follmer - was nazism collectivistic?

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Was Nazism Collectivistic? Redefining the Individual inBerlin, 19301945*

Moritz FollmerUniversity of Leeds

I. REASSESSING NAZI COLLECTIVISM

Was Nazism collectivistic? At first glance, the answer to this question seems

obvious. Countless statements by leaders and minor spokesmen of the Nazi

movement and regime made it abundantly clear to Germans that they needed to

subordinate their personal desires and interests to the Volksgemeinschaft (national

community). In our nation the priority is not on the individual and what benefits

him but on the common good, the Volk and Germany. We are responsible to

future generations. This random quote could have figured in many speeches,

tracts, or newspaper articles; it is here taken from a letter by the Swabian high

school senior Hans B. to his half-sister Freia Eisner, who had emigrated to France.

Evoking his personal commitment and sacrifice, Hans added, These are no

phrases! This is the way I feel and think! I have been with the Nazi movement

since 1930 and have vouched for it with my blood when I was knocked down by

a Communist gang in front of my house.1

On the basis of similar statements, as well as a by now familiar variety of

institutions and practices, a number of historians have recently emphasized the

collectivistic character of the Third Reichs ideology and practice. Without

defining the term explicitly, they draw on a widespread sense of collectiv-

ism as an order that requires the subordination of individuals to a collective

good, however defined. For instance, Claudia Koonz has argued that Nazism

had an ethic of its own. Rather than simply being immoral, it had a specific

morality distinguished from liberal morality by a deeply anti-liberal collec-

* I would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the BritishAcademy for financial support and Verena Lehmbrock for invaluable research assistance.I would also like to thank audiences at the Institute of Historical Research in London;Humboldt University Berlin; the universities of Cambridge, Chicago, Illinois, and Leeds;and the conference The Self as Scientific and Political Project in the 20th Century at PennState University for constructive feedback. Finally, I would like to thank Christian Goe-schel, Rudiger Graf, Armin Nolzen, Christopher Prior, Bernhard Rieger, Russell Spinney,and Matthew Stibbe, as well as the three anonymous readers for the Journal of Modern

History, for their critical readings of previous drafts of this article.1 Hans B. to Freia Eisner, February 9, 1935, Archiv des Centrum Judaicum, Berlin,

6.4., No 16.

The Journal of Modern History 82 (March 2010): 61100 2010 by The University of Chicago. 0022-2801/2010/8201-0003$10.00All rights reserved.



3/41

tivism, which was the hallmark of public culture in the Third Reich.2

Another example of the use of collectivistic to describe the essence of

Nazism stems from a controversy in the 1990s regarding whether one can

speak of a modernization of German society in and through Hitlers dictator-ship.3 Overcoming this dichotomy, some commentators have conceded that

there was a specific Nazi Modern, which included a strong validation of

personal achievement. However, they have clearly demarcated this Nazi

Modern from the modernity of liberal democracies by insisting that it was

deeply committed to racial collectivism, thus marking a radical break from

the process of individualisation.4

Correspondingly, individuality is often seen as the opposite of Nazism. In

his recent monumental survey, Richard J. Evans calls Nazism totalitarian

since it recognized no limits in its penetration of the individuals body andsoul, as it tried to reconfigure them into a co-ordinated mass, moving and

feeling as one. At the same time, he insists that the regimes transformative

impact on German society remained limited. Hitler and nationalism certainly

had a wider appeal, yet much of what the Third Reich had to offer was only

attractive insofar and as long as it catered for peoples private aspirations and

desires. Where the regime exerted pressure to fulfill its totalitarian ambitions,

Germans retreated into the private sphere. . . . In public they paid the regime

its necessary dues, but for most of them, that was all.5 Historians of the wars

end have equally identified individualism as the opposite of Nazism. When theThird Reich demanded ever greater sacrifices in the face of imminent defeat,

Germans finally turned away from their belief in Hitler and their interest in the

2 Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience (Cambridge, MA, 2003), 13. See alsoRaimond Reiter, Nationalsozialismus und Moral: Die Pflichtenlehre eines Verbre-cherstaates (Frankfurt, 1996).

3 See Michael Prinz and Rainer Zitelmann, eds., Nationalsozialismus und Modern-isierung (Darmstadt, 1991); and the rebuttals by Hans Mommsen, Nationalsozialis-mus als vorgetauschte Modernisierung, in Der historische Ort des Nationalsozialis-

mus, ed. Walter H. Pehle (Frankfurt, 1990), 31 46; Norbert Frei, Wie modern war derNationalsozialismus? Geschichte und Gesellschaft 19 (1993): 36787.

4 Peter Fritzsche, Nazi Modern, Modernism/Modernity 3, no. 1 (1996): 122, 78;Mark Roseman, National Socialism and Modernisation, in Fascist Italy and NaziGermany: Comparisons and Contrasts, ed. Richard Bessel (Cambridge, 1996), 197229, quote on 217; Ulrich Herbert, Europe in High Modernity: Reflections on aTheory of the 20th Century, Journal of Modern European History 5 (2007): 520, 15.With respect to car driving and cancer prevention, see Rudy Koshar, Germans at theWheel: Cars and Leisure Travel in Interwar Germany, in Histories of Leisure, ed.Rudy Koshar (Oxford, 2002), 21530; and Robert N. Proctor, The Nazi War on Cancer(Princeton, NJ, 1999), 122, 124, 267.

5 Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (London, 2006), 7089. For a muchstronger emphasis on Germans active involvement in the Nazi project, see the review ofEvanss book by Peter Fritzsche in Journal of Modern History 79 (2007): 7036, as wellas Fritzsches recent Life and Death in the Third Reich (Cambridge, MA, 2008).

62 Follmer



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fate of the nation in favor of autonomy, self-interest, and the will to sur-

vive.6 Even where Nazi continuities remained important for some years, as in

everyday aesthetics or popular mentalities, this crucial dichotomy is upheld by

historians who see a final shift from collective sacrifice to personalizedsatisfaction and social status occurring in the 1950s.7

The recent focus on the collectivistic character of Nazism has largely

replaced an earlier emphasis on the unintentionally individualizing effects of

the Third Reich. In the 1960s, Ralf Dahrendorf pointed out that through the

weakening or even destruction of older social ties, the Nazis paved the road

for the West German consumer citizen who was no longer bound by confes-

sion or class after the war had drawn to a close.8 In the early 1980s, historians

of everyday life gave this interpretation a more nostalgic twist, arguing that

personal achievement, mobility, and competition undermined working-classsolidarity and that this atomization benefited, and was further reinforced by,

the Nazis.9 Recent findings indicate that on a structural level, the impact of

Hitlers regime remained more limited than these authors suggest, whereas on

a subjective level, Germans experiences, perceptions, and expectations were

6 Klaus-Dietmar Henke, DeutschlandZweierlei Kriegsende, in Kriegsende inEuropa: Vom Beginn des deutschen Machtzerfalls bis zur Stabilisierung der Nach-

kriegsordnung 19441948, ed. Ulrich Herbert and Axel Schildt (Essen, 1998), 33754,342, 344; see also Frank Bajohr, HamburgDer Zerfall der Volksgemeinschaft, inibid., 31836.

7 Paul Betts, The Politics of Post-Fascist Aesthetics: 1950s West and East GermanIndustrial Design, in Life after Death: Approaches to a Cultural and Social History of

Europe during the 1940s and 1950s, ed. Richard Bessel and Dirk Schumann (Cambridge,2003), 291321, 317; see also the influential overviews by Ulrich Herbert, Liberalisierungals Lernproze: Die Bundesrepublik in der deutschen Geschichte eine Skizze, inWandlungsprozesse in Westdeutschland: Belastung, Integration, Liberalisierung19451980, ed. Ulrich Herbert (Gottingen, 2002), 7 49, 40 43; Axel Schildt, Ma-terieller Wohlstandpragmatische Politik kulturelle Umbruche: Die 60er Jahre in

der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, in Dynamische Zeiten: Die 60er Jahre in denbeiden deutschen Gesellschaften, ed. Axel Schildt, Detlef Siegfried, and Karl ChristianLammers (Hamburg, 2000), 2153, 35.

8 Ralf Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (London, 1968), 40218. Bycontrast, David Schoenbaum, Hitlers Social Revolution: Class and Status in NaziGermany, 19331939 (London, 1967), esp. 24586, has emphasized that social mo-bility and achievement were propagated in Nazi discourse and were thus not unin-tended results of the Third Reich.

9 Detlef J. K. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism inEveryday Life (New Haven, CT, 1987), 23642; see also Lutz Niethammer, ed. DieJahre wei man nicht, wo man die heute hinsetzen soll: Faschismuserfahrungen im

Ruhrgebiet (Bonn, 1983). There is an interesting parallel between the work of thesehistorians of the Left and Hannah Arendts emphasis on totalitarianisms enactment ona mass society of atomized individuals; see Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism(New York, 1951), chap. 10.

