Volksgemeinschaft () is a German expression meaning "people's community",Norbert Götz. Ungleiche Geschwister: Die Konstruktion von nationalsozialistischer Volksgemeinschaft und schwedischem Volksheim. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2001. "folk community",Richard Grunberger, A Social History of the Third Reich, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community",Timothy W. Mason. Social Policy in the Third Reich: The Working Class and the National Community. Berg Publishers, 1993. Editor's Note, p. xvii. or "racial community",Joseph W. Bendersky. A Concise History of Nazi Germany. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014. p. 32. depending on the translation of its component term Volk (cognate with the English word "folk"). This expression originally became popular during World War I as Germans rallied in support of the war, and many experienced "relief that at one fell swoop all social and political divisions could be solved in the great national equation". The idea of a Volksgemeinschaft was rooted in the notion of uniting people across class divides to achieve a national purpose,Fritzsche, p. 39. and the hope that national unity would "obliterate all conflicts - between employers and employees, town and countryside, producers and consumers, industry and craft".
After the November Revolution of 1918, the overthrow of the constitutional monarchy, and Germany's defeat in World War I, the concept of Volksgemeinschaft remained popular, especially on the right wing of German politics, in opposition to the class struggle advocated by Marxist parties like the Social Democrats and the Communists.Conan Fischer. The Rise of the Nazis. Manchester University Press, 1995. p. 36. The monarchist German Conservative Party (DkP) became the German National People's Party (DNVP) and the National Liberal Party (NLP) reorganized itself into the German People's Party (DVP), with the new names intended partly as references to Volksgemeinschaft.
The concept was embraced by the newly founded Nazi Party in the 1920s, and eventually became strongly associated with Nazism after Adolf Hitler's rise to power. In the Nazi vision of Volksgemeinschaft, society would continue to be organized into classes (based upon talent, property, or profession), but there would be no class conflict, because a common national consciousness would inspire the different economic and social classes to live together harmoniously and work for the nation.Joseph W. Bendersky. A Concise History of Nazi Germany. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014. p. 35. There was also an important racial aspect to the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft: only "people of Aryan blood" could be members.Diemut Majer, Peter Thomas Hill, Edward Vance Humphrey. "Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe, with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939-1945. Texas Tech University Press, 2003. p. 49-50
Development The word "Volksgemeinschaft" was probably first used in Gottlob August Tittel's 1791 translation of a text written by John Locke, synthesising the expression "in any [particular] place, generally".Norbert Götz. “Die nationalsozialistische Volksgemeinschaft im synchronen und diachronen Vergleich.” ‘Volksgemeinschaft’: Mythos, wirkungsmächtige soziale Verheißung oder soziale Realität im ‘Dritten Reich’? Detlef Schmiechen-Ackermann (ed.). Paderborn: Schöningh, 2012. 55–67, at 57.John Locke, Vom menschlichen Verstande. Zu leichtem und fruchtbarem Gebrauch zergliedert und geordnet von Gottlob August Tittel, Mannheim 1791, p. 41f.; cf. John Locke, Works, vol. 1, London 1751, p. 17. Among 19th century scholars who used the word "Volksgemeinschaft" were Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Carl von Savigny, Carl Theodor Welcker, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, Hermann Schulze, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Wilhelm Wundt. Most influential was perhaps Ferdinand Tönnies' theory in his work Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft ("Community and Society") of 1887.Francis Ludwig Carsten, Hermann Graml. The German resistance to Hitler. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, USA: University of California Press. p. 93 Decades later, in 1932, Tönnies joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany to oppose the rise of Nazism and protest against their use of his concept. He had his honorary professorship removed when Adolf Hitler came to power.Ferdinand Tönnies, José Harris. Community and civil society. Cambridge University Press, 2001 (first edition in 1887 as Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft). Pp. xxxii-xxxiii.
In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, the German Emperor Wilhelm II proclaimed before the Reichstag the Burgfrieden ("peace in the castle" or "truce in the castle", a kind of "unity within a besieged castle" for the duration of the conflict), announcing that henceforward all of the regional differences between the different states of the Reich; between rich, middle class and poor; between Roman Catholics and Protestants; and between rural and urban were no longer relevant and the German people were all one for the duration of the war. During the war, many Germans longed to have the sense of unity that the Burgfrieden inspired continue after the war, and it was during this period that many ideas started to circulate about how to convert the wartime Burgfrieden into a peacetime Volksgemeinschaft. People who belonged to the Volksgemeinschaft were known as Volksgenossen (fellow members).
