What encouraged the German people support the Nazi’s ideals during the Holocaust, says Historian Thomas Kühne (also spelled Kuehne), in his recent book, Belonging and Genocide: Hitler’s Community 1918-1945 (Yale University Press 2010) wasn’t fear or intimidation; those tactics came second to their main methodology.
The success of Hitler’s efforts was in fact based on the opposite concept.
World War II Nazi Germany
“Love and hatred are two sides of a coin,” Kühne writes (p. 4), pointing out that the Nazi’s strongpoint was their ability to tap into the German psyche – to understand what mattered most to early 20th century Germans.
“The question for me as a German has always been how is it that so many people, civilized people … perpetrated the murder of the Jews … or supported [it] by standing, applauding or just looking the other way?” explained Kühne, who currently teaches History and is the Chair in the Study of Holocaust and Genocide History at Clark University’s Strassler Family Center, in a recent interview.
Germany During the Holocaust
He explained that the German people supported Hitler’s platform of mass violence and mass genocide because of what he gave to them: a sense of belonging and community in which identity was key – and what it established in return: their own complicity to the horrors of the Shoah, or Holocaust.
“The opposite of hate is what I call belonging and togetherness.” The Nazi process of indoctrination negated any concern for other individuals and communities than their own, and is broken down in the book in five stages:
- creating a “people’s community” that was limited to Aryan membership;
- camaraderie both on the front and on the street;
- the establishment of societal ethics that not only endorsed genocide but required it;
- community-wide complicity in genocide and oppression;
- and an atmosphere in which apathy and despondency toward helping the “outsider” thrived.
A Pure Aryan People
The Nazis' vision and goal of establishing a “pure German people” that would be homogeneous in race as well as ideology has been well researched, said Kühne. It was also substantiated by Heinrich Himmler’s own notorious speech to SS generals in October 1943: “Whether other people live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture."
But it was the underpinnings of the rest of Himmler’s statement that revealed the Nazis' methodology when it came to creating cohesion and ultimately, complicity of the German people: “…We must be honest decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood, and to no one else” (p. 60).
The Nazis’ paradigm was “Us” and “Them,” a concept that they embedded in everything they espoused, down to the complicit nature of their crimes. German membership meant that one not only supported one’s community, and its pure Aryan features, but opposed the existence or membership of those who were outside of it and failed to embody those characteristics. This sense of “Us” and “Them” conscripted the German people into a community membership in which mass violence, thuggery and genocide became elements of its culture and necessary for it to survive, writes Kühne.
Utopia and Mass Genocide
It has been well noted by historians, the author said, that the humiliation, isolation and alienation of the German people following the country’s substantial losses in World War I created an air of frustration for Germans, and ultimately paved the path toward the Nazi party being elected some 15 years later. It was the Nazis' methods of attaining a cohesive community of togetherness that is startling.
"The Nazi utopia of a united national community is well known," said Kuehne. What hasn't until now been taken into account, is that "it was actually realized under the Nazi regime by making Germans complicit (and feel complicit) in the Holocaust."
Kühne’s studies provide an interesting, albeit disturbing glimpse into the mechanics behind mass genocide by elucidating the methods used by Hitler, who will undoubtedly stand as one of history’s greatest architects of societal control. It is a compelling read for anyone who strives to understand the making of community identity – Hitler’s unfortunate hallmark – and what compels a society to support the genocide of its own people.
Sources:
- Kühne, T. Telephone interview, April 26, 2011
- Kühne, T. Belonging and Genocide: Hitler's Community, 1918-1945, Yale University Press, 2010
- Strassler Center, Clark University, Worcester MA
- British Broadcasting Corporation Online: World War I
Jan Lee - Jan Lee has been writing for online and print publications for more than 20 years and have been published in five countries.
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