Was Nazism Collectivistic? 63



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profoundly changed.10 In contrast to the aforementioned historians of every-

day life, cultural historians have pointed out that to focus solely on the

negative ability to undermine, destroy, and atomize underrates the Nazis

positive capacity to mobilize through new collectivities. From their per-spective, Nazism was a radical variant of nationalism with myths and utopias,

symbols and rituals that drew in most Germans and persuaded them to support

the Nazi project.11

In the light of recent research in cultural history, as well as Evanss more

classic emphasis on totalitarian penetration and its limits, the collectivistic

character of Nazism thus seems clearly established. Yet it would be premature

to close the discussion since some authors suggest that the role of the

individual was more complex and significant than the concept of collectiv-

ism acknowledges. Frank Bajohrs work on Aryanization as well as oncorruption has persuasively demonstrated that the acquisitive spirit (or, to put

it bluntly, plain greed) of numerous individuals was a very important feature

of the period and by no means tangential to the Nazi project. 12 In her study of

womens roles in occupied Poland, Elizabeth Harvey highlights an environ-

ment structured by competitiveness and an emphasis on individual perfor-

mance and efficiency.13 She shows that motivations to participate in the

practice of occupation often lay beyond the dichotomy between an unqualified

commitment to the Nazi cause and mere material interests. Career motives, the

prospect of new experiences and activities, relative female independence, andself-realization could quite easily mix with a belief in the mission of Ger-

manization. Shelley Baranowski has even argued that there was a Nazi

version of cultivating individuality that was expressed in the discourses and

practices of leisure. Kraft durch Freude contributed decisively to Nazisms

10 See the excellent summary by Roseman, National Socialism and Modernisa-tion, 22126; also Fritzsche, Nazi Modern, 4.

11 Peter Fritzsche, Where Did All the Nazis Go? Reflections on Collaboration and

Resistance, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch fur Deutsche Geschichte 23 (1994): 191214;Fritzsche, Nazi Modern; Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Radikalnationalismuserklart erdas Dritte Reich besser als der Nationalsozialismus? in Umbruch und Kontinuitat:

Essays zum 20. Jahrhundert (Munich, 2000), 4764.12 Frank Bajohr, Verfolgung aus gesellschaftsgeschichtlicher Perspektive: Die

wirtschaftliche Existenzvernichtung der Juden und die deutsche Gesellschaft, Ge-schichte und Gesellschaft 26 (2000): 62952, and Parvenus und Profiteure: Korrup-tion in der NS-Zeit (Frankfurt, 2001). In contrast to Bajohrs precise and well-established findings, Gotz Alys broad-sweep, provocatively materialist argument in

Hitlers Beneficiaries: Plunder, Race War, and the Nazi Welfare State (New York,2006) that the Nazis bought the loyalty and support of Germans by establishing a

welfare state as well as engaging them in the large-scale robbery of German Jews andthe population of occupied Europe has mostly been dismissed as one-sided.

13 Elizabeth Harvey, Women and the Nazi East: Agents and Witnesses of German-ization (New Haven, CT, 2003), 15.

64 Follmer



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popularity because it offered, or at least promised, the quintessential assets of

consumerism: pleasure, comfort, and choice. Baranowskis emphasis on the

organizations dual messages of communitarianism and individualism dove-

tails with Michael Geyers highlighting of an intimate link between aggres-sive individualism and the ideology of Gemeinschaft in the Third Reich:

The German pursuit of war, Geyer argues, was far more the result of

individual initiative than the product of state pressure. . . . Such initiative,

while compelled by the ever-present recourse to persecution, was reinforced

by appeals to responsibility, honour, courage, virility.14

These analyses suggest a need to reassess the relationship between indi-

viduality and collectivity between 1933 and 1945. It seems as though Nazism

capitalized on more universal features of individualism in the twentieth

century, particularly in the realm of consumption and career advancement. Atthe same time, the ways in which self-interest and self-realization were

implicated in the persecution of domestic minorities and the dominance of

occupied Europeans point to a more specifically Nazi version of individu-

ality, to borrow Baranowskis apt formulation. It may help to recall here that

historians, historical sociologists, and cultural anthropologists have already

gone beyond exclusively identifying individuality with Western liberalism.

They have pointed out that there have been, and are, various notions of the

individual in different contexts. These authors demonstrate, for instance, that

such notions featured prominently in the work of proletarian writers beforeand during the Russian Revolution; in the self-constructions of medieval

samurai, which left deep imprints in the culture of modern Japan; and in

personal attitudes in present-day South Asia.15 The assumption that individ-

14 Shelley Baranowski, Strength through Joy: Consumerism and Mass Tourism inthe Third Reich (Cambridge, 2004), 43, 161. In a similar vein, Dagmar Herzog hasargued that Nazi sexual politics were not repressive butfor Aryansrather per-missive, allowing for a considerable degree of personal pleasure. See her Sex after

Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany (Princeton, NJ, 2005),1063. Michael Geyer, Aggressiver Individualismus und Gemeinschaftsideologie,

Zeithistorische Forschungen 1 (2004): 8791, and Restorative Elites, German Societyand the Nazi Pursuit of War, in Bessel, Fascist Italy, 13464, quote on 154. See alsoMacGregor Knox, 1 October 1942: Adolf Hitler, Wehrmacht Officer Policy, andSocial Revolution, Historical Journal 43 (2000): 80125, which persuasively dem-onstrates Hitlers emphasis on the individual talent and achievementas opposed toformal training, experience, or social standingof officers as criteria for promotion.

15 Mark D. Steinberg, Proletarian Imagination: Self, Modernity, and the Sacred inRussia, 1910 1925 (Ithaca, NY, 2002); Eiko Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai:Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA, 1995);

Martin Sokefeld, Debating Self, Identity, and Culture in Anthropology, CurrentAnthropology 40 (1999): 417 47; Mattison Mines, Conceptualizing the Person:Hierarchical Society and Individual Autonomy in India, American Anthropologist 90(1988): 56879.




7/41

uality is absent from Russian, Japanese, or South Asian cultures may be

reassuring for Europeans and Americans, but it no longer stands up to

theoretically informed research and analysis.

Thus, it would make sense to speak of multiple or alternative individ-ualities rather than to opt for closure through any specific definition.16 And in

contrast to classical, teleological narratives of the individuals decline or rise

in modern times,17 it is advisable to move away from the stark dichotomy

between the individual on the one hand and the collective or institutional on

the other.18 A plausible, more formal definition that does not depend on stark

contrasts and teleological narratives can be derived from the German sociol-

ogist Niklas Luhmanns work. According to Luhmann, the transition to

modernity meant that individuals began to be affected by different social

systems at the same time and thus were not fully defined by any of them.Hence, they had to define themselves and cope on their own, but they also

enjoyed new opportunities of fulfillment and participation. In the process,

expectations were individualized; these individualized expectations could then

be fulfilled or disappointed. They were on the one hand directed toward

persons, who had to distinguish themselvesnot least by professional accom-

plishments. On the other hand, persons began to expect individual recognition

and fulfillment in various contexts such as marriage or the educational system.

16 In analogy to recent reflections on the plural character of modernity, see ShmuelN. Eisenstadt, ed., Multiple Modernities (New Brunswick, NJ, 2002); Dilip Paramesh-war Gaonkar, ed., Alternative Modernities (Durham, NC, 2001).

17 See Markus Schroer, Das Individuum der Gesellschaft: Synchrone und diachroneTheorieperspektiven (Frankfurt, 2000), 15283. According to Schroer, the first narra-tive of the individuals decline through rationalization or the cultural industry can beattributed to Weber and Horkheimer/Adorno, respectively. Classical analyses of therise of the individual jeopardizing social cohesion include the work of Durkheim andParsons. One might add that the much quoted works of Sennett and Bauman combine

both narratives by highlighting the rise of privacy at the expense of public life as wellas the corrosion of true individuality through flexibility and consumerism. SeeRichard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man, rev. ed. (London, 2003), and The Corrosionof Character: The Personal Consequences of the Modern Capitalism (New York,2000); Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge, 2000), 5390.

18 It is questionable whether such a dichotomy is really as crucial to the intellectualhistory of the self in modern Europe as is often assumed. See the subtle analysis byJerrold Seigel, The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe sincethe Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 2005), in contrast to the dichotomous narrativein Charles Taylors Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge,MA, 1989). Moreover, recent sociological studies emphasize that the welfare state has

fostered a sense of self-possession among workers and that individualistic attitudes canlead to new or transformed social bonds: Robert Castel and Claudine Harouche,Propriete privee, propriete sociale, propriete de soi (Paris, 2001), 70 106; Francois deSingly, Les uns avec les autres: Quand lindividualisme cree du lien (Paris, 2003).

66 Follmer



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Rather than being a stable concept, individuality denotes the semantics used

to interpret these expectations and the tensions they caused.19

What does this mean for the analysis proposed here? Nazism, despite its

explicit critique of the (caricatured) liberal concepts Individuum and Individu-

alismus, may still have drawn on, and redefined, individuality in the sense of

a semantic field. Indeed, after 1933 Germans were addressed not only as a

collective but also as individual persons, using alternative concepts such as

Personlichkeit or der Einzelne (the individual), even the adjective individuell.

