The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933-1945

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 17, 2000 | by Peter Rollberg

Contemporary historian Pierre Aycoberry's account of civilian life during the Third Reich sheds light on how and why the Fuhrer was able to package and sell Nazism to the Germans.

Imagine this: Within a few months, the world as we know it is about to change beyond recognition: Large groups of uniformed militants gather in the city disrupting traffic and shouting "antiestablishment" slogans, with an impotent police force looking on. The media are speaking in unison -- not one voice challenging the status quo. In school, children are told to neglect their parents' instructions and follow appointed youth leaders.

Previous authorities are maligned; age-old values -- religion in particular -- are ridiculed. We are called upon to participate in gigantic festivities celebrating a militant image of our nation's past and her "global mission." Intelligence is a quality to be ashamed of; rather, we are told to admire athletic prowess and advanced technology.

The neighbors listen with strange suspicion to our casual comments on the latest international developments. Soon enough we learn that our utterances are being scrutinized as to whether they are in line with the "correct" views declared by the government. And it is getting worse every day -- telling a political joke can cost you your job. Listening to a foreign radio station can mean death....

These are just some of the facets detailed in The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933-1945 (The New Press, $30,379 pp), Pierre Aycoberry's chillingly sober portrait of German society during its rapid transformation from civility to barbarism. Aycoberry, professor emeritus in contemporary history at the University of Human Sciences at Strasbourg, France, makes the unthinkable imaginable -- within the confines of human nature. At the same time, he analyzes his own discipline, reviewing how historians over the decades have been struggling with national socialism.

The book's two parts deal with German society before World War II and during the war, respectively. In the first part, Aycoberry examines the impact of Adolf Hitler's violence. Through brutal attacks on the legitimacy of the civil state, on traditional moral norms and on privacy, the Nazis marked the broad range of their foes: Jewry, Communists and social democrats, the churches, the handicapped, independent intellectuals and many more.

The Nazis' political organizations quickly created a state within the state, and soon the politicization of society reached absurd heights. As common norms such as honesty and solidarity dissipated, the state was able to establish a network of informers and denouncers. Pervasive fear so changed human behavior that many Germans were unable to provide believable explanations for their own horrific deeds -- or their indifference toward those of others -- after the war ended.

Aycoberry, however, is skeptical toward commonly accepted (and rather convenient) concepts. He systematically refutes stereotypes, such as the one of the Nazi Party as an ideologically homogeneous organization with a stringent hierarchy that competently handled all problems. Instead, the author depicts competing lobbies, shameless corruption and widespread ineptitude within that organization.

Other commonly held beliefs are exposed as myths, too: that the working class was innately internationalist and resisted Hitler's slogans (the vast majority did follow Hitler); that only the left rejected Nazism (the Popular Party and the Catholics of Bavaria, among others, were no less stubborn in their rejection); that Hitler was the agent of big business and that Nazism was a phenomenon of the middle class (a self-serving myth of the left based on a simplified or distorted interpretation of data).

Regarding the question of a "resistance Movement," Aycoberry leaves the reader no illusions. Although he mentions time and again individual acts of courage, they never could outweigh the enthusiastic support or the inertia of the majority of Germans. As for the profiles of those resisting individuals or groups who were willing to risk their lives, they ranged from fanatical Stalinists to moderate nationalists and loyal Christians. With very few exceptions, there was no open opposition. Most people continued on in their own little worlds -- until the millions of self-deceptive niches were crushed together throughout the entire Nazi empire.

In regards to moral or immoral decisions, Aycoberry does not forget to mention such factors as psychological dispositions -- jealousy, envy -- and common stupidity, or naivete, which all played a role. Many people appealed to Hitler for help against the "evil Nazi hacks," for example, believing that he was unaware of their activities.

Aycoberry's language is appropriately factual and never pompous. Only rarely does he fall into the traps of speculation, as when he talks about the "persistent latent death wish that was relatively widespread," without defining what he means or showing corroborating data. Overall, he lays open the inner logic of German society's degeneration from 1933 to 1945. What must remain unexplained in the end -- and Aycoberry concedes this -- is the enigma of each individual and his choices. Like the historian, each reader must resolve this lasting mystery for himself.