Culture in the Third Reich

[Serial_Apologist]

James Hawes "The shortest history of Germany" suggests that Prussia (or as he refers to it as East Elbia) was the cause of all of the problems - its customs + governance were very different from the area to the west,formerly part of the Roman empire - the area had become German following an eastern colonial advance into near empty land that had become more favourable for agriculture during the Mediaeval Warm Period, its previous inhabitants being Slavic who resisted which led to the continual fear of what became Poland.

But... what about Poland (today)? A case of excessive influence from the Catholic Church, which is notoriously conservative there, or what?

[gurnemanz]

I remember finding Ralf Dahrendorf rather cogent on this subject. He saw the Germans as lovers of harmony, conformity and unity who were therefore at risk of succumbing to a national ideology which appeared to make these things achievable. Internal opposition which has been a strength and safeguard of the British system would constitute an undermining of the national endeavour.

The Baader-Meinhoff terrorist group were an extra-parliamentary opposition - APO - in response to the Grand Coalition government of national unity.

[Richard Barrett]

Not that Germany is alone in Europe for being responsible for genocide...

Indeed. There's nothing special about Germans any more than there is about the European colonial powers which are also responsible for exterminating large numbers of people, and which were and still are regarded as civilised and believing in "the rule of law" (which of course often implies "for some but not for others"). And responsibility for the rise of Nazism in Germany doesn't just lie with Germans.

[Frances_iom]

But... what about Poland (today)? A case of excessive influence from the Catholic Church, which is notoriously conservative there, or what?

interestingly Hawes quotes research that the areas of Germany that least supported Hitler were the Catholic areas in the South + West - the Lutherans in the North + East were strong + early supporters of Hitler

Poland has a large rural population - like parts of UK that voted for Brexit they felt left behind - things will change as they did in Ireland

[richardfinegold]

Poland has the unenviable past of having been portioned by other nations for the past several hundred years, with a brief interwar hiatus that was brutally extinguished, and then two generations of vassal like status under Communism. Their present Government
has done many objectionable policies, given their traumatic relatively recent past a degree of chauvinism is perhaps inevitable.

[kernelbogey]

Thanks for all responses to my OP, on a subject which troubles me: I have Tyrolese relatives in North Italy, and some German relatives through marriages with them.

Regarding "a nation in which people admired Wagner and Beethoven", of course such people were (and are) always in a minority, even in Germany. And some of them indeed were members of the SS, which just goes to show that there's no necessary connection at all between a finely tuned aesthetic sense and humanitarian ethics.

The implication of Richard's post, which I essentially do not dispute, seems to me to be that high art can have no influence on moral attitudes and behaviour. My puzzle, over many recent years, is similar to that of LMP's post (12): with some notable exceptions, Nazi leaders came from an educated middle class, who might have been music lovers, or at least admirers. Yet racial ideology trumped ethics every time, so entartete Kunst etc followed. I would assume that most members here would at least hope that my first sentence in this paragraph is not true.

[Richard Barrett]

The implication of Richard's post, which I essentially do not dispute, seems to me to be that high art can have no influence on moral attitudes and behaviour. My puzzle, over many recent years, is similar to that of LMP's post (12): with some notable exceptions, Nazi leaders came from an educated middle class, who might have been music lovers, or at least admirers. Yet racial ideology trumped ethics every time, so entartete Kunst etc followed. I would assume that most members here would at least hope that my first sentence in this paragraph is not true.

But another way of looking at the situation is this: if art could influence moral attitudes and behaviour it would be possible for unscrupulous demagogues to use it as a means of social control. Indeed many attempts have been made to do so, but in the end it doesn't work. The music of Beethoven, Bruckner and Wagner may have been coopted by the Nazis as an advertisement for their ideology, but they couldn't in the end bring it down to that level and thus devalue it.

[LeMartinPecheur]

The implication of Richard's post, which I essentially do not dispute, seems to me to be that high art can have no influence on moral attitudes and behaviour.