The claim was that the Third Reich catered to the expectations of the Aryan

majority, which had largely been individualized by the early 1930s, with

respect to consumption, mobility, and welfaremuch better and more broadly

than did the Weimar system and without its alleged alienation and inau-thenticity. Thus, the individual was redefined through semantics and social

practiceone of several ways in which inclusion and exclusion were reor-

ganized in the Third Reich.20 Aryan Germans were included through a blend

of Nazi principles and legitimate individuality that was not so much defined

or theorized as merely accepted and used; the stigmatized minorities, by

contrast, were excluded from this blend. This reflected, first, the often-noted

strategy of Goebbels in particular not to overburden the public with overt

propaganda and appeals to self-sacrifice since this might jeopardize the loyalty

of the previously indifferent or skeptical. Second, it resulted from the effortsof discursive elites, in this case journalists, to inscribe themselves into the

ideological framework from their respective standpointsa self-adaptation

that was facilitated by a considerable degree of legitimate flexibility, as long

as the core principles ofFuhrertum and national community were respected.21

Third, it was a consequence of ordinary Germans adopting elements of Nazi

discourse according to their own needsan aspect of the low-level partici-

19 Niklas Luhmann, Die gesellschaftliche Differenzierung und das Individuum, inSoziologische Aufklarung 6: Die Soziologie und der Mensch, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden, 2005),12136, and Individuum, Individualitat, Individualismus, in Gesellschaftsstruktur undSemantik, Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt,1998), 149258.

20 For an explanation of these notions, see Niklas Luhmann, Inklusion und Exk-lusion, in Soziologische Aufklarung 6, 226 51, and Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft(Frankfurt, 1997), 618 34. For an exemplary historical application, see the persuasiveanalysis of the difference between members and nonmembers of the Nazi party byArmin Nolzen, Inklusion und Exklusion im Dritten Reich: Das Beispiel NSDAP,in Volksgemeinschaft, ed. Frank Bajohr and Michael Wildt (Frankfurt, 2009), 6077.

21 This has been persuasively established by studies of the sciences and humanities inthe Third Reich; see Lutz Raphael, Radikales Ordnungsdenken und die Organisationtotalitarer Herrschaft: Weltanschauungseliten und Humanwissenschaftler im NS-Regime,Geschichte und Gesellschaft 27 (2001): 540.




9/41

pation without which, as recent historians of everyday life have emphasized,

the Third Reich would not have been established as rapidly and thoroughly.22

Against this historiographical and theoretical background, the present arti-

cle analyzes how the individual was redefined in Berlin between 1930 and1945. The German metropolis is particularly relevant here because its culture

was closely identified with individuality in the Weimar period, and it therefore

constituted a particular challenge for the new regime after 1933. It is worth

asking how definitions of the individual were related to the well-known status

of Berlin as the site of major propagandistic efforts, the exclusion of Jews,

allied bombings, and, finally, the Soviet invasion.23 This article is chiefly

concerned with how a broader publicin contrast to party functionaries or

activistswas addressed by the mainstream press and in turn adopted and

used elements of Nazi discourse. It will argue that Nazism drew on existingnotions of the individual, namely, the nineteenth-century cultivation of the

inner self and the Weimar-era quest for consumption and authenticity, while

at the same time placing both into a new discursive framework. After 1933,

the press claimed that the personal situation of Berliners was considered and

attended to by the institutions of the Third Reich. It also added a more

genuinely Nazi understanding of the individual, centered around courage and

initiative. Inauthenticity and egotism were identified with the Jews, which

gave legitimacy to the ruthless pursuit of self-interest against them. War was

justified by demarcating self-reliant and authentic German individuals fromBolshevik robots and Anglo-Saxon plutocrats. Thus, in Nazi discourse

different types of the individual coexisted and were related: the suburban

home owner, the housewife, the professional woman with female qualities, the

well-cared-for welfare client, the leader in the Labor Service, the Jewish

fraudster, and the self-reliant and heroic soldier. They need to be reconstructed

carefully and analyzed as parts of a comprehensive ideological vision.

These findings will be derived primarily from a close reading of the

metropolitan pressfrom tabloids to highbrow papers, from district dailies to

organs of the Party or the SS (Schutzstaffel). Because of censorship and

22 Recent historians of everyday life have highlighted this, overcoming the overem-phasis on Resistenz in the 1980s. See the important work of Alf Ludtke, summarizedin Die Praxis von Herrschaft: Zur Analyse von Hinnehmen und Mitmachen imdeutschen Faschismus, in Terror, Herrschaft und Alltag im Nationalsozialismus:Probleme einer Sozialgeschichte des deutschen Faschismus, ed. Brigitte Berlekampand Werner Rohr (Munster, 1995), 226 45; Andrew Stuart Bergerson, OrdinaryGermans in Extraordinary Times: The Nazi Revolution in Hildesheim (Bloomington,IN, 2004).

23 It is not necessary here to repeat well-known aspects of Weimar and Nazi Berlin.For good overviews, see David Clay Large, Berlin (New York, 2000); WolfgangRibbe, ed., Geschichte Berlins Bd. 2: Von der Marzrevolution bis zur Gegenwart, 3rded. (Berlin, 2002).

68 Follmer



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propaganda, as well as the self-adaptation of editors and journalists, there was

no legal non-Nazi press after the mid-1930s; the boundaries between the

Volkischer Beobachter, which was primarily directed at party members, and

dailies such as the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung or the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, which also addressed skeptical or indifferent readers, were increas-

ingly fluid. In order to answer the question at issue, it is crucial to reconstruct

Nazi discourse rather than refute it, as social historians of the Third Reich

have classically done.24 To state, for instance, that the reality of the welfare

system or of labor service did not correspond to rosy journalistic accounts is

true, but, by now, trivial. The present analysis instead acknowledges the role

of the media in creating a sense of reality and knowledge about society. 25 It is

not limited to a reading of the press, however; it also asks how notions of the

individual were appropriated, produced, or rejected. Some diaries, letters, andinstitutional sources serve to address this issue. They underscore the attraction

of the blend between Nazism and individuality and, correspondingly, the

difficulties of withdrawing from or resisting it. I will discuss inclusion prior to

1939 before moving on to exclusion and war.

II. INDIVIDUALITY AND INCLUSION, 193039

In reassessing the relationship between Nazism and individuality, Berlin is a

particularly relevant case. Here, the Nazi movement encountered and trans-formed a culture that was largely centered on the individual. In other parts of

Weimar Germany, there was a strong expectation that private concerns should

be subordinated to the common good, and individualistic self-understandings

were often pursued discreetly rather than defended explicitly. Individualism

emerges from the ruthless behavior of speculators during the inflation or

tourists seeking pleasure and comfort, as well as from letters by middle-class

women reflecting a quest for a life of their own.26 In contrast, it could be

pursued and voiced more openly in the German metropolis, which provided

ample opportunity to indulge in personal pleasure and self-realization of

24 Prime examples are the studies about the myth of national community incontrast to the realities of German society that are summarized, e.g., in Tim Kirk, NaziGermany (Basingstoke, 2007), 83112.

25 Niklas Luhmann, Die Realitat der Massenmedien, 2nd ed. (Opladen, 1996). Foran important historical study, see Peter Fritzsche, Reading Berlin, 1900 (Cambridge,MA, 1996).

26 Martin H. Geyer, Verkehrte Welt: Revolution, Inflation, Moderne; Munchen19141924 (Gottingen, 1998), 24365; Christine Keitz, Reisen als Leitbild: Die

Entstehung des modernen Massentourismus in Deutschland (Munich, 1997); MoritzFollmer, Auf der Suche nach dem eigenen Leben: Junge Frauen und Individualitat inder Weimarer Republik, in Die Krise der Weimarer Republik: Zur Kritik eines

Deutungsmusters, ed. Moritz Follmer and Rudiger Graf (Frankfurt, 2005), 287317.




11/41

various sorts. While artists, gays, and New Women are standard images of

Weimar Berlin, it is less well known that tabloid papers such as the B.Z. am

Mittag, the 8-Uhr-Abendblatt, and Tempo (together selling over 400,000

copies daily) gave much room to individualistic values. They saw the indi-vidual not as an outdated, nineteenth-century concept but as the only accept-

able and feasible foundation of modern life, especially during the Depression

years around 1930.27 How the tabloids described the situation of the individual

and the solutions available to him or her provided an important background

against which the early Nazi propaganda in the German capital had to position

itself; hence, it warrants a brief treatment.

