Rise of Nazism Linked to Roots in National Imagination

U of Ideas of General Interest ó August 1998 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Contact: Andrea Lynn, Humanities/Social Sciences Editor (217) 333-2177; [email protected]

GERMANY

Rise of Nazism Linked to Roots in National Imagination

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ó Historian Peter Fritzsche disputes the standard explanation for the rise of Nazism in Germany ñ that it came out of nowhere and succeeded beyond all expectation because Germany ìwas pushed to the very edge of crisisî by military defeat, inflation and economic depression.

ìComplicated explanations based on anxiety and deprivation donít take German politics sufficiently seriously,î said Fritzsche, a professor of German history at the University of Illinois.

ìNazism has deep roots in German politics and in the German imagination. Had the Nazis not been social reformist, nationalist and populist, they would have failed.î

Fritzsche traces the roots of Nazism ñ beginning with Germanyís declaration of war against Serbia and Russia in 1914 ñ in a new book, ìGermans Into Nazisî (Harvard University Press). Along the way, he explores the popular misconceptions about Nazis, including the sense that they were ìmen from Mars who descended on Germany to politically mobilize voters.î

ìBefore Germans were Nazis,î Fritzsche said, ìthey belonged to paramilitary associations or to other right-wing parties. I donít see the Nazis as separate from other political reform movements.î

According to Fritzsche, the Nazi party, unlike its competitors, offered ìa new and different Germany that was based on the idea of cooperation and vigilance. They spoke in a political vernacular that celebrated the people and the nation, rather than the state, the republic or the constitution. They were explicitly clear about putting people back to work and setting up social welfare programs, and, in fact, they seemed to be more social reformist than the other parties.î

In his book, Fritzsche attacks the views of Daniel Goldhagen and other historians ìwho reduce the ideological appealî of Nazism to anti-Semitism.

ìGoldhagen is right to stress the importance of ideology and desire in explaining what Germans did politically in the 1920s and 1930s. Where he is wrong, and he is completely wrong, is to reduce Nazism to anti-Semitism and then to lose Nazism along the way.

ìGermans were anti-Semitic, but thatís not why there was so much electoral volatility or why so many people switched their votes. Anti-Semitism did not impel Germans to stand in the street and cheer the Nazis or to attend Nazi meetings. There were many right-wing movements that erupted in the 1920s, but they were not populist and they did not have a social reformist edge to them, and therefore they failed. The Nazis succeeded because they were populist and had that edge.î

Fritzsche observed that ìin an odd wayî racism may have served as an expression of Nazi commitment to the German people. That Jews stood outside the German volk community didnít seem to bother most Germans who voted for the Nazis, perhaps because that sentiment ìechoed the casual anti-Semitism they had learned at home,î Fritzsche said.

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