Nazism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Social class === National Socialist politics was based on competition and struggle as its organising principle, and the Nazis believed that "human life consisted of eternal struggle and competition and derived its meaning from struggle and competition."{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=6}} The Nazis saw this eternal struggle in military terms, and advocated a society organised like an army in order to achieve success. They promoted the idea of a national-racial "people's community" (''[[Volksgemeinschaft]]'') in order to accomplish "the efficient prosecution of the struggle against other peoples and states."{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=7}} Like an army, the ''Volksgemeinschaft'' was meant to consist of a hierarchy of ranks or classes of people, some commanding and others obeying, all working together for a common goal.{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=7}} This concept was rooted in the writings of 19th century ''völkisch'' authors who glorified medieval German society, viewing it as a "community rooted in the land and bound together by custom and tradition," in which there was neither class conflict nor selfish individualism.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=40}} The Nazis concept of the ''volksgemeinschaft'' appealed to many, as it was seen as it seemed at once to affirm a commitment to a new type of society for the modern age yet also offer protection from the tensions and insecurities of modernisation. It would balance individual achievement with group solidarity and cooperation with competition. Stripped of its ideological overtones, the Nazi vision of modernisation without internal conflict and a political community that offered both security and opportunity was so potent a vision of the future that many Germans were willing to overlook its racist and anti-Semitic essence.<ref>Fritz, Stephen. ''Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II.'' University Press of Kentucky, 1997.{{ISBN?}}</ref> Nazism rejected the Marxist concept of [[class conflict]], and it praised both German capitalists and German workers as essential to the ''Volksgemeinschaft''. In the ''Volksgemeinschaft'', social classes would continue to exist, but there would be no class conflict between them.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=48}} Hitler said that "the capitalists have worked their way to the top through their capacity, and as the basis of this selection, which again only proves their higher race, they have a right to lead."<ref name="Nicholls 245">David Nicholls. ''Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion''. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000, p. 245.{{ISBN?}}</ref> German business leaders co-operated with the Nazis during their rise to power and received substantial benefits from the Nazi state after it was established, including high profits and state-sanctioned monopolies and cartels.<ref>Grunberger, Richard, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1971. pp. 167, 175–176</ref> Large celebrations and symbolism were used extensively to encourage those engaged in physical labour on behalf of Germany, with leading National Socialists often praising the "honour of labour", which fostered a sense of community (''Gemeinschaft'') for the German people and promoted solidarity towards the Nazi cause.<ref>Alf Lüdtke, "The 'Honor of Labor': Industrial Workers and the Power of Symbols under National Socialism", in ''Nazism and German Society, 1933–1945'', edited by David F. Crew (New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 67–109.</ref> To win workers away from Marxism, [[Propaganda in Nazi Germany|Nazi propaganda]] sometimes presented its expansionist foreign policy goals as a "class struggle between nations."<ref name="Nicholls 245"/> Bonfires were made of school children's differently coloured caps as symbolic of the unity of different social classes.<ref name="Grunberger46">[[Richard Grunberger]], ''The 12-Year Reich'', p. 46, {{ISBN|0-03-076435-1}}</ref> In 1922, Hitler disparaged other nationalist and [[racialist]] political parties as disconnected from the mass populace, especially lower and working-class young people: {{blockquote|The racialists were not capable of drawing the practical conclusions from correct theoretical judgements, especially in the Jewish Question. In this way, the German racialist movement developed a similar pattern to that of the 1880s and 1890s. As in those days, its leadership gradually fell into the hands of highly honourable, but fantastically naïve men of learning, professors, district counsellors, schoolmasters, and lawyers—in short a bourgeois, idealistic, and refined class. It lacked the warm breath of the nation's youthful vigour.<ref name="burleigh"/>}} Nevertheless, the Nazi Party's voter base consisted mainly of farmers and the middle class, including groups such as Weimar government officials, school teachers, doctors, clerks, self-employed businessmen, salesmen, retired officers, engineers, and students.{{sfn|Mason|1993|pp=48–50}} Their demands included lower taxes, higher prices for food, restrictions on department stores and consumer co-operatives, and reductions in social services and wages.{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=49}} The need to maintain the support of these groups made it difficult for the Nazis to appeal to the working class, since the working class often had opposite demands.