Numerous press articles on work, relationships, domesticity, or weekend

pastimes emphasized that Berliners could survive and even prosper as indi-

viduals, provided that they preserved their authentic selves while adaptingflexibly to changing circumstances. Affordable clothes, shoes, and cars of-

fered a realm of personal choice, while apartments, suburban homes, and the

nearby lakes allowed for temporary relief from metropolitan stress. By prom-

ising a blue ribbon to the friendliest salespeople, the 8-Uhr-Abendblatt even

pursued the rather optimistic goal of turning Berlin into a metropolis of

politeness whose consumer society would be attentive to the needs and

desires of individuals.28 The tabloid press did not, however, paint an altogether

positive picture of the individual in the early 1930s. On the contrary, Berliners

appeared subject to a variety of risks. In an age of personal choice in whicholder conventions had lost their value, they could easily pick the wrong

product or partner and even become drug addicts or otherwise lose their

self-control. They could suffer economic failure leading to bankruptcy and

suicide. Road accidents and robberies reminded readers of the dangers of

urban life. This frequently led the papers to insinuate that the Prussian state

and the city of Berlin were unable to protect Berliners. The municipal

government was taken to task for failing to ensure road security and com-

27 See Moritz Follmer, Die Berliner Boulevardpresse und die Politik der Individu-alitat in der Zwischenkriegszeit, in Ordnungen in der Krise: Zur politischen Kultur-geschichte Deutschlands 19001933, ed. Wolfgang Hardtwig (Munich, 2007), 293326. The widespread view that the individual was almost universally seen as anoutdated concept by the late Weimar period can be found, e.g., in August Nitschke,Der Abschied vom Individuum: Kulissen und Kolonnen, in Jahrhundertwende: Der

Aufbruch in die Moderne 1880 1930, ed. August Nitschke et al., 2 vols. (Reinbek,1990), 1:22148.

28 Im Namen der Hoflichkeit rufen wir dich, Volk Berlins, zu neuer Tat! 8-Uhr-Abendblatt, November 7, 1930; Das blaue Band der Hoflichkeit: Ein Kaufer spricht

uber falsche Kauferangst und ihre Uberwindung durch richtige Einstellung auf denVerkaufer, 8-Uhr-Abendblatt, November 25, 1930; Ein Verkaufer sagt: Man darfsich von der Kaufangst nicht anstecken lassen, sondern mu den Kaufer studieren!8-Uhr-Abendblatt, November 27, 1930.

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fortable public transport. Such criticisms, alongside the expectation of im-

pressive leadership, resulted in a negative image of liberal mayor Gustav Bo.

Rather than acknowledging his considerable achievements, both Tempo and

B.Z. am Mittag participated in fueling a scandal involving Bo and the Jewishtextile traders Leo, Willy, and Max Sklarek that made Bo look venal and

forced him to resign in 1930.29 In the end, Bos period in office was

interpreted as an era of impersonal rationality.30

Tempo journalists in particular presented the intricate connections between

the Sklarek brothers and municipal politics as a personalized crime story,

supplying blueprints that both the extreme Left and the extreme Right could

spice up and twist.31 With great efficiency, Joseph Goebbelss paper Der

Angriff radicalized this reduction of complexity and turned it into a line of

attack. It blamed the problems of Berlins mixed economy on the interplaybetween corrupt politicians and Jewish businessmen.32 And this was not the

only entry point that the tabloid presss discourse on the individual offered to

Nazi propaganda in the German metropolis. Der Angriff capitalized on, and

reinforced, the skeptical diagnosis contained in that discourse, notably the

lingering doubt about whether Berliners could actually survive as individuals.

According to the Nazi paper, in addition to seeing honest taxpayers defrauded

by corrupt politicians, Berliners were confronted with the closure of bus lines

and other blows to their everyday existence. In the economic realm, the

individual Personlichkeit was oppressed by an anonymous and complicatedsystem.33 Thanks to Germanys reparation payments and to frequent humil-

iation at the welfare office, the bodies and souls of unemployed workers

suffered; small businessmen were crushed by the competition of the municipal

economy as well as of Jewish banks.34 Der Angriff also held Jews account-

ablebecause of their alleged ruthless capitalismfor the plight of Ger-

29 This scandal involved the Jewish textile traders Leo, Willy, and Max Sklarek, whohad secured themselves public orders in dubious ways and were arrested in September

1929 on suspicion of having defrauded the Berlin municipal bank of a large amount ofmoney. Bo was implicated because his wife had bought a fur coat from the Sklareksfor a relatively cheap price.

30 Die Ara Bo, B.Z. am Mittag, May 21, 1930; on Bos record, see ChristianEngeli, Gustav Bo: Oberburgermeister von Berlin 19211930 (Stuttgart, 1971),11754.

31 This has been persuasively demonstrated by Bernhard Fulda, Press and Politicsin the Weimar Republic (Oxford, 2009), 148.

32 Denkmaler roter Verwaltungskunst: Das Ruinenfeld an den AusstellungshallenWer schluckt die Provisionen? Der Angriff, January 9, 1930.

33 Die unmogliche Betriebsdrosselung bei der Bonzen-Versorgungs-Gesellschaft:

Der Verkehrsausschu hat beschlossen . . . , Der Angriff, November 2, 1931; JuppIlluster, Arbeit und Geld, Der Angriff, January 16, 1930.

34 Arbeitslosigkeit frit an der Gesundheit des Korpers und der Seele . . . DieAuswirkungen der Youngsklaverei, Der Angriff, March 31, 1931; Sind Erwerblose




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man boxers, private music teachers, and salespeople; the latter faced the

additional pressure of having to be polite thanks to the 8-Uhr-Abendblatts

insidious blue-ribbon campaign.35 Cleverly drawing on the emphasis upon

institutional protection and personal rights in the tabloid press, Der Angriffportrayed storm troopers and party members as victims too. The Nazi paper

claimed that they, as well as family members and bystanders, were on the

receiving end of Communist and police brutality and that supporters in the

police were denied the right to express their convictions openly.36

It is well established that in the face of the status quo the Nazis proposed

a vision of a new national community and promoted a storm-trooper subcul-

ture centered around violence.37 What is less known and at issue here is that

their discourse also accorded a prominent place to the individual person and,

indeed, claimed that the individual was offered superior protections andopportunities by the Nazi movement. Storm troopers on their own could be

badly injured or even killed by Communists, but this also gave them a chance

for heroic distinction. In a similar vein, receiving extended prison sentences

served as evidence of a deep personal commitment to the cause.38 In stark

contrast to the stereotypical image of Weimar politicians, Hitler styled himself

as a self-made man independent of any corrupting ties or interests, as did

Goebbels in an unabashed plea for myself.39 While these stories had obvi-

ously male connotations, women too were called to make an individual

Menschen 2. Klasse? Unerhorte Zustande bei den Arbeitsamtern, Der Angriff, Sep-tember 12, 1932; Jupp Illuster, Arbeit und Geld, Der Angriff, January 9, 1930.

35 Wer vom Juden frisst . . . Die abgewurgte VergnugungsindustrieGrobankenals Nutznieer, Angestellte die Leidtragenden, Der Angriff, January 16, 1930; HerbertMann, Im Berufsboxsport: Der Jude wird immer frecher, Der Angriff, November 21,1930; Judex, Juden und Sanger, Der Angriff, November 7, 1930; Das blaue Bandder Hoflichkeit: Ein judischer Reklametrick, Der Angriff, November 21, 1932.

36 Ein Opfer roter Morder: SA-Mann Ordung erschossen aufgefunden; Die Polizeisagt; Selbstmord, Der Angriff, December 5, 1930; Vorsicht! Gummiknuppel, Der

Angriff, February 13, 1930; Wie denkt die Schupo politisch? Eine grundsatzlicheBetrachtungBriefe, die uns erreichen, Der Angriff, December 19, 1930.

37 Peter Fritzsche, Germans into Nazis (Cambridge, MA, 1998); Gerhard Paul,Aufstand der Bilder: Die NS-Propaganda vor 1933 (Bonn, 1990); Sven Reichardt,Faschistische Kampfbunde: Gewalt und Gemeinschaft im italienischen Squadrismusund in der deutschen SA (Cologne, 2002).

38 Auf Vorposten im nordlichesten Berlin, Der Angriff, February 16, 1930; Hey,Der unbekannte S. A. Mann: Nur ein Truppfuhrer, Der Angriff, August 14, 1930;Skizzen aus dem Gefangnis: Von Gerhard v. Zittwitz jun. SA.-Mann im St. 2/IV,

Der Angriff, May 1, 1931; Briefe aus Gefangnissen, Der Angriff, May 18, 1931.39 Deutschland ist auf dem Marsch: Die uberwaltigende und eindrucksvolle Rede

des Fuhrers im Sportpalast, Der Angriff, November 1932, special edition; Dr. G.,Pladoyer fur mich, Der Angriff, May 2, 1931.

