Rise, Consolidation, & Maintenance of the Nazis Historiography

Did the Nazis create social revolution?

Yes. The Nazis did create a social revolution where there was a classless, modernized society with equal opportunities and elites no longer in control. They also broke traditional loyalties and revised the common views on race and eugenics. 

No. The Nazis did not create a social revolution because Germany was still dependent on elites and the concept of Volksgemeinschaft (an exclusive Aryan community) was merely propaganda. Additionally, changes were happening elsewhere in Europe and many were due to the war rather than Nazi policy itself.

Was Nazi foreign policy a continuation of previously established German power?

Yes. The harsh terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (required Russia to leave WWI) is evidence of German expansionist aims in the east

No. Hitler was “a new and dangerous force” and Nazi foreign policy was a radical change

Did the Nazi’s envision a ‘total war’?

No. The Nazi state envisioned a war full of brief clashes, and stretches of temporary peace, as opposed to six long years. Only in ‘42 did the reality seem to sink in that they were locked in a longer conflict, and what was known as the “Blitzkrieg mentality” gave way to the “total war”. In the state of “total war”, Germany’s economic resources were fully utilised. 

Yes. German leaders had been expecting this “total war” since the mid-1930’s, and that the German economy had been tailored for this exact thing since the Four Year Plan of 1936.

Kershaw

• “Discontent [with the Nazi regime] was rooted in the socio-economic experience of daily life”

• The failure of German resistance to Nazism had roots in the political climate of the Weimar Republic

Ritter

The majority of educated Germans didn't trust Nazi propaganda and felt that Hitler’s victory and political system were foreign to them 

Craig

• The SS prevented the regime from collapse by maintaining Nazi power through terror, effectively destroying opposition. 

• Nazi art, was “of a quality so inferrior as to be embarrassed” 

Taylor

Nazi antisemitism was a tool for the achievement of other aims

Bullock

Hitler was the master of the third Reich”

Did German wives share in Nazi guilt?

The female population provided emotional validation for their husband’s atrocities in the SS, making them sharers in the guilt.

How did the vision of a National Community evolve?

The vision of a National Community ended with the Nazis, leaving post WWII Germany materially, psychologically, and morally ruined.

Why was there disorganization in the Nazi government?

It was due to Hitler’s failure to show interest in ‘mundane’ tasks, prefering wider questions in foreign affairs