Visions of Community in Nazi Germany
Social Engineering and Private Lives
Published on 8. May 2014
Book
Hardback
358 pages
978-0-19-968959-0 (ISBN)
Description
When the Nazis seized power in Germany in 1933 they promised to create a new, harmonious society under the leadership of the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler. The concept of Volksgemeinschaft - 'the people's community' - enshrined the Nazis' vision of society'; a society based on racist, social-Darwinist, anti-democratic, and nationalist thought. The regime used Volksgemeinschaft to define who belonged to the National Socialist 'community' and who did not. Being accorded the status of belonging granted citizenship rights, access to the benefits of the welfare state, and opportunities for advancement, while these who were denied the privilege of belonging lost their right to live. They were shamed, excluded, imprisoned, murdered.
Volksgemeinschaft was the Nazis' project of social engineering, realized by state action, by administrative procedure, by party practice, by propaganda, and by individual initiative. Everyone deemed worthy of belonging was called to participate in its realization. Indeed, this collective notion was directed at the individual, and unleashed an enormous dynamism, which gave social change a particular direction. The Volksgemeinschaft concept was not strictly defined, which meant that it was rather marked by a plurality of meaning and emphasis which resulted in a range of readings in the Third Reich, drawing in people from many social and political backgrounds.
Visions of Community in Nazi Germany scrutinizes Volksgemeinschaft as the Nazis' central vision of community. The contributors engage with individual appropriations, examine projects of social engineering, analyze the social dynamism unleashed, and show how deeply private lives were affected by this murderous vision of society.
Volksgemeinschaft was the Nazis' project of social engineering, realized by state action, by administrative procedure, by party practice, by propaganda, and by individual initiative. Everyone deemed worthy of belonging was called to participate in its realization. Indeed, this collective notion was directed at the individual, and unleashed an enormous dynamism, which gave social change a particular direction. The Volksgemeinschaft concept was not strictly defined, which meant that it was rather marked by a plurality of meaning and emphasis which resulted in a range of readings in the Third Reich, drawing in people from many social and political backgrounds.
Visions of Community in Nazi Germany scrutinizes Volksgemeinschaft as the Nazis' central vision of community. The contributors engage with individual appropriations, examine projects of social engineering, analyze the social dynamism unleashed, and show how deeply private lives were affected by this murderous vision of society.
Reviews / Votes
The volume impresses with its high degree of coherence and shows the productivity of a many-faceted analysis of 'Volksgemeinschaft', inspired by cultural history approaches, for the social history of the Nazi regime. Above all, this is due to the introduction which stresses the 'making' of the 'Volksgemeinschaft'. By doing this it brings together hitherto opposed interpretations and opens the perspective for social practices in a fluid "new frame of reference" in which ideas about individuality and normality were fundamentally connected with exclusion and violence. * Lu Seegers, Sepunkte * The volume's strength certainly lies in the felicitous connection of a theoretical conceptualization and historiographical integration of the "Volksgemeinschaft" approach with source-based case studies. * Nils LA?ffelbein, Neue Politische Literatur * The "new frame of reference" gives this volume remarkable coherence, wherefore it can claim its rightful place in the currently controversial debates about the Nazi 'Volksgemeinschaft.' * Adelheid von Saldern, Historische Zeitschrift * Steber and Gotto have brought together a team of esteemed scholars, and most contributions are of high quality. What these make clear above all, it that historians and other researchers should take the concept of Volksgemeinschaft seriously when studying Nazi Germany and the policy of the National Socialists. The vision of 'the people's community' was not just propaganda: it steered policy. * Martijn Lak, European History Quarterly * The most innovative contributions show that the community-building potential of the 'Volksgemeinschaft' discourse was founded on its pertinence for action: It offered an action-oriented worldview which provided even those, that remained in ideological distance to the Nazi regime, with a number of options, and thus functionally stabilized the system by practical action. * Wolfram Pyta, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung * This is a highly impressive volume that makes a powerful case for taking the Volksgemeinschaft paradigm seriously ... as a document of a debate that has been highly productive in many ways, this volume is clearly destined to become a canonical text in the historiography of the Third Reich. * Neil Gregor, Central European History *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
704 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-968959-0 (9780199689590)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Martina Steber | Bernhard Gotto
Visions of Community in Nazi Germany
Social Engineering and Private Lives
Book
07/2018
Oxford University Press
€52.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Martina Steber | Bernhard Gotto
Visions of Community in Nazi Germany
Social Engineering and Private Lives
E-Book
07/2018
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€35.49
Available for download
Martina Steber | Bernhard Gotto
Visions of Community in Nazi Germany
Social Engineering and Private Lives
E-Book
05/2014
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€24.99
Available for download
Persons
Martina Steber is Research Fellow at the Institut fuer Zeitgeschichte, Munich
previously she was based at the German Historical Institute London. Her first book Ethnische Gewissheiten: Die Ordnung des Regionalen vom Kaiserreich bis zum NS-Regime (2010) is an enquiry into the significance of regionality in German political culture in the first half of the twentieth century. She has published on the history of historiography, and on contemporary British and German political history. Currently she is co-editing a collection which scrutinizes German ideas of 'the West' in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and completing a book on political languages of conservatism in West Germany and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s.
Bernhard Gotto is research fellow at the Institut fuer Zeitgeschichte, Munich. In 2006 he published Nationalsozialistische Kommunalpolitik: Administrative Normalitaet und Systemstabilisierung durch die Augsburger Stadtverwaltung 1933-1945, which reevaluates the impact of urban administration in Nazi Germany. As well as several books on economic history in the 20th century, he has co-edited two volumes on crisis and the perception of crisis in Germany and France in the 1960s and 1970s. Since 2012 he has coordinated a Leibniz Graduate School on Disappointment in the 20th Century. His current research project scrutinizes the effects of disappointment on democracy in West Germany from 1960 to 1989.
previously she was based at the German Historical Institute London. Her first book Ethnische Gewissheiten: Die Ordnung des Regionalen vom Kaiserreich bis zum NS-Regime (2010) is an enquiry into the significance of regionality in German political culture in the first half of the twentieth century. She has published on the history of historiography, and on contemporary British and German political history. Currently she is co-editing a collection which scrutinizes German ideas of 'the West' in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and completing a book on political languages of conservatism in West Germany and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s.
Bernhard Gotto is research fellow at the Institut fuer Zeitgeschichte, Munich. In 2006 he published Nationalsozialistische Kommunalpolitik: Administrative Normalitaet und Systemstabilisierung durch die Augsburger Stadtverwaltung 1933-1945, which reevaluates the impact of urban administration in Nazi Germany. As well as several books on economic history in the 20th century, he has co-edited two volumes on crisis and the perception of crisis in Germany and France in the 1960s and 1970s. Since 2012 he has coordinated a Leibniz Graduate School on Disappointment in the 20th Century. His current research project scrutinizes the effects of disappointment on democracy in West Germany from 1960 to 1989.
Content
PART I: VOLKSGEMEINSCHAFT: CONTROVERSIES; PART II: A NEW FRAME OF REFERENCE: IDEOLOGY, ADMINISTRATIVE PRACTICES, AND SOCIAL CONTROL; PART III: THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE REGIME: THE PROMISES OF VOLKSGEMEINSCHAFT; PART IV: VOLKSGEMEINSCHAFT: A RATIONALE FOR VIOLENCE; PART V: THE LIMITS OF VOLKSGEMEINSCHAFT POLICIES