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difference, namely, by making a conscious decision to buy German rather than

blindly following fashion.40 Yet readers were offered more than just the

opportunity to commit or even sacrifice themselves. The self-employed as

well as the squatters on the outskirts of Berlin were also promised protectionand opportunity. Others were offered social mobility; for instance, those

interested in playing tennis could hope for access to an upper-class sport.41

Der Angriffeven offered advice on how to reclaim taxes, apply for a job, and

acquire boxing skills (which were deemed valuable in the struggle of life).42

Finally, advertisements for suits, shoes, and interior decoration (some of

which specifically addressed members of the Nazi party) suggested the af-

fordability of style and comfort.43

From these articles and advertisements emerged the vision of a new society not

only based on community but also centered around individual heroism, achieve-ment, and consumption. The Nazis promised all German Berliners the space for

personal development that the lower middle class and the workers were allegedly

denied. Their longing for Personlichkeit, for property and security in the struggle

for existence was to be fulfilled in the new variant of socialism, which was thus

sharply distinguished from Bolshevik mass politics.44 Personlichkeit, a catchall

concept in German culture since the nineteenth century, suggested a more sub-

stantial and creative notion of the individual than the shallow and materialistic

Individuum of the liberal age.45 At the same time, it promised to fulfill the quest

for an authentic self, which was equally prominent in the tabloid papers of liberal

40 Die Frau kauft einfur 50 542 105 Deutsche, Der Angriff, February 2, 1930;M. W., Deutsche Frauenkauft deutsche Waren! Der Angriff, January 2, 1930.

41 M. Thomas, Wirtschaft und Nationalsozialismus, Der Angriff, July 10, 1930;Schuhmann, Um Scholle und Maschine: Erwachen der Siedler, Der Angriff, August3, 1930; Borotaein Erlebnis: Hallentennis am Fehrbelliner Platz, Der Angriff,January 12, 1931.

42 Jupp Illuster, Arbeit und Geld, Der Angriff, January 30, 1930; H. Scharmann,Ratschlage eines Fachmannes: Was soll ein Bewerbungsschreiben enthalten, Der

Angriff, May 2, 1931; Jeder Angriff-Leser wird Boxer! Den Lehrgang leitet: LudwigHaymann, Der Angriff, January 5, 1932.

43 Deutsche Tracht: Gemeinnutzige G.m.b.H., Der Angriff, January 23, 1930;Schmucke Dein Heim! Parteigenossen moderne saubere, preiswerte Malerarbeiten beiZahlungserleichterung fuhrt aus Wilhelm Lehmann Malergeschaft, Der Angriff, Jan-uary 30, 1930.

44 Ludwig Weissauer, Faschist oder Nationalsozialist? Der Angriff, November 1,1930; Hans Scheller, Bolschewismus und Kultur: Die sowjetrussischen Kunstfab-riken, Der Angriff, January 20, 1932.

45 For this contrast, see Fiebig, Personlichkeit, Der Angriff, January 26, 1931;Reinhold Muchow, Wir und die Unternehmer: Her mit der nationalsozialistischen

Wirtschaftsfuhrung! Der Angriff, September 1, 1931; Werner Kortwich, Der Gel-tungskomplex: Brief an einen Harmlosen, Der Angriff, March 16, 1931. Personlich-keithas much more in common with the American concept of character than with thenotion of personality, which implies flexibility and smoothness. See Peter N.




15/41

publishers. Thus, distance and proximity to existing notions of the individual

coexisted in an attractive blend. However, this blend was officially Aryanized

through the link between race and legitimate self-realization. That Jews had a

strong presence in popular entertainment or made use of public swimming poolswas depicted as a scandal since it allegedly came at the expense of honest and

impoverished Berliners.46

After their seizure of power in early 1933, the Nazi regime soon took over

or strictly controlled the press in Berlin and elsewhere (including the erstwhile

liberal tabloids 8-Uhr-Abendblattand B.Z. am Mittag). The task of newspa-

pers was now to boost and secure the regimes popular support by addressing

previously skeptical or indifferent readers rather than just preaching to the

converted. On the one hand, this amounted to translating the directives from

Goebbelss propaganda apparatus into print journalism. On the other, theremaining editors and journalists made keen efforts to publish both supportive

and unpolitical articles, which, however they really felt, contributed to an

impression of diversity that benefited the Third Reich.47 Unsurprisingly, ref-

erences to Fuhrertum, race, and community were prominent in the columns of

the Berlin papers. But as in the realm of film, where entertainment prevailed

over explicit propaganda, care was taken not to overburden recipients with

appeals to duty and obligation. The challenge was to persuade readers in the

individualistic metropolis that supporting the new regime was in their own

best interests and that the national community left room for and fostered,rather than oppressed, legitimate individuality.

In many respects, this line of argument served to counter the widespread

suspicion that Nazism was about coercing individuals into a uniform collec-

tive. Thus, Wilhelm Frick, the minister of the interior, explained that new

personal obligations to the community were met by equally important new

entitlements to protection by the state, while the minister of the economy and

erstwhile editor in chief of the Berliner Borsenzeitung, Walther Funk, pointed

out that the new Germany did not subject human life to norms but was

rather a true friend and promoter of self-government and the free develop-ment of the Personlichkeit.48 Such statements addressed middle-class con-

Stearns, Battleground of Desire: The Struggle for Self-Control in Modern America(New York, 1999), 131320.

46 Berlin verhohnt das Elend: Bergmannstod mit JazzmusikVerschleuderung vonSteuergeldernKorruption ohne Ende, Der Angriff, July 17, 1930; Wannseeidylle!Familie Levy im Familienbad, Der Angriff, May 29, 1931.

47 Norbert Frei and Johannes Schmitz, Journalismus im Dritten Reich, 3rd ed.(Munich, 1999), 134.

48 Dr. Frick: Eheberatung im ganzen Reich; Der Minister eroffnet die AusstellungWunder des Lebens; Die Familie als Wurzel des Menschen und Urzelle des Staates,

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cerns about personal rights and entrepreneurial freedom. Other articles at-

tempted to promote coercive aspects of the regime, not least to readers who

were not subjected to them themselves. According to the press, the reintro-

duction of conscription gave young men a chance to become fit for civilianlife, especially since their individual talents and priorities were taken into

account as far as possible.49 Labor service allegedly brought out the essence

of young womens character, which stripped them of any metropolitan influ-

ence. One nineteen-year-old told readers how glad she was to be finally free

from urban arrogance . . . as genuine as the peasants with whom I will work.

Another story recounted how a new girl arrived at a camp with her hair styled

like Greta Garbo, boasting about her job as a secretary, before the other girls

made it clear to her that in labor service it was not social status that counted

but the human being herself and her capacity to integrate in the community.Labor service thus not so much restricted as restored her true self.50

More than just attempts to defend or conceal the coercive aspects of the new

communitarianism, such narratives of transformation also drew on severe

doubts as to whether authentic individuality was at all attainable in the

German metropolisdoubts that had already been evident in the Weimar

period. Thus, they tied in with articles that emphasized attractive lifestyle

options, particularly outdoor activities. For instance, a long piece on water

sports praised the feeling of being alone and remote from the comforts of

civilization, from the stone prison of the city and the drudgery of everydaylife. On the lakes in nearby Brandenburg, thousands of Berliners enjoyed a

kind of manly self-reliance and freedom that was distinct from the primitive

freedom of doing as one likes and even recalled the spirit of pioneers in the

American West.51 Similar praise applied to amateur flying, an activity that

combined individual and communitarian self-reliance and was invaluable to

the rise of Germany.52 Berliners often did not have, or want, the option of

Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 23, 1935, evening edition; Normung der Dinge, nichtder Menschen: Reichswirtschaftsminister Funk auf dem Bankett der InternationalenNormentagung, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, July 1, 1938, morning edition.

49 Gustav A. Doering, Konnen Sie Trompete blasen, radiobasteln . . . ? JahrgangWedding 1917, Berliner Morgenpost, July 16, 1937. On the popularity of conscrip-tion, see Bernd Stover, Volksgemeinschaft im Dritten Reich: Die Konsensbereitschaftder Deutschen aus der Sicht sozialistischer Exilberichte (Dusseldorf, 1993), 181.

50 Madel vom Dienst bei Siedlern und Bauern: Tagebuch einer jungen Berlinerin vomWerden der neuen deutschen Frau, B.Z. am Mittag, December 20 (quote) and 24, 1935.

51 Alfred Lent, Wassersportler suchen Freiheit vom Alltag: Gluck des Alleinseins

in der weiten NaturFern von den Bequemlichkeiten der Zivilisation, BerlinerLokal-Anzeiger, July 17, 1935, evening edition.

52 Eugen Schmahl, Wir segeln hinaus in die sonnige Welt, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, July 28, 1935, Sunday edition; W. Spiegel, Flugzeug fliegt durch Schul-




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leaving the city, but they could compensate for the strains of urban life

through pursuing personal hobbies and interests.