In the aftermath of World War I, the idea of Volksgemeinschaft was used to interpret economic catastrophes and hardship facing Germans during the Weimar Republic era as a common experience of the German nation and to argue for German unity to bring about renewal to end the crisis. It was invoked by the Jewish social anarchists Gustav Landauer (who was killed for his participation in the Bavarian Soviet Republic) and Erich Mühsam (who died in Oranienburg concentration camp) in articulating their vision of a peaceful, non-coercive mutualist society. However, it was subsequently adopted by the Nazi Party to justify actions against Jews, profiteers, Marxists, and the Allies of World War I, whom the Nazis accused of obstructing German national regeneration, causing national disintegration in 1918 and Germany's defeat in World War I.
There is an ongoing debate among historians as to whether a Volksgemeinschaft was or was not successfully established between 1933 and 1945. This is a notably controversial topic of debate for ethical and political reasons, and is made difficult by the ambiguous language employed by Hitler and the Nazis when talking about the Volksgemeinschaft.
Nazi Volksgemeinschaft
In the aftermath of the November Revolution of 1918 that marked the end of the German Empire and the beginning of the Weimar Republic, there was strong animosity amongst many Germans towards the Weimar Republic and the social democrats who sponsored its creation. This was combined with anxiety in the 1930s and with the severe economic crisis in Germany and abroad, in which many Germans faced unemployment. This situation resulted in increasing popularity for the Nazi Party, including amongst workers, small business owners, and others who desired a government that would resolve the economic crisis.Fritzsche. p. 41. While ascending to power, Hitler promised to restore faith in the Volk and to bring wholeness while accusing other politicians of tearing at German unity.Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 18
Upon rising to power in 1933, the Nazis sought to gain support of various elements of society. Their concept of Volksgemeinschaft was racially unified and organized hierarchically."fascism". (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved December 15, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online. This involved a mystical unity, a form of racial soul uniting all Germans,"The Volk" including those living abroad.Norbert Götz. "German-Speaking People and German Heritage: Nazi Germany and the Problem of Volksgemeinschaft". The Heimat Abroad: The Boundaries of Germanness. Krista O’Donnell, Renate Bridenthal, and Nancy Reagin (eds). Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2005. 58–81. Nevertheless, this soul was regarded as related to the land, in the doctrine of "blood and soil". Indeed, one reason for "blood and soil" was the belief that landowner and peasant lived in an organic harmony.Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology p166 Aryan Germans who had sexual relations with non-Germanics were excluded from the people's community.Diemut Majer, Peter Thomas Hill, Edward Vance Humphrey. "Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe, with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939-1945. Texas Tech University Press, 2003. p. 369
The Nazis solidified support amongst nationalists and conservatives by presenting themselves as allied with President Paul von Hindenburg, who was considered a war hero of World War I in Germany.Fritzsche, p. 44–45. On 21 March 1933, special celebrations were held to mark the re-opening of the Reichstag following the Reichstag fire, and the Nazis called this event Potsdam Day. Potsdam Day was used to celebrate military tradition, the Hohenzollern dynasty of Prussia, the sacrifices of World War I and the "hero of Tannenberg," President Hindenburg.Fritzsche, p. 44. The image of Hitler and Hindenburg shaking hands was reproduced on thousands of postcards, representing "the union of the new and old Germany," a way for the Nazis to portray themselves as connected to the aristocratic traditions of the past.Fritzsche, p. 44.
Having organized Potsdam Day to gain conservative support, the Nazis sought to gain the support of workers by declaring May Day, a day celebrated by organized labour, to be a paid holiday named the "Day of National Work" and held celebrations on 1 May 1933 to honour German workers.Fritzsche, p.45. The regime believed that the only way to avoid a repeat of the disaster of 1918 was to secure workers' support for the German government. The regime also insisted through propaganda that all Germans take part in the May Day celebrations, not just workers, in the hope that this would help break down class hostility between workers and burghers.Fritzsche, p. 46. Songs in praise of labour and workers were played by state radio throughout May Day 1933, as well as an airshow in Berlin and fireworks. The Nazis added strongly nationalist themes to the celebrations, and Hitler spoke of workers as patriots who had built Germany's industrial strength and had honourably served in the war, while claiming that they had been oppressed under economic liberalism.Fritzsche, p. 47. Hitler praised the virtues of labor, and was quoted in the Völkischer Beobachter as declaring that "I only acknowledge one nobility—that of labour."Richard Grunberger, The 12-year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany 1933–1945), New York: NY, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, p. 47. The event proved convincing, as the next day the Berliner Morgenpost, a newspaper which had been associated with the political left in the past, praised the regime's May Day celebrations. At the same time, however, the Nazis sought to destroy independent working class organizations, seeing them as incompatible with the trans-class unity of the Volksgemeinschaft. On 2 May 1933, one day after the celebrations, the trade union movement was banned, and "stormtroopers sealed off and took over the operations of the socialist Free Trade Unions and incorporated them into what became the German Labor Front".