthesising the expression "in any place, generally". Among 19th century scholars who used the word "Volksgemeinschaft" were Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Carl von Savigny, Carl Theodor Welcker, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, Hermann Schulze, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Wilhelm Wundt. Most influential was perhaps Ferdinand Tönnies' theory in his work Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft of 1887. Decades later, in 1932, Tönnies joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany to oppose the rise of Nazism and protest against their use of his concept. He had his honorary professorship removed when Adolf Hitler came to power.In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, the German Emperor Wilhelm II proclaimed before the Reichstag the Burgfrieden, announcing that henceforward all of the regional differences between the different states of the Reich; between rich, middle class and poor; between Roman Catholics and Protestants; and between rural and urban were no longer relevant and the German people were all one for the duration of the war. During the war, many Germans longed to have the sense of unity that the Burgfrieden inspired continue after the war, and it was during this period that many ideas started to circulate about how to convert the wartime Burgfrieden into a peacetime Volksgemeinschaft. People who belonged to the Volksgemeinschaft were known as Volksgenossen.
In the aftermath of World War I, the idea of Volksgemeinschaft was used to interpret economic catastrophes and hardship facing Germans during the Weimar Republic era as a common experience of the German nation and to argue for German unity to bring about renewal to end the crisis. It was invoked by the Jewish social anarchists Gustav Landauer and Erich Mühsam in articulating their vision of a peaceful, non-coercive mutualist society. However, it was subsequently adopted by the Nazi Party to justify actions against Jews, profiteers, Marxists, and the Allies of World War I, whom the Nazis accused of obstructing German national regeneration, causing national disintegration in 1918 and Germany's defeat in World War I.
There is an ongoing debate among historians as to whether a Volksgemeinschaft was or was not successfully established between 1933 and 1945. This is a notably controversial topic of debate for ethical and political reasons, and is made difficult by the ambiguous language employed by Hitler and the Nazis when talking about the Volksgemeinschaft.
Nazi ''Volksgemeinschaft''
In the aftermath of the November Revolution of 1918 that marked the end of the German Empire and the beginning of the Weimar Republic, there was strong animosity amongst many Germans towards the Weimar Republic and the social democrats who sponsored its creation. This was combined with anxiety in the 1930s and with the severe economic crisis in Germany and abroad, in which many Germans faced unemployment. This situation resulted in increasing popularity for the Nazi Party, including amongst workers, small business owners, and others who desired a government that would resolve the economic crisis. While ascending to power, Hitler promised to restore faith in the Volk and to bring wholeness while accusing other politicians of tearing at German unity.File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H1215-503-009, Walther Darré bei einer Kundgebung.jpg|thumb|left|Richard Walther Darré addressing a meeting of the farming community in Goslar on 13 December 1937 standing in front of a Reichsadler and Swastika crossed with a sword and wheat ear labelled Blood and Soil
Upon rising to power in 1933, the Nazis sought to gain support of various elements of society. Their concept of Volksgemeinschaft was racially unified and organized hierarchically. This involved a mystical unity, a form of racial soul uniting all Germans, including those living abroad. Nevertheless, this soul was regarded as related to the land, in the doctrine of "blood and soil". Indeed, one reason for "blood and soil" was the belief that landowner and peasant lived in an organic harmony. Aryan Germans who had sexual relations with non-Germanics were excluded from the people's community.
The Nazis solidified support amongst nationalists and conservatives by presenting themselves as allied with President Paul von Hindenburg, who was considered a war hero of World War I in Germany. On 21 March 1933, special celebrations were held to mark the re-opening of the Reichstag following the Reichstag fire, and the Nazis called this event Potsdam Day. Potsdam Day was used to celebrate military tradition, the Hohenzollern dynasty of Prussia, the sacrifices of World War I and the "hero of Tannenberg," President Hindenburg. The image of Hitler and Hindenburg shaking hands was reproduced on thousands of postcards, representing "the union of the new and old Germany," a way for the Nazis to portray themselves as connected to the aristocratic traditions of the past.
Having organized Potsdam Day to gain conservative support, the Nazis sought to gain the support of workers by declaring May Day, a day celebrated by organized labour, to be a paid holiday named the "Day of National Work" and held celebrations on 1 May 1933 to honour German workers. The regime believed that the only way to avoid a repeat of the disaster of 1918 was to secure workers' support for the German government. The regime also insisted through propaganda that all Germans take part in the May Day celebrations, not just workers, in the hope that this would help break down class hostility between workers and burghers. Songs in praise of labour and workers were played by state radio throughout May Day 1933, as well as an airshow in Berlin and fireworks. The Nazis added strongly nationalist themes to the celebrations, and Hitler spoke of workers as patriots who had built Germany's industrial strength and had honourably served in the war, while claiming that they had been oppressed under economic liberalism. Hitler praised the virtues of labor, and was quoted in the Völkischer Beobachter as declaring that "I only acknowledge one nobility—that of labour." The event proved convincing, as the next day the Berliner Morgenpost, a newspaper which had been associated with the political left in the past, praised the regime's May Day celebrations. At the same time, however, the Nazis sought to destroy independent working class organizations, seeing them as incompatible with the trans-class unity of the Volksgemeinschaft. On 2 May 1933, one day after the celebrations, the trade union movement was banned, and "stormtroopers sealed off and took over the operations of the socialist Free Trade Unions and incorporated them into what became the German Labor Front".
The Nazis continued social welfare policies initiated by the governments of the Weimar Republic and mobilized volunteers to assist those impoverished, "racially-worthy" Germans through the National Socialist People's Welfare organization. This organization oversaw charitable activities, and became the largest civic organization in Nazi Germany. Successful efforts were made to get middle-class women involved in social work assisting large families. The Winter Relief campaigns acted as a ritual to generate public feeling. These efforts also served to reinforce the racial ideology of the Nazis and the idea that the Volksgemeinschaft was a racial community, because Jews and other non-Aryans were excluded from social welfare benefits, as were Germans who opposed Nazism or who were deemed "unfit" for other reasons.
The Volksgemeinschaft was intended to create a sense of uniformity amongst its members; Fritz Reinhardt, state secretary for the finance ministry, introduced numerous tax breaks for lower and middle class Germans, narrowed pension gaps between blue and white collar workers, and lowered the entrance standards for civil service exams. The ubiquitous uniforms within Nazi organisations were intended to suppress visible class differences in dress and create an image of unity. Between 1933 and 1939, upward mobility was twice as likely as between 1927 and 1933. The Second World War assisted in this, as social status and class did not affect whether one received Reich services. Wartime rationing was implemented in an egalitarian manner, which greatly pleased the working class – a secret wartime report by the Social Democrats stated that "the working classes thoroughly welcome the fact that 'the better off' have, in practical terms, ceased to be that."
Nevertheless, in many ways the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft served only as a symbolic unity, while real differences of status and wealth continued to dominate daily life. The Nazis disparaged sophisticated forms of address such as gnädige Frau and the associated practice of kissing a lady's hand, but Hitler was routinely shown engaging in that same practice in press photographs. Old titles of nobility were shunned, but the Nazi Party hierarchy created numerous new titles. Elegant evening dress and other public displays of wealth were sometimes derided and sometimes encouraged. The Nazi Party claimed to administer justice impartially to all ethnic Germans regardless of their social origins, and Nazi propaganda emphasized instances where upper class individuals were found guilty by the courts as evidence of this, but at the same time the Nazi Party provided many opportunities for corruption and vested interests among its members. On one occasion the arrest of a Reichsbank director was widely publicized by the Nazi press, while his subsequent release was never mentioned.