However, personal authenticity seemed attainable not solely through com-

munitarian involvement and an active lifestyle but also through retreat. Aminor but by no means unimportant strand emphasized the virtues of quiet

contemplation, in clear continuity with the cultivation of the inner self in the

nineteenth-century middle class. Only if people spent some time alone, instead

of engaging in superficial conversation or being absorbed by the everyday,

could they truly be in harmony with themselves.53 Some articles expressed

dismay that such a turn to the inner self had become old-fashioned and

peculiar.54 Others insisted that spending some time alone was crucial to

personal regeneration in the post1933 environment. Only then could one

hope to contribute meaningfully to the community: we sometimes have to belonely to clarify and stabilize ourselves, to renew and find ourselves inwardly.

Would we not otherwise carry our own emptiness into the community?55 The

Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg made the same point and described how

Hitler himself often left the nervous capital in order to contemplate and take

decisions in the mountains, independent of the metropoliss numerous con-

tingencies.56 These statements created the impression that to cultivate ones

inner self not only was compatible with the Nazi project but even provided it

with vital energies.

Self-cultivation in retreat as a core practice of the nineteenth-centurymiddle class tied in with a twentieth-century trend toward familial privacy,

which the Third Reich claimed to integrate and cater to. Here is where Nazi

discourse significantly accorded a space for female individuality even in

marriage.57 To be sure, numerous articles assigned wives a subordinate role,

Aula: Jungen zeigen sich als Erfinder, Berliner Morgenpost, March 14, 1937; see

Peter Fritzsche, A Nation of Fliers: German Aviation and the Popular Imagination(Cambridge, MA, 1993), 185219.

53 Stille Stunden, Neukollner Tageblatt, February 14, 1935; see also Abendsallein sein, 8-Uhr-Abendblatt, March 13, 1937.

54 Vom Alleinsein, Spandauer Zeitung, February 16, 1935.55 Georg Foerster, Kampf mit dem Alleinsein: Die Einsamkeit als schopferische

und zerstorerische Kraft, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 5, 1938, morning edition,and Einsam sind wir nicht allein: Betrachtungen zur Berliner Reichsarbeitstagung desAmtes Schrifttumspflege, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, November 22, 1938, morningedition (quote).

56 Einsamkeit und Kameradschaft: Reichsleiter Rosenberg sprach auf der Berliner

Tagung des Amtes Schrifttumspflege, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, November 19, 1938,morning edition.

57 It is misleading to claim that female individuality only became accepted well afterthe war, as does, e.g., the chapter on women in Konrad H. Jarausch and Michael Geyer,

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which at best allowed them to be comrades lending an ear to their husbands

professional problems or collaborators offering valuable advice.58 But Nazi

writers also emphasized that in return for all their burdensome work, house-

wives were entitled to comfort, self-regeneration, and some private time.Those who did not go abroad in the summer were encouraged to install a

vacation corner for the woman in the apartment, do gymnastics, listen to

music, and read books. To make time for these activities, they could legiti-

mately cut down on domestic duties: Cooking? Certainly not all the time and

if at all, one of the womans favorite meals!59 Where such writers advocated

domestic rationalization, their tone was less strict and demanding than it had

been in the 1920s. Housewives were to dominate their household instead of

the other way round, and more emphasis was put on comfortall of this

supported by courses that the new regime offered.60

While marriage and housework were much vaunted and the Weimar New

Woman consigned to the past with undisguised relief, it is important to note

that public discourse in Nazi Berlin did allow for female careers.61 The

emphasis on intuition over rationality provided ideological justification. Thus,

a portrait of Dr. Margarete Gussow, the first female astronomer, emphasized

that she was fresh and natural, a sports girl, and that she was able to

convey her enthusiasm for the skys beauties with truly female sensitivity.

A newspaper report claimed that Leni Riefenstahl was entrusted with making

a film on such a quintessentially masculine topic as the German army becauseher intuition made her superior to her male colleagues.62 In the post-1933

universe, women could well be pilots or, in spite of their parents resistance,

tiger tamers.63 The female labor service offered opportunities for personal

Shattered Past: Reconstructing German Histories (Princeton, NJ, 2003), 245 68.Recent studies demonstrate how Nazism affected women in different ways and ondifferent levels but mostly do not address the issue of female individuality; see the

well-informed survey by Matthew Stibbe, Women in the Third Reich (London, 2003).58 Wie behandle ich meinen Mann? Eine kleine Frau rat ihren Schwestern, Span-

dauer Zeitung, June 15, 1935; Die Ehefrau als Mitarbeiterin des Mannes: EineUmfrage und funf Antworten, 8-Uhr-Abendblatt, March 11, 1937.

59 Mu man unbedingt reisen? Erholung fur die daheimgebliebenen Frauen,Zehlendorfer Anzeiger, July 13, 1935.

60 Herrscherin Hausfrau, B.Z. am Mittag, October 3, 1934; Kraftersparnis bei derWohnungssauberung, Zehlendorfer Anzeiger, February 21, 1935; So schulen wir diedeutsche Hausfrau, B.Z. am Mittag, October 4, 1933.

61 Dr. Hilde R. Lest, Nie wieder Vamp: Eine Geschichte menschlicher Verirrun-gen, B.Z. am Mittag, October 7, 1935.

62 Astronomin und Sportsmadel zugleich, B.Z. am Mittag, January 24, 1938; EineFrau drehte den Wehrmacht-Film: Leni Riefenstahls neues Werk, B.Z. am Mittag,December 19, 1935.

63 Georgia Lind ist Pilotin, B.Z. am Mittag, July 1, 1933; Elly Beinhorn auf




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leadership and responsibility.64 Those less inclined to pursue their careers in

a Nazi organization were told that the new Germany has room for the

professional woman too. Because of their motherly nature, women were

supposed to work in specific fields, but these were no longer restricted tosocial work and teaching; rather, they included medicine, physiotherapy, and

technical assistance in laboratories or clinics.65 Women could expect to find

the right job soon and were in turn expected to use their personal achievement

to contribute to the greater good, instead of sitting at home and waiting to be

married.66

Such appeals to personal effort and achievement, directed to both women

and men, were not merely important for winning over the more reluctant

Berliners. They were part and parcel of the ideology of Fuhrertum, which

included not just obedience but also individual activity. Beyond the principleof working toward Hitler himself, it aimed at a wholesale mobilization of

German society.67 Room for responsibility and initiative was what allegedly

distinguished the lives of workers in the Third Reich from those of their

counterparts in both Russia and the United States, where the Stakhanovite

system and Fordism, respectively, subjected industrial labor to mindless

discipline.68 This theme ran through numerous articles, whether they dealt

with entrepreneurs, judges, or senior civil servants.69 The upshot was always

groer Fahrt: Allerlei aus dem Leben der Fliegerin, Volkischer Beobachter: BerlinerAusgabe, August 23, 1935; Was Lilli, die Tigerbraut, zu erzahlen wei, pt. 2. DieErfullung eines Wunsches: Herrin uber Bestien, B.Z. am Mittag, October 15, 1934;see Evelyn Zegenhagen, Schneidige deutsche Madel: Fliegerinnen zwischen 1918und 1945 (Gottingen, 2007).

64 Heinrich Olms, Die weibliche Arbeitsdienstpflicht ein Geschenk fur jedesdeutsche Madel, Volkischer Beobachter: Berliner Ausgabe, November 23, 1937;Gabriele Muller, Dienst im Zeichen der Ahre: Fuhrerinnen kommen aus allen Be-rufen, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 6, 1938, Sunday edition.

65 Beda Prilipp, Unsere jungen Madchen vor der Berufswahl: Das neue Deutsch-land hat Raum auch fur die berufstatige Frau, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 3,1935, Sunday edition.

66 Berufserziehung und Berufswahl fur Madel: Zur Berufswahl der Schulent-lassenen, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 25, 1937; Warum immer neue Forderun-gen an die Madel? Volkischer Beobachter: Berliner Ausgabe, March 10, 1938.

67 Ian Kershaw, Working towards the Fuhrer: Reflections on the Nature of theHitler Dictatorship, in Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison, ed. IanKershaw and Moshe Lewin (Cambridge, 1997), 88 106, and Hitler, 1889 1936:

Hubris (London, 1998), 52791.68 Nonnenbruch, Leistungssteigerung und Stachanowsystem, Volkischer Beobachter:

Berliner Ausgabe, November 28, 1937; Auf die Menschenfuhrung kommt es an:Selbstverantwortung in Hoheitsbetrieben, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, November 4, 1938,evening edition.

69 Johannes W. Harnisch, Rechtschopfung durch den Richter, Berliner Lokal-

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that Germans of all classes were not supposed to wait for regulations but

rather were encouraged to take matters into their own hands, provided that

they remained within the realm of volkisch spirit. This antibureaucratic mes-

sage drew on a broad cultural uneasiness with rationalization, which had beenpervasive since the Wilhelmine period and had been exacerbated in the 1920s.

The middle classes in particular had expressed doubt as to whether formal

organizations were compatible with ideals of personal independence.70 The

new regime did not do away with large factories or bureaucracies, but it

enhanced, promoted, and emphasized the role of individual responsibility and

initiative within them.

