A History of Germany 1918 - 2020. Mary Fulbrook
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Название: A History of Germany 1918 - 2020

Автор: Mary Fulbrook

Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited

Жанр: Историческая литература

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isbn: 9781119574248

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СКАЧАТЬ people. The 1939 edition of the People’s Encyclopaedia (Volksbrockhaus) defined the Volksgemeinschaft as ‘the life-community of people, resting on bonds of blood, on a common destiny and a common political faith, to which class and status conflicts are essentially foreign’.4 After the near civil-war conditions of the Weimar Republic, the notion of an organic, harmonious, biologically based racial community, with common political beliefs and a common historical destiny, transcending and healing the wounds of the preceding years, could sound intrinsically appealing to many Germans. Every effort was made by the regime to realize this concept of society, both through overt indoctrination and through the transformation of social organization and everyday experience.

      Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment, created in March 1933, sought increasing control of all media of communication and culture. A symbolic early event was the burning of books written by Jews, socialists and other ‘undesirable intellectuals’ on 10 May 1933. Although instigated by radical students, the book-burning was given official blessing by Goebbels’ presence at the bonfires on Berlin’s central street, Unter den Linden. The event did not in practice succeed entirely in eradicating books by banned authors from libraries across Germany, but it certainly contributed to the ‘inner emigration’ – self-censorship and public silence – as well as the literal emigration of many authors, among them Thomas and Heinrich Mann and Bertolt Brecht. Subsequent cultural life in Nazi Germany was to a considerable extent reduced to the level of ‘German art’, typified by a mediocre realism in painting and grandiose schemes in architecture; in the fields of music and drama, some notable individuals compromised with the regime to continue to realize peaks of artistic perfection in the performance of German classics. Britain and, on a larger scale, the United States were the major beneficiaries of the mass exodus of cultural talent from Nazi Germany.

      Goebbels also made use of the media of popular entertainment and less highbrow culture to attempt to influence the masses. Film was a highly effective medium for propaganda, and the Nazis became adept at producing short newsreel pieces glorifying the achievements of the Führer, illustrating popular adulation of Hitler and celebrating the achievements of the Reich as a result of its ‘national awakening’. Care was taken to stress positive aspects and downplay features that would tend to alienate people and lose popular support. The press, which under the Weimar Republic had been diverse and decentralized, was gradually subjected to Nazi control. This was done partly by the Nazi publishing house gaining an increasing share in the outright ownership of newspapers, partly by increasing control over publishers, editors and journalists, partly by censorship, and partly by feeding stories through a Nazi-run news service. By the later 1930s news reports for different newspapers were sufficiently gleichgeschaltet (co-ordinated) and predictable for most people to adopt a cynical approach and put little store by what was said in German newspapers. The radio was similarly co-opted to Nazi ends, and mass ownership of the ‘people’s receiver’ (Volksempfänger) was encouraged – which trebled ownership in the 6 prewar years, giving Germany the highest percentage of radio owners in the world. The emphasis was placed on a combination of light entertainment and snippets of slanted ‘news’ coverage.

      Nevertheless, it does not seem that the Nazi youth organizations were an unmitigated success in inculcating a Nazi worldview in those who participated in them. Many young people simply conformed to the minimum extent necessary to avoid sanctions. Other young people developed their own youth subcultures, which the Nazis failed to suppress. Alternative youth groups included the ‘Edelweiss Pirates’ (spontaneous groups of youngsters who waged war on the Hitler Youth) and the Leipzig Meuten, the Dresden ‘Mobs’, the Halle Proletengefolgschaften, the Hamburg ‘Deathshead Gang’ and ‘Bismarck Gang’ and the Munich Blasen. While these groups were in the main working class, the swing movement was largely supported by upper-middle-class enthusiasts for ‘decadent’ jazz music. It is quite clear, not only from autobiographical accounts of individual alienation from the Hitler Youth (such as that by Heinrich Böll) but also from these more visible subcultural groups – members of which ran considerable risks and did not always escape retribution for their nonconformity – that Nazi attempts to bend the minds of a whole generation were only partially successful. Even so, the younger generation was in general far more Nazified than older generations.6

      Plate 2 Members of the Nazi League of German Girls (BDM) walk proudly down the street of a German town. Source: Holocaust museuam.

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