_Strength through Joy_

[pynchonoid]

[...] the Nazis' popular leisure organization,
"Strength through Joy" (_Kraft durch Freude_, or KdF)
. [...] in many ways reinforcing the recent
historiographic emphasis on popular consent to Nazi
rule, yet also complicating the picture through its
focus on a variety of deep-seated, overlapping
tensions--between individual desires and collective
welfare, between sacrifice and pleasure--that so
strongly molded "racially valuable" Germans'
experiences of the regime. [...] Rejecting both the
Marxist vision of collective entitlement and the
"Fordist" model of standardized production and high
wages, the Nazis attempted to construct a distinctly
"German" model of consumption free from the rampant
individualism and shallow materialism associated with
America, yet willing to reward individual talent and
performance so long as it served the interests of the
"racial community." [...] As by far the most popular
aspect of the Nazi regime, and as nothing less than
its answer to the conundrum of "guns or butter," KdF
mushroomed into a sprawling network of package tours,
theater tickets, cruise ships and film discounts,
gradually occupying the vast bureaucratic space that
opened up between the concrete imperatives of
rearmament and the overarching aim of reducing class
conflict and the appeal of Marxism.  [...] the
development of KdF was not all fun and games.  Its
"Beauty of Labor" (_Schönheit der Arbeit_) program
clearly reflected the Nazi adherence to a productivist
vision of leisure as inseparable from work. [...]
Although the outbreak of the war in 1939 severely
curtailed KdF's tourism offerings, the organization
nonetheless served the war effort by providing
entertainment for troops and civilians alike. [...] 
KdF contributed significantly, if indirectly, to the
rapacious and racist mentality that so characterized
the Nazi occupation of Europe, encouraging territorial
expansionism, furnishing both motive and alibi for
plunder, and eventually abetting mass murder. [...] 

--from an H-German review 
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=307751089434234


 of Shelley Baranowski's _Strength through Joy:
Consumerism and Mass Tourism in the Third Reich_ 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521833523/hnetreview-20/102-4231676-5410525?dev-t=mason-wrapper%26camp=2025%26link_code=xm2


[...] In a corporate State, a place must be made for
innocence, and its many uses. In developing an
official version of innocence, the culture of
childhood has proven invaluable. Games, fairy-tales,
legends from history, all the paraphernalia of
make-believe can be adapted and even embodied in a
physical place, such as at Zwolfkinder. [...] From
Peenemunde they had come 280 kilometers, which was to
be, coincidentally, the operational range of the A4.
[...] 

--Gravity's Rainbow, p. 419


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