GR-context: How Popular Were the Nazis?

[pynchonoid]

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-German at h-net.msu.edu (February, 2003)

David Welch. _The Third Reich: Politics and
Propaganda_. Second
edition. London and New York: Routledge, 2002. xii +
246 pp.
Glossary, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.
$90.00 (cloth),
ISBN 0-415-27507-5; $25.95 (paper), ISBN
0-415-27508-3.

Reviewed for H-German by Eric Ehrenreich
<ejehrenr at yahoo.com>,
Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison

How Popular Were the Nazis?

One of the fundamental debates that has emerged in
much of the
recent historiography of Nazi Germany concerns the
degree to which
the German population willingly supported the Nazi
regime, and
especially its racist policies, as opposed to the
degree to which
that support was the result of coercion and
intimidation.  Recent
works by, among others, Robert Gellately, Christopher
Browning, Omer
Bartov, and, most famously (or infamously), Daniel
Goldhagen have
addressed this question.[1] Initially published in
1993, and now out
in a second edition with a revised introduction and
postscript,
David Welch's _The Third Reich: Politics and
Propaganda_ also seeks
answers in this regard by analyzing the role of Nazi
propaganda in
shaping public opinion and thus garnering public
support for the
regime.

Welch's slim book (171 substantive pages) is at its
strongest in
describing the mechanisms of Nazi propaganda.  He
gives a detailed
account of the creation of the Nazi newspaper empire,
centered
around the _Voelkischer Beobachter_.  He also provides
good insight
into the origin and functioning of the Ministry for
Popular
Enlightenment and Propaganda, headed by Josef
Goebbels, which had a
powerful hand in the content of German media and art. 
In the
process, Welch outlines the mechanisms of Nazi control
of radio and
film, in addition to the press.

Much of the remainder of the book deals with the
content of Nazi
propaganda, which Welch divides thematically between
peace and
war-time.  In the "peace time" section, he addresses
the heavily
promoted concept of _Volksgemeinschaft_, which was
intended to
subsume class differences into a racial utopia.  He
argues that the
regime largely won over the working class through such
programs as
"Strength through Joy," which provided entertainment
and travel
opportunities, as well as promising a motor vehicle
for the masses:
the Volkswagen.  He also notes that German boys,
across
socio-economic categories were, for the most part,
enchanted with
the Hitler Youth. Welch reaches the reasonable
conclusion that
propaganda in these spheres was largely successful--at
least to the
extent that it tended to diffuse both class conflict
and opposition
to the regime.

In regard to the Nazi euthanasia campaign, Welch
argues that despite
opposition from church leaders particularly, as well
as others,
propaganda in this sphere was also quite successful. 
Over 18
million Germans, for example, viewed the film _I
Accuse_, a
pro-euthanasia work.  With regard to anti-Semitic
propaganda, Welch
argues that it created not so much hate as apathy and
indifference.
He also supports Ian Kershaw's thesis that a powerful
"Hitler Myth"
permeated German society, though Welch explains that
this required
great propaganda efforts.[2] In the section concerning
the content
of war-related propaganda, Welch shows a profound
thematic shift
occurring after the German defeat at Stalingrad in
1943: brash
expressions of German invincibility increasingly
became calls for
great sacrifice in the face of a barbaric onslaught
from the East.

The book is at its weakest in the new postscript.  In
this section,
Welch reviews two of the major historiographical
debates not
addressed in the first edition of his book: the
_Historikerstreit_
(the controversy over some German historians' attempts
to relativize
the Holocaust in relation to other atrocities); and
the furor
surrounding Daniel Goldhagen's controversial thesis
that an
"eliminationist antisemitism" permeated German society
prior to
1945.  Conceivably, Welch could have addressed the
_Historikerstreit_, which began in 1986, in his first
edition of
1993. One can understand why he did not do so as the
relativization
of the Holocaust in the 1980s has little to do with
the substance of
his work, which treats the effect of Nazi propaganda
on Germans
between 1933 and 1945.  Welch's discussion of that
controversy
simply seems out of place. The Goldhagen controversy,
on the other
hand, ostensibly fits within the purview of Welch's
work, dealing,
as it does, with the question of how Germans felt
about Jews and
why.  Here, however, Welch simply jumps on the
anti-Goldhagen
bandwagon and reiterates arguments that have been made
repeatedly
elsewhere.

In all, however, the book provides a valuable
discussion of both the
mechanisms and substance of Nazi propaganda. It also
contains a
useful appendix with ten documents relating to the
content of the
book, from a 1933 Goebbels speech on the tasks of the
Ministry of
Propaganda to a 1943 SD report on the deteriorating
morale of the
German people.  A thematically organized bibliography
(e.g. "Art and
Culture," "Women") is also helpful.

Welch's work ultimately supports what seems to be an
emerging
consensus among historians of the Third Reich, that
widespread
German acceptance of the Nazi regime was based on both
coercion and
attraction, with, at least in Welch's work, an
emphasis on the
latter.

Notes

[1]. Robert Gellately, _Backing Hitler: Consent and
Coercion in Nazi
Germany_ (Oxford and New York, 2001); Christopher
Browning,
_Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the
Final Solution
in Poland_ (New York, 1992); Omer Bartov, _Hitler's
Army: Soldiers,
Nazis and War in the Third Reich_ (Oxford and New
York, 1992); and
Daniel Goldhagen, _Hitler's Willing Executioners_ (New
York, 1997).

[2]. Ian Kershaw, _The "Hitler Myth"_ (Oxford, 1987).

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