An Efficient “Propagandistic Instrument of Mobilisation”

Abstract

Over the past few years, much has been written about Germany’s Nazis and about ideology, but not too much has been published on Nazi ideology. Norwegian author Carl Müller Frøland has divided his study Understanding Nazi Ideology into seven parts. Most suitably, he starts with German Romanticism (I) and the Völkische Ideology (II). “Völkisch” remains a nearly untranslatable word (probably something like pagan-folknativist culture). Part III is about Nietzsche’s “will to power” while part IV illuminates the growth of Nazi ideology. This is then followed by the Führer cult (V). The book ends with “The SS” (VI), and The Conceptual Universe of Nazism (VII). In his Preface, Frøland notes that “surprisingly little has been written on why Nazi ideology had such appeal” (1). Perhaps one reason why—while not being a coherent system of ideas, is precisely that: an incoherent jumble. The foundations of Nazi ideology consisted of a disjointed mishmash—in which the German word would be Flickenteppich. In other words, it was a pernicious patchwork of rodomontade and tub-thumping hate speech, a Versatzstücke, words and ideas mixed up using incongruous substitutes. These were cobbled together indiscriminately. This makeshift so-called ideology was spiced up by philosophical half-truths and, more or less, deliberate misinterpretations often adjusted to suit the violent political and social purposes of Nazism. All of this allowed Nazi ideology to seem to be all things to all people, from conservatives to reactionaries, and from God-fearing Christians to “back-to-nature” romantics. Nazism, like Italian fascism, is a call to action and therefore does not need much of a philosophical or ideological grounding or background. One of the prime reasons for the existence of this nonsense dressed up as Nazi ideology is that it was a highly efficient “propagandistic instrument of mobilisation” (9), and it was one of the first movements to utilize modern media, street parades, and mass rallies. Frøland notes that “Thomas Mann was one of the first to describe Nazism as an ideology,” and—himself a conservative—he “found the roots of Nazism in German Romanticism” (10). Yet not every romanticist marching through the woods in Lederhosen and singing self-congratulatory songs was a Nazi, and not every Nazi was a romanticist. Sadly, Frøland’s book does not include Umbero Eco’s Ur-Fascism (1995) that