I do hope this is an overstatement or oversimplification, and I believe it is. Surely great art-works such as Shakespeare, Fidelio (..... fill in the rest ad lib!) serve to create or reinforce a background landscape of human values, perhaps particularly in our younger (school?) years. OK, some (many?) people won't be influenced much, even assuming they encounter them, but it's a big mistake to bin the attempt because it hasn't been 100% successful. We have to keep trying!

[kernelbogey]

I do hope this is an overstatement or oversimplification, and I believe it is. Surely great art-works such as Shakespeare, Fidelio (..... fill in the rest ad lib!) serve to create or reinforce a background landscape of human values, perhaps particularly in our younger (school?) years. OK, some (many?) people won't be influenced much, even assuming they encounter them, but it's a big mistake to bin the attempt because it hasn't been 100% successful. We have to keep trying!

Not being trained or well educated in moral philosophy I struggle with this challenge, LMP. But surely the implication of Richard's statement

...Regarding "a nation in which people admired Wagner and Beethoven", of course such people were (and are) always in a minority, even in Germany. And some of them indeed were members of the SS, which just goes to show that there's no necessary connection at all between a finely tuned aesthetic sense and humanitarian ethics.

is that high art does not in and of itself civilise: it requires, as your response, LMP, impiies, a personal commitment to the process. Of course I believe for myself in its civilsing and life-enhancing qualities - but I am making that choice.

[kernelbogey]

And, as the review referenced in the OP observes

Goebbels’s desire to increase respect for German culture abroad brought him into conflict with the foot soldiers of cultural slog at home and a tetchy standoff with the Gauleiter (regional party leader) of Saxony. “If he had his way there,” the minister observed tartly, “there would be no more German theatre, only völkisch pageants, open-air performances, myth and all that nonsense.”

So perhaps the völkisch pageants trumped Wagner and Beethoven in the popular view of what German culture was.....

[richardfinegold]

What I find so what absent from this discussion, perhaps I missed it, was the Nazi belief that they were protecting their Culture from “impure” influences. This belief wasn’t just confined to the Nazis; many German Elites who had no love for Hitler also thought they had a responsibility.
Furtwangler’s main defense during the postwar era was that he had , in his view, sacrificed himself to stay behind when others emigrated to maintain German music. After the War he shaded it to mean that the Cultural enemies were the likes of Goebbels, but his pre war writings make it clear that the forces of Modernism were fundamentally alien to German Culture. So the Nazi pose of keeping the Barbarians out of the Cultural arena gained them a lot of points with traditional minded Germans who otherwise didn’t care for the rest of their agenda

[kernelbogey]

Thank you Richard; I had been hoping you would contribute.

What you write makes a lot of sense: it fits with the Entartete Kunst show etc.

(I think I'm going to have to read this book!)

[LHC]

What I find so what absent from this discussion, perhaps I missed it, was the Nazi belief that they were protecting their Culture from “impure” influences. This belief wasn’t just confined to the Nazis; many German Elites who had no love for Hitler also thought they had a responsibility.
Furtwangler’s main defense during the postwar era was that he had , in his view, sacrificed himself to stay behind when others emigrated to maintain German music. After the War he shaded it to mean that the Cultural enemies were the likes of Goebbels, but his pre war writings make it clear that the forces of Modernism were fundamentally alien to German Culture. So the Nazi pose of keeping the Barbarians out of the Cultural arena gained them a lot of points with traditional minded Germans who otherwise didn’t care for the rest of their agenda

This is a very well made point, and also I think connected the Nazis into a more long-standing view of German art is being more important and worthy of protection than others. As Hans Sachs states at the Conclusion of Die Meistersingers:

Beware! Evil tricks threaten us:
if the German people and kingdom should one day decay,
under a false, foreign rule
soon no prince would understand his people;
and foreign mists with foreign vanities
they would plant in our German land;
what is German and true none would know,
if it did not live in the honour of German Masters.
Therefore I say to you:
honour your German Masters,
then you will conjure up good spirits!
And if you favour their endeavours,
even if the Holy Roman Empire
should dissolve in mist,
for us there would yet remain
holy German Art!

Little wonder this was a regular feature of Bayreuth festivals during the Nazi period.