The myth and reality of the Third Reich:
All of the following were concepts that underpinned the overall idea of a Volksgemeinschaft:
Concept:
1. Membership open only
to pure Germans
How it was explained and links to Nazi ideology &
examples in propaganda:
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Jews, Communists, and other minority groups banned
Membership open only to ‘pure’ Germans
A romanticised and anti - urbanized image
“The Eternal Jew” - Anti-Semitism, ‘racial purity’
Examples of policies/affect/impact/
change over time
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Idea of large population = stronger nation - Hitler wanted
a big perfect Aryan society
○ Willing to have large healthy families, therefore
homosexuals and disabled needed to be
excluded from society.
perfect german=the Aryan people
Mein kampf is a form of propaganda it outlines the
Nazi’s main ideas.
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Euthanasia Program (1939) - killing
disabled people and excluding them
from society
Taking away Jews’ German
passports
Kristallnacht​ - killing Jews, arresting
them, and destroying Synagogues.
Arresting homosexuals, sending
them into concentration camps,
excluding them from the law.
Night of the Long Knives- excluding
opposition from the German society
1935 - Nuremberg laws
○ The Law for the Protection
of German Blood and
German Honour
concentration camps february 1933purge german society of the
“racially undesirable elements”. e.g
Jews, Gypsies.
final solution 1942- The nazi plan to
exterminate the Jews.
Jews are forced to wear the star of
David on their clothes.
○ That way Jews are
differentiated from society
“The NSDAP ensures Volksgemeinschaft”
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2. A society based on the
peasantry
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The poster shows the ideal family (as the Nazi
viewed it) - many children, Aryan look, all healthy
looking. The message in this poster is that if you
will maintain this kind of family and live by the Nazi
ideology, the state will protect you and help you.
children taught in schools how to recognize a jew
by his/her physical appearance
Land taken by the Treaty of Versailles (10% of
Germany lost)
German Land and Territory important to Nazi
Germany and promised to expand German territory
Farmers have a very strong connection with their
land, it is passed down, from father to son over
generations.
Peasants were the backbone of Germany.
(traditional people and part of Germany)
Peasant subject of “High Arts”
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Nazis promised to bring taken
land to farmers
Blut und Boden (blood and soil)
Nazi slogan
It gave the German people, who
had pure german blood in them
were entitled to own land
Reich Entailed Farm Law - gave
land to German blood, only
allowing them to own land and
farms.
State Hereditary Farm Law with
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Often shown, scattering seeds by hand, using
traditional ways of farming the land
Aryan race, yellow hair, blue eyes.
Example of Propaganda was the Nazi’s producing
statistics claiming that women from rural
communities had more children
Propaganda aimed at getting people back to the
land.
Peasants or Farmers held in high regard, a good
Nazi Society was based off of a strong agricultural
ideal
Germans shouldn’t loose touch with their heritage Nazi’s claimed all Germans come from rural areas their ancestors worked the land as should they
Jews blamed, German families moving to urban
areas claiming they were “driven” from the land
Power given to Farmers association as ​Reich
Farmers’ Leader Darré gave a speech at the fourth
Reich Farmers Rally - thanking leading Nazi’s - in
return Hitler thanks them for the Farmer’s
associations “loyalty and greeted the whole
German rural population”.
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the aim of preserving German
farming community - supposedly
to be the “blood source of the
German people”.
Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Fuhrer
(nazi ​
slogan)
(one country, one people, one
leader)
3. A classless society
- Everyone was equal and worked towards the greater
good as a whole.
- Propaganda was effectively used to convince Germans
that they lived in an equal society.
- Although only Aryans were equal.
- Hitler wanted to appeal to everyone, in order for this to
work, he needed to make class divisions as small as
possible.
- The ideology of belonging to a community which would
become more important than belonging to a particular
class, religion, ideology or region.
This image of the nuremberg rally shows how Hitler
wanted to create an equal, militaristic society where
individuality was removed for the greater good.
