Working Towards the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a Racial Community at the Junkers Aircraft Factory
The leitmotif of the Third Reich was the insistence on the construction of a racial Volksgemeinschaft, with Nazi agencies constantly searching for manifestations of this political and social order. In the Nazi world view, every German had a claim to the Volksgemeinschaft, regardless of social backgr...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
2016
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| In: |
Politics, religion & ideology
Year: 2016, Volume: 17, Issue: 1, Pages: 33-51 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The leitmotif of the Third Reich was the insistence on the construction of a racial Volksgemeinschaft, with Nazi agencies constantly searching for manifestations of this political and social order. In the Nazi world view, every German had a claim to the Volksgemeinschaft, regardless of social background, and the task of Nazi propaganda was to bind workers emotionally and symbolically to the racial community, substituting their class consciousness for a new identity based on race. The article argues that the Junkers aircraft factory in Dessau constituted a particularly promising arena for this experiment. During the armaments boom, Central Germany experienced rapid industrial growth, providing a fertile ground for identification with the regime. Additionally, the expanding industries served another purpose, as the workplace itself emerged as an important arena for social practices through which the Nazi visions of a new social order could express itself. Using the Nazi conception of ‘work’ (Arbeit) as a starting point, the article shows how Nazi agencies and the Junkers company itself tried to promote the Volksgemeinschaft among the workforce. Despite the Nazis' repeated claims of a revolutionary break with contemporary society, the Volksgemeinschaft cannot be completely understood unless we take into account how the regime tried to build upon pre-existing identities and beliefs, such as the feats of German aviation. Both the Nazi concept of ‘work’ and the legacies of German aviation accentuated the inclusionary and exclusionary aspects of the Volksgemeinschaft, and at the same time made it more accessible to ordinary Germans. |
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| ISSN: | 2156-7697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Politics, religion & ideology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/21567689.2016.1157075 |