In addition to fostering the quest for personal authenticity and leaving room

for both privacy and activity, the Third Reich claimed to cater to those

Berliners who needed help. The relevant statements and reports were notprimarily addressed to those who actually had to deal with the realities of the

welfare office, instead being designed to create a positive impression among

those who were not personally involved. The director of the Berlin welfare

and youth office claimed that, in contrast to the highly standardized and

overburdened bureaucracy in the Weimar period, there was now the possi-

bility of truly individual care, so that everyone who did not have openly

antisocial attitudes received personal attention.71 The institutions of the new

state allegedly provided light and fresh air to tenants, legal advice to the poor,

and career counseling to everyone.72 Moreover, a concerted construction efforton the outskirts of the capital promised suburban housing to workers. Who-

ever approached the German Labor Front with the desire to own a house could

count on the organizations services. The associations of both developers and

settlers ensured a sufficient supply of land for first-time buyers.73 The articles

Anzeiger, July 9, 1935, morning edition; Otto Jung, Wert ist Wohlstand! and Kurt

Kruger, Fuhrer oder Behordenleiter? Volkischer Beobachter: Berliner Ausgabe,November 7, 1936.

70 On this aspect, see Manfred Hettling, Die personliche Selbstandigkeit: Derarchimedische Punkt burgerlicher Lebensfuhrung, in Der burgerliche Wertehimmel:

Innenansichten des 19. Jahrhunderts, ed. Manfred Hettling and Stefan-Ludwig Hoff-mann (Gottingen, 2000), 5778, 77.

71 Herbert Rudolf Neues Altersheim in Tempelhof: V. B.-Gesprach mit demLeiter des Landeswohlfahrts- und Jugendamtes, Stadtrat Spiewok, Volkischer

Beobachter: Berliner Ausgabe, July 27, 1937.72 Eine begruenswerte Wohnblock-Neugestaltung, Kreuzberger Abendzeitung,

April 6, 1938; Auch dem Armsten wird sein Reich: Der erfolgreiche Einsatz des

Amtes fur Rechtsbetreuung, Kreuzberger Abendzeitung, April 23, 1938; JedemVolksgenossen den richtigen Beruf! Spandauer Zeitung, June 15, 1935.

73 Wer will siedeln? Die Dienststellen der Deutschen Arbeitsfront beraten undbetreuen die Siedlungswilligen, Volkischer Beobachter: Berliner Ausgabe, November




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clearly conveyed the regimes concern for control as well as a time-honored

vision to immunize workers from socialist influences through home ownership

and garden cultivation. They contrasted the new well-ordered suburban envi-

ronments to the wild settlements of unemployed people (who had often votedCommunist) in the late Weimar period. But these undeniably authoritarian

aspects were quite compatible with the prospect of choice and property, which

promised workers a stake in society. This message was hammered home by

regular reports and advertisements: Why are you paying rent? You can live

in a house of your own.74

This brief analysis has shown that for a reader of newspapers in Nazi Berlin

(including even Goebbelss Angriff or the local edition of the Volkischer

Beobachter), the Third Reich was not marked by a deeply anti-liberal

collectivism and radical break from the process of individualisation, nordid it try to reconfigure [Germans] into a co-ordinated mass, moving and

feeling as one.75 Rather, it incorporated and adapted impulses of the indi-

vidualistic discourse of the Weimar years, namely, the quest for more personal

consumption options, institutions, and political leadership, as well as the turn

to privacy and the authentic self. According to the press, the new regime

provided a framework for individual achievement and care that was accessible

to businessmen and workers alike. In turn, individuals were encouraged to be

self-reliant and responsible, thus contributing to the renewal of the nation.

Married women could hope for more domestic comfort and time of their own,while the unmarried and ambitious ones were encouraged to use female

qualities such as motherliness and intuition in their careers. Depending on

their situation and given the selectivity of modern newspaper reading, Ber-

liners could to some extent pick from these aspects: home ownership or

sailing, self-contemplation or physical activity, protection or initiative, the

normal or the exceptional. That the years between 1933 and 1939 were later

so often remembered as good times must have to do with the fact that the

contemporary press did not present them as collectivistic times.76

The relatedness of individual pursuits to Nazism was hammered home in many

7, 1937; Siedlung und Eigenheim: Der Parzellierungsunternehmer als Siedlungspio-nier, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 31, 1935, Sunday edition; KleingartenBerlins Schmuckgasten: Die Ziele des Reichsbunds der Kleingartner und Kleinsie-dler, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, July 26, 1935, morning edition.

74 Siedlung und Eigenheim, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, November 6, 1938; see alsoWo siedelt Berlin? Baulandpreise am StadtrandGrundeigentum auch fur Kleins-parer, Berliner Morgenpost, March 28, 1937.

75 Koonz, Nazi Conscience, 13; Roseman, National Socialism and Modernisation,217; Evans, Third Reich in Power, 708.

76 Ulrich Herbert, Good Times, Bad Times: Memories of the Third Reich, in Lifein the Third Reich, ed. Richard Bessel (Oxford, 1987), 97110.

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articles, but at times it was instead referred to in passing or indirectly as a positive

change of atmosphere compared to the Weimar period. Quite often, the existence

of the Third Reich went unmentioned. There are some indications that this

flexibility was appreciated, and used, by Berliners. For instance, the very limitedspace for any public expression of opinion included letters to the editor on

everyday matters. A number of authors highlighted their quest for domestic

privacy. They complained about noisy neighbors, pointed out that they did not

appreciate unannounced evening visits, or shared their doubts about their

mothers-in-laws plans to move in.77 Others voiced a desire for better and

more comfortable suburban trains. One reader supported his complaint about

the scarcity of free seats by invoking the Third Reich: The railway admin-

istrations view that the public is only entitled to transport regardless of

comfort no longer applies to the present period.78 Another one told how hewas frequently asked about his profession when looking for a place to live. He

recalled the Nazi promise of access for all Germans depending on individual

personality rather than social hierarchy: These days, it is after all no

longer important what one is but who one is. . . . I for one claim that all

German workers have a right to rent a publicly advertised apartment.79

The same flexibility in relating personal priorities and pursuits to Nazism

emerges when we turn away from the press to cases that emerged from contacts

between individuals and institutions and that are thus documented in the archives.

For instance, from the papers of engineer Dr. Alfred M., board member at thelightbulb manufacturer Osram and former sympathizer of the center-right German

Peoples Party, it transpires that he dealt with life in the Third Reich according to

his general principle that one has to try to integrate unalterable things in ones life

so as to let them disturb one as little as possible. He cautiously donated money

for national labor (not without requesting a receipt) and carefully reconstructed

his genealogy in order to procure a certificate as an Aryan.80 Dr. M. thus

accommodated Nazism as a system of requirements, but other Berliners used it

actively for their own individual pursuits. When the management of the Schering

77 Briefe an die Schriftleitung: Kleine Nachtmusik, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, July3, 1938, Sunday edition; Liebe Morgenpost! Die Axt im Hauseam Sonntag,

Berliner Morgenpost, March 7, 1937; Storenfriede am Feierabend, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 13, 1938, Sunday edition; Briefe an die Schriftleitung: Schwieger-mutter im jungen Heim, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 27, 1938, morning edition.

78 Offentliche Meinung: uberfullte Vorortzuge! Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March31, 1935, Sunday edition; see also Briefe an die Schriftleitung: Sehnsucht nachVororttarif, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 20, 1938, Sunday edition.

79 Liebe Morgenpost! Was sind sie? Berliner Morgenpost, March 21, 1937.80 Dr. Alfred M. to his nephew Fritz G., April 6, 1937, Landesarchiv Berlin

(hereafter LAB), A Rep. 31 No 291 Vol. 1 (quote); Dr. Alfred M. to Tax OfficeSchoneberg, July 19, 1933, LAB, A Rep. 31 No 294; Dr. Alfred M. to his cousin Max,April 21, 1938, LAB, A Rep. 31, No 292 Vol. 1.




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pharmaceutical company asked employee Franz S. to postpone his scheduled

vacation, he flatly refused and ignored appeals to comradeship and company

interest. When it turned out that the married man wanted to go away with his

colleague and girlfriend Miss H., he was fired on grounds of immoral and sociallyunacceptable behavior. The German Labor Front supported him, pointing out that

S.s marriage had been broken for seven years, that he had every right to look for

a new partner, and that it was up to him with whom to vacation: This is his

private matter, in which no one has the right to interfere.81 Yet another group of

Berliners not only used Nazism for their own pursuits but also appropriated it as

an ideology and turned it into a language of individual entitlement. Another

Schering employee, Erwin M., wanted to quit his job. When the management

refused to let him go, he argued in legal terms, but he also drove home his point

by interpreting socialism as a concept that fostered personal mobility: It does notcorrespond to the socialist idea at all to complicate or even less to stop the

professional and economic advancement of the individual Volksgenosse.82 Fi-

nally, his disgruntled employer had to let him go.