- "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic
economic system for the exploitation of the economically
weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation
of a human being according to wealth and property instead
of responsibility and performance, and we are all
determined to destroy this system under all conditions." Adolf Hitler (Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland,
1976, p. 306)
- Germany was affected by the Great
Depression and unemployment was
around 6 million.
- Hitler aimed to create a
Volksgemeinschaft.
-The creation of the DAF and the
compulsory membership meant that the
volksgemeinschaft were forced to be on
an equal platform.
The poster above is a DAF piece of
propaganda, workers from different jobs
were all pooled into the group and, as
shown on the poster, created equal.
4. National solidarity
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What is Solidarity =(​unity or agreement of feeling or Impact that the national solidarity had:
action, especially among individuals with a
● After the war, the solidarity that
common interest; mutual support within a group.)
has been present during the
The national solidarity was really important in the
Nazi years made everyone who
Nazi policy because Hitler promoted a strong
took part in it guilty.
nationalism, which means to help people from the
same country as you are and that share the same
believes.
National solidarity links best to the nazi ideology of
the ​Volksgemeindschaft,​ the concept of a german
national identity based on blood and race, sharing
a common worldview and philosophy.
In regards to the ​Volksgemeindschaft, ​the Nazis
had to change their policies for every targeted
group they wanted to conform in german society.
Such as the women of nazi germany. The main
focus of the nazis was to encourage the healthy
aryan family, of which women played an integral
part. This meant that women were not desired in
the workplace, seen by the introduction of marriage
loans given to women who gave up their jobs or
the restrictions on women's employment in the Civil
Service. Thus, instead the woman was desired to
remain at home, and increase the number of pure
german births.
5. A submissive and loyal
people
As Hitler stated in Mein Kampf, there was only one leader
with everybody else being loyal and submissive to him.
One characteristic of the Aryan race included people being
loyal to their leader: “He who has courage, loyalty and
honor...has the race that should rule in Germany…”
Goebbels worked to ensure propaganda was strictly pro
Nazi.
Loyalty through ‘Blood and Honor’ and the importance of
an honest German education
6. One leader
Mein Kampf:
One policy put in place to ensure that
the German public was submissive and
loyal to their leader was an oath that all
German soldiers had to pledge. They
had to swear to Hitler, instead of to
Germany, and promise to support and
stay loyal to him. They had to do
everything Hitler asked them to even if it
was illegal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-gIe
oq-2c0
Public
displays
of
violence/discrimination towards minority
groups (boycott of Jewish shows)
showed raw power of the Regime and
made sure the people were aware of
what damage could be done.
Not everybody was submissive and
loyal towards Hitler. This can be seen
through many different forms of
opposition such as the Edelweiss
Pirates, the White Rose group and the
1944 July Bomb Plot. Particularly with
the military, opposition did not arise until
after the war had begun in 1939 and
officers believed Hitler was driving
Germany to ruin.
An example of a policy that acted in
-​Hitler myth​: Hitler believed that Germany should have a
strong leader. He absorbed himself in the role and
convinced himself of what he said in his speeches.
favour of Hitler’s ideology of ‘one leader’
is one enacted after Hindenburg’s death
in 1934. As he was already appointed
Chancellor, he combined the roles of
Chancellorship, Presidency and head of
the army, ensuring that he legally
became the head of state, and thus the
only leader of Germany. Once Hitler
became the only leader of Germany, he
stayed in that position until the end of
WWII, although opposition rose as
Germany approached war.
Propaganda was directed at
promoting the new Germany with slogans such as “Ein
Reich, ein Volk, ein Fuehrer” (one country, one people,
one leader). Hitler wanted to create a classless society,
meaning everyone was equal. This, however, only applied
to every other ordinary German citizen, except Hitler
himself, as he was the absolute leader.
The army also had to swear an oath to
Hitler instead of Germany. By doing so
he ensured the army’s support.