The Nazi Worker
Description
The Nazi Worker is the second in a three-volume project on the figure of the worker and, by extension, questions of class in twentieth-century German culture. It is based on extensive research in the archives and informed by recent debates on the politics of emotion, the end of class, and the future of work. In seven chapters, the book reconstructs the processes by which National Socialism appropriated aspects of working-class culture and socialist politics and translated class-based identifications into the racialized communitarianism of Volksgemeinschaft (folk community). Arbeitertum (workerdom), the operative term within these processes of appropriation, not only established a discursive framework for integrating proletarian legacies into the cult of the German worker. As a social imaginary, workerdom also modelled the work-related emotions (e.g., joy, pride) essential to the culture of work promoted by the German Labor Front. The contribution of images and stories in creating these new social imaginaries will be reconstructed through highly contextualized readings of the debates about workerdom, Nazi movement novels, worker's poetry, workers' sculpture, as well as industrial painting, photography, film, and design.
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List of Illustrations
In Germany, access to the visual archives of National Socialism remains a problem. Complete journal runs are missing from libraries or not available for digitalization. Meanwhile, heirs of artists from the period and museums with such holdings are sometimes suspicious of critical research. These are the main reasons for the heavy reliance on low-quality reproductions of Nazi-era publications and the dearth of illustrations where some should have been included.
Cover Image: II. WK - Rüstung 1942 / WW II - armament 1942. akg-images / Fotoarchiv für Zeitgeschichte.
1.1
Mjölnir (Hans Schweitzer), "Unsere letzte Hoffnung Hitler" (1932), Bildarchiv Foto Marburg, www.fotomarburg.de.
1.2
Mjölnir (Hans Schweitzer), "Schluß jetzt: Wählt Hitler!" (1932), bpk/Deutsches Historisches Museum/Arne Psille.
4.1
Richard Euringer, Deutsche Passion 1933, Theater des Volkes Berlin, 1935, set design by Traugott Müller, photograph by René Fosshag. Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der FU Berlin, Theaterhistorische Sammlungen Nachlass Traugott Müller.
4.2
Thingstätte auf dem Brandberge, Halle (Saale), Sammlung Katharina Bosse, reprinted in Thingstätten: Von der Bedeutung der Vergangenheit für die Gegenwart (Bielefeld: Kerber, 2020), 92. With permission of the author.
4.3
Triumph des Willens (1935) Reichsarbeitsdienst sequence (c. 38'), screen captures.
4.4
Triumph des Willens (1935) Reichsarbeitsdienst sequence (c. 38'), screen captures.
4.5
Kurt Heynicke, Der Weg in Reich, Reichsfestspiele 1935, Thingstätte auf dem Heiligen Berg Heidelberg, set design by Traugott Müller, photograph by René Fosshag. Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der FU Berlin, Theaterhistorische Sammlungen Nachlass Traugott Müller.
5.1
Fritz Koelle, Der Blockwalzer (1929, 190 cm), Melusinenplatz (today: Karl-Preis-Platz), Munich. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
5.2
Fritz Koelle, Der Hammermeister (1932, 200 cm), in Ernst Kammerer, Fritz Koelle (Berlin: Rembrandt, 1939), 36.
5.3
Fritz Koelle, Hochofenarbeiter (1935, 200 cm), in Kammerer, Ernst Koelle, 44.
5.4
Fritz Koelle, Hochofenarbeiter (1938, 420 cm), in Kammerer, Ernst Koelle, 60.
5.5
Erich Mercker, Aus Deutschlands Schmiede (1940), VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022.
5.6
Erich Mercker, Abend am Hochofen (1920). Courtesy of Collection of the Grohmann Museum at Milwaukee School of Engineering, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
5.7
Erich Mercker, Im Reiche der Hochöfen (1942). Courtesy of Collection of the Grohmann Museum at Milwaukee School of Engineering, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
6.1
Paul Wolff, Arbeit! 200 Tiefdruckbildseiten. Text by Paul Georg Ehrhardt (Berlin: Volk und Reich, 1937), 168. Courtesy of Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler, Historisches Bildarchiv, D-77654 Offenburg.
6.2
"Wer schaffen will, muß fröhlich sein!" Courtesy bpk/Deutsches Historisches Museum, Raumbild-Verlag Otto Schönstein/Walter Tröller.
6.3
Eugen Diesel, ed., Das Werk: Technische Lichtbildstudien (Königsstein im Taunus: Karl Robert Langewiesche, 1931), frontispiece.
6.4
Arbeitertum 6.10 (1937), cover.
6.5
Arbeitertum 9.13 (1939), cover.
6.6
Arbeitertum 10.34 (1941), cover.
6.7
Wolff, Arbeit!, 50.
6.8
Wolff, Arbeit!, 77.
6.9
Erna Lendvai-Dircksen, Arbeit formt das Gesicht. Aus dem Archiv der Henschelwerke, words by Emil Maier-Dorn (Magdeburg: Wohlfeld, 1938), n.p.
6.10
Lendvai-Dircksen, Arbeit formt das Gesicht, n.p.
6.11
Lendvai-Dircksen, Arbeit formt das Gesicht, n.p.
6.12
Acciaio/Arbeit macht glücklich (Walter Ruttmann, 1933), Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Frankfurt am Main/Plakatarchiv/Nachlass Erich Meerwald.
6.13
Hände am Werk (Walter Frentz, 1935), Bundesarchiv PLAK 105/14321.
6.14
Woman worker with aerial bomb, Maschinenfabrik Meer, Mönchengladbach, February 1941, Ruth Hallersleben/Fotoarchiv Ruhrmuseum.
7.1
Edmund Schultz, ed., Die veränderte Welt: Eine Bilderfibel unserer Zeit, with texts by Ernst Jünger (Breslau: Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn, 1933), 49.
7.2
Anatol von Hübbenet, ed., Das Taschenbuch Schönheit der Arbeit (Berlin: Verlag der DAF, 1938), 79.
7.3
Das Taschenbuch "Schönheit der Arbeit," 124.
7.4
"So und nicht so" and "Schönheit der Arbeit. Wir helfen mit," posters reprinted in Die Form 10.7 (1935): 190.
7.5
"Arbeitsfreude" posters, reprinted in Die Form 10.7 (1935): 191.
Acknowledgments
Archival research for this book was supported by a 2016 Wolfsonian-FIU Fellowship at the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach, which holds a truly unique collection. The FRIAS Alumni Program at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg allowed me to take full advantage of the German interlibrary loan system during the summer of 2017; my heartfelt thanks to the entire FRIAS staff, and to Roland Muntschick in particular. The 2020 Ailsa Bruce Mellon Visiting Senior Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, provided an ideal setting for thinking about art historical questions in dialogue with a remarkable group of scholars. The completion of a first draft was made possible by a fall 2021 Faculty Research Assignment (FRA) from the University of Texas at Austin. Throughout the years, the generosity of the donor of the Texas Chair,...