While Franz S. and Erwin M. drew on Nazi institutions and rhetorical

elements to foster their quest for private and professional mobility, other

Berliners capitalized on the promise of a less anonymous form of social care.

In letters to high-ranking officials, they demanded recognition of their own

individual situations. A disabled woman complained to Wilhelm Frick, the

minister of the interior, about the treatment she received at the welfare officeand asked: Is this right in our new splendid state? I too am a Volksgenossin

and I am glad we have such a well-meaning government again.83 After a long

struggle for my right with the welfare office in Charlottenburg, another

woman reported what she saw as an utter disregard of her person to Propa-

ganda Minister Goebbels and reminded him that we now live in a well-

ordered Hitler state.84

These examples show that the link between individuality and Nazism was

81 Richter to Dr. Dorge, September 4, 1937, Dr. Dorge to Labor Court Berlin-Charlottenburg, September 8, 1937, and German Labor Front Berlin to Labor CourtBerlin-Charlottenburg, October 4, 1937, LAB, A Rep. 229 S/532.

82 Erwin M. to Dr. Wilcke, April 18, 1939, LAB, A Rep. 229 S/525. Volksgenossemay be translated as national comrade.

83 Marie R. to the Minister of the Interior, July 21, 1935, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, R 1501, No. 5086.

84 Else M. to District Mayor of Tiergarten, January 20, 1935, and Else M. to Ministerof Propaganda Dr. Goebbels, January 14, 1935, LAB, A Rep. 001-02, No. 171. Perhapsthe most extreme examples of this quest for personal attention are the numerous love

letters addressed to Hitler; see Alexander C. T. Geppert, Dear Adolf! Locating Love inNazi Germany, in New Dangerous Liaisons: Discourses on Europe and Love in theTwentieth Century, ed. Luisa Passerini, Liliana Ellena, and Alexander C. T. Geppert(Oxford, 2010).

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not just propagated by the press. By procuring an Aryan certificate, defending

their privacy and mobility, or demanding recognition of their personal plight,

these Berliners helped produce and sustain it, without thereby subordinating

their interests and desires to the Volk. To what extent they strategically spokeNazi or genuinely believed in the regimes ideology is difficult to deter-

mine.85 The main point is that the regime left this question open and did not

impose a demanding program of self-formation. Rather than creating a climate

of suspicion about peoples inner attitudes as well as painstaking self-scrutiny,

as in Stalinist Russia, the Third Reich benefited from allowing for consider-

able flexibility in the actual appropriation of its ideology.86 To frame individ-

uality and Nazism in oppositional terms, as in Richard Evanss claim that the

regime recognised no limits in its penetration of the individuals body and

soul, is misleading.87 It does not fit the prewar picture of a programmatic andpractical compatibility between the two, nor does it do justice to the frequent

couching of personal demands in Nazi language. The Third Reichs inclusive

capacity lay, among other features, in capitalizing on nineteenth-century and

Weimar notions of the individual, in placing them in a new discursive context,

and in shifting their definition, as well as in adding genuinely Nazi elements

not in wholly subordinating the individual to a collectivistic order.

III. INDIVIDUALITY, EXCLUSION, AND WAR, 1939 45It has almost become commonplace to say that in the Third Reich, the

inclusion of Aryans was inextricably linked to the exclusion of political

opponents and racial outsiders and that the peace years were already a period

of preparation for war. Racism and war were what Nazism was ultimately

about.88 Those historians who have emphasized modernization during and

through the Third Reich have been accused of underrating this fundamental

feature and presenting the regime as just one variant of a normal and legiti-

mate twentieth-century development.89 By contrast, the present article aims to

elucidate the specificity of Nazi Germany without conveniently banishing it

85 This alludes to Stephen Kotkins prominent concept of speaking Bolshevik. See hisMagnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilisation (Berkeley, 1995), 198 237, and the criticaldiscussion by Igor Halfin and Jochen Hellbeck, Stephen Kotkins Magnetic Mountain andthe Soviet Subject, Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas 3 (1996): 33142.

86 See, esp., Jochen Hellbeck, Revolution in My Soul: Writing a Diary under Stalin(Cambridge, MA, 2006).

87 Evans, Third Reich in Power, 708.88 See the synthetic works by Ludolf Herbst, Das nationalsozialistische Deutsch-

land, 19331945: Die Entfesselung der Gewalt; Rassismus und Krieg (Frankfurt,1995); Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany,19331945 (Cambridge, 1991); Richard Bessel, Nazism and War (London, 2004).

89 See, e.g., the criticism of Prinz and Zitelmann, Nationalsozialismus und Moder-




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view that the Jewish minority embodied everything bad in German society.94

Many readers of the mainstream press may have remained unconvinced by the

periodic articles attempting to establish a link between specific crime cases

and the Jewish race as a whole.95 But they did not need to be convinced, forthe primary function of the Berlin papers was to dissociate Jews from the

realm of legitimate individuality in less spectacular ways. Many Berliners

increasingly worked within this framework and thus contributed to its trans-

lation into social practice. In the classifieds of the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger,

private detectives promised to find out about racial descent; some businesses

highlighted their Aryan credentials, while others advertised positions for

dynamic, upright, and Aryan personalities.96 In 1938, the Aryanization of

the economy intensified and was accompanied by reflections on the funda-

mental difference between German competence, creativity, and initiative andJewish cleverness, dishonesty, and lack of authenticity.97 The president of

Berlin intended to combine the elimination of Jewish businesses with the

promotion of small, independent, and reliable shop owners as the cornerstones

of social stability.98

Such statements gave legitimacy to the numerous bargain purchases of

Jewish businesses.99 Diaries, letters, and memoirs by Berlin Jews demonstrate

how successfully the ideological justification and practical incentives pro-

vided by the Nazi regime turned personal interest against them.100 What

matters here is less the motivational question of whether people endorsed

94 See the recent assessment by Peter Longerich, Davon haben wir nichtsgewusst! Die Deutschen und die Judenverfolgung, 19331945 (Munich, 2006), whichpoints to significant moral criticism of anti-Jewish violence in November 1938,including in Berlin (12935).

95 Daluege uber den Anteil der Juden an der Kriminalitat, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, July 20, 1935, evening edition; Schrecken des Wohlfahrtsamtes: Unglaub-liches Benehmen einer Unterstutzungsempfangerin, 8-Uhr-Abendblatt, November 17,1936; Keine Verhaftungen aus politischen Grundenneue polizeiliche Aktionen,

Kreuzberger Abendzeitung, June 1819, 1938.96 Advertisements for Detective Office Prei, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, July 21,

1935, Sunday edition; Leiser shoes and clothing, and Allianz und Stuttgarter VereinVersicherungs-Akt.-Ges., Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, March 27, 1938, morning edition.

97 Adeia im Vormarsch, Volkischer Beobachter: Berliner Ausgabe, March 2,1938; Nun sind wir endlich die Juden los, Tempelhofer Zeitung, December 34,1938; Die Entjudung der Wirtschaft, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, November 16, 1938,evening edition.

98 President of the Capital Berlin to district mayors, November 18, 1938, LAB, ARep. 038-08, No. 17; see also National Socialist German Workers Party, circulary bythe regional economic advisor, November 28, 1938, LAB, A Rep. 038-08, No. 17.

99 See the case studies in Christof Biggeleben, Beate Schreiber, and Kilian J. L.Steiner, eds., Arisierung in Berlin (Berlin, 2007).

100 See, above all, Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in NaziGermany (New York, 1998).




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antisemitism or were simply acting opportunistically than the dynamic result-

ing from the new demarcation between legitimate and illegitimate, protected

and unprotected individuality. The diary of Hertha Nathorff, a socially en-

gaged doctor, is a case in point. She recounted how Aryan physicians deniedtheir Jewish colleagues any solidarity and how she was afraid of being called

on by new patients who might well turn out to be muggers. 101 Later, she was

blackmailed by a woman who insisted on an abortion, deprived of income by

patients who conveniently forgot to pay their bills, and subjected to the

withdrawal of her medical approbation; in November 1938 she was outright

robbed by police officers who searched her place.102 In a similar vein, storm

troopers came repeatedly into the Baer familys clothing shop in the Wedding

district and refused to pay for the things they selected; another man com-

plained that a venetian blind from the shop had dropped on his head, and hedemanded compensation.103 Elisabeth Freund, a forced laborer in a large

laundry, recalled how the Aryan workers refused to deal with dirty clothes

any more since the Jews were now there to do it.104

The significance of such an ideologically justified blend of material interest,

social mobility, and personal empowerment in the elimination of Jews from

German society has been highlighted before.105 The point here is to integrate

this into the protracted history of individuality in the Third Reich, not just that

of the Volksgemeinschaft.106 Nazism offered personal advancement at the

expense of what had been core features of Jewish life, namely, economicindependence and middle-class culture. Moreover, it opened opportunities

through direct violence against outsiders, who were at first defined in political

terms and then increasingly in social and racial terms. The Columbiahaus next

to the Tempelhof airport, the Oran

follmer - was nazism collectivistic?

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