{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=49}} From 1928 onward, the Nazi Party's growth into a large national political movement was dependent on middle class support, and on the public perception that it "promised to side with the middle classes and to confront the economic and political power of the working class."{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=44}} The financial collapse of the [[White-collar worker|white collar]] middle-class of the 1920s figures much in their strong support of Nazism.<ref name="Burleigh, 2000, p. 77"/> Although the Nazis continued to make appeals to "the German worker", historian Timothy Mason concludes that "Hitler had nothing but slogans to offer the working class."{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=48}} Historians Conan Fischer and Detlef Mühlberger argue that while the Nazis were primarily rooted in the lower middle class, they were able to appeal to all classes in society and that while workers were generally underrepresented, they were still a substantial source of support for the Nazis.<ref>Fischer, Conan, ed. The rise of national socialism and the working classes in Weimar Germany. Berghahn Books, 1996.</ref><ref>Mühlberger, Detlef. "The sociology of the NSDAP: The question of working-class membership." Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 3 (1980): 493–511.</ref> H.L. Ansbacher argues that the working-class soldiers had the most faith in Hitler out of any occupational group in Germany.<ref>Fritz, Stephen. Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II. University Press of Kentucky, 1997, p. 210</ref> The Nazis also established a norm that every worker should be semi-skilled, which was not simply rhetorical; the number of men leaving school to enter the work force as unskilled labourers fell from 200,000 in 1934 to 30,000 in 1939. For many working-class families, the 1930s and 1940s were a time of social mobility; not in the sense of moving into the middle class but rather moving within the blue-collar skill hierarchy.{{sfn|Tooze|2008|p=143}} Overall, the experience of workers varied considerably under Nazism. Workers' wages did not increase much during Nazi rule, as the government feared wage-price inflation and thus wage growth was limited. Prices for food and clothing rose, though costs for heating, rent and light decreased. Skilled workers were in shortage from 1936 onward, meaning that workers who engaged in vocational training could look forward to considerably higher wages. Benefits provided by the Labour Front were generally positively received, even if workers did not always buy in to propaganda about the ''volksgemeinschaft''. Workers welcomed opportunities for employment after the harsh years of the Great Depression, creating a common belief that the Nazis had removed the insecurity of unemployment. Workers who remained discontented risked the [[Gestapo]]'s informants. Ultimately, the Nazis faced a conflict between their rearmament program, which by necessity would require material sacrifices from workers (longer hours and a lower standard of living), versus a need to maintain the confidence of the working class in the regime. Hitler was sympathetic to the view that stressed taking further measures for rearmament but he did not fully implement the measures required for it in order to avoid alienating the working class.<ref>Spielvogel, Jackson J. Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History. Routledge, 2016.</ref> While the Nazis had substantial support amongst the middle-class, they often attacked traditional middle-class values and Hitler personally held great contempt for them. This was because the traditional image of the middle class was one that was obsessed with personal status, material attainment and quiet, comfortable living, which was in opposition to the Nazism's ideal of a New Man. The Nazis' New Man was envisioned as a heroic figure who rejected a materialistic and private life for a public life and a pervasive sense of duty, willing to sacrifice everything for the nation. Despite the Nazis' contempt for these values, they were still able to secure millions of middle-class votes. Hermann Beck argues that while some members of the middle-class dismissed this as mere rhetoric, many others in some ways agreed with the Nazis—the defeat of 1918 and the failures of the Weimar period caused many middle-class Germans to question their own identity, thinking their traditional values to be anachronisms and agreeing with the Nazis that these values were no longer viable. While this rhetoric would become less frequent after 1933 due to the increased emphasis on the ''volksgemeinschaft'', it and its ideas would never truly disappear until the overthrow of the regime. The Nazis instead emphasised that the middle-class must become ''staatsbürger'', a publicly active and involved citizen, rather than a selfish, materialistic ''spießbürger'', who was only interested in private life.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Beck |first=Hermann |title=The Antibourgeois Character of National Socialism |journal=The Journal of Modern History |volume=88 |issue=3 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |date=2016 |pages=572–609 |doi=10.1086/687528 |s2cid=157869544 |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/687528 |access-date=7 October 2021}}</ref><ref>Steele, David Ramsay. "The Mystery of Fascism." Liberty Magazine (2001).</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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