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Title: The Nazi Conscience : by Claudia Koonz ISBN: 0-674-01172-4 Publisher: Belknap Pr Pub. Date: October, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: Subversion
Comment: On a first glance Claudia Koonz' book on the Nazi conscience appears somewhat disappointing. Yes, it is fulsomely documented, relying on a wide variety of archival and contemporary sources, while also being copiously illustrated. But on the other hand this book seems too similar to other books, such as David Bankier and Ian Kershaw on public opinion during the Nazi years, and it does not seem to tell us anything new. But a closer look reveals something much more interesting. The title is a bit misleading. The book is less about Nazi concepts of conscience as it is about the subversion of the German conscience. The results of this process are both subtle and disturbing.
One day in 1940 a Nazi Youth member saw the Gestapo removing Jewish friend and the rest of the village's Jews and thought to himself, not how unfortunate that this was happening to Jews, but how unfortunate that his friend was Jewish. Such was the triumph of the Nazi conscience. As scholars are increasingly aware, the violent thuggish anti-Semitism of Julius Streicher and Nazi thugs was deeply unpopular, while racist ideas were controversial and intellectually questionable. How therefore could Hitler achieve his ends? Hitler, along with Goebbels, Himmler and Heydrich were the most radical and extreme of the anti-Semites. But all three were masters of making themselves appear to be more moderate and rational than they actually were. Most of the films approved by Goebbels appeared to lack any ideological content, Himmler went out of his way to make the SS appear more aristocratic and intellectual. Heydrich went out of his way to denounce "vulgar" anti-Semitic tactics. And Hitler, for his part, was careful to appear as the spokesman for "ethnic fundamentalism." Hitler's anti-Semitism was good for the cadres, but for the wider population the deeply moralistic, anti-liberal ethnic fundamentalism was better at presenting nihilistic ends in conservative language.
Koonz points out that as Hitler came closer to power he toned down his comments on Jews, and once in power he was careful not to associate himself too closely to the more unpopular extremists. Before the war, Koonz points out, he only directly and publicly stated his hatred of Jews three times. But he could also remind the extremists he was on their side by sneering at ideas, like feminism, as "Jewish." At the same time as he ostentatiously expressed his desire for peace and love for Christianity, Mein Kampf was publicized and its racism implicitly honoured. Koonz goes on to discuss such topics as academic support for the Nazis (including those old standbys Heidegger and Schmitt). She discusses the soft-sell techniques of Walter Gross and the Office of Racial Politics. "When speaking to general audiences, Gross appealed to ethnic pride; among Nazis, he mobilized racial hatred." There is a chapter on the Nazi approach to youth, again showing the same insidious soft sell, such as providing toy tanks to schools, or using Nazi party leaders' names for spelling exercises. One prominent Nazi primer devoted only 3 of its 256 pages to Jews. Although teachers and students were often repelled by Nazi cruelty towards Jewish children, the emphasis on Volk and Fatherland helped to make segregation more acceptable. There are also chapters on law and intellectuals, about how jurists tried to make rational sense of the racist nonsense they were supposed to using, and slowly but surely accepted more Nazi principles. We also read how the Nazis covered their ideas in pseudo-scientific and pseudo-scholarly garb. We also read about the complementary roles played by the crude SA and the deceptively "moderate" "intellectual" SS. Denunciation of "Jewry" played a minor role in the educational materials assigned to SS recruits. But understating racism made it easier to slip into the more conservative chauvinist consensus. The result was a society where if Germans did not fully appreciate the genocide of their fellow citizens, "they knew enough to know it was better not to know." Instead of communist societies which rigidly repeated their rigid dogmas and could expect little better than to have it parroted back to them, Nazi Germany was more successful in gaining internal adherence precisely because it was less "totalitarian." Its conscience was close enough to the pre-Nazi version in its emphasis on sacrifice and high moral purpose to blur those of the majority and encourage the cruelty of its soldiers. Precisely because the German mind was not a blank slate it could even be allowed a certain initiative. Instead of the crude counter-chauvinism of Daniel Goldhagen, Koonz presents a process that need not be confined to Germans. Indeed, we have already seen it among one of Germany's victims, Serbia, and much of the rest of Yugoslavia. And we may yet see it elsewhere.
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Title: The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (Comprehensive History of the Holocaust Series) by Christopher R. Browning, Jurgen Matthaus ISBN: 0803213271 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: March, 2004 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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