The Nazi Conscience [Hardcover]

On a first glance Claudia Koonz' book on the Nazi conscience appears somewhat disappointing. Yes, it is fulsomely documented, relying on a wide variety of archival and contemporary sources, while also being copiously illustrated. But on the other hand this book seems too similar to other books, such as David Bankier and Ian Kershaw on public opinion during the Nazi years, and it does not seem to tell us anything new. But a closer look reveals something much more interesting. The title is a bit misleading. The book is less about Nazi concepts of conscience as it is about the subversion of the German conscience. The results of this process are both subtle and disturbing.

One day in 1940 a Nazi Youth member saw the Gestapo removing Jewish friend and the rest of the village's Jews and thought to himself, not how unfortunate that this was happening to Jews, but how unfortunate that his friend was Jewish. Such was the triumph of the Nazi conscience. As scholars are increasingly aware, the violent thuggish anti-Semitism of Julius Streicher and Nazi thugs was deeply unpopular, while racist ideas were controversial and intellectually questionable. How therefore could Hitler achieve his ends? Hitler, along with Goebbels, Himmler and Heydrich were the most radical and extreme of the anti-Semites. But all three were masters of making themselves appear to be more moderate and rational than they actually were. Most of the films approved by Goebbels appeared to lack any ideological content, Himmler went out of his way to make the SS appear more aristocratic and intellectual. Heydrich went out of his way to denounce "vulgar" anti-Semitic tactics. And Hitler, for his part, was careful to appear as the spokesman for "ethnic fundamentalism." Hitler's anti-Semitism was good for the cadres, but for the wider population the deeply moralistic, anti-liberal ethnic fundamentalism was better at presenting nihilistic ends in conservative language.

Koonz points out that as Hitler came closer to power he toned down his comments on Jews, and once in power he was careful not to associate himself too closely to the more unpopular extremists. Before the war, Koonz points out, he only directly and publicly stated his hatred of Jews three times. But he could also remind the extremists he was on their side by sneering at ideas, like feminism, as "Jewish." At the same time as he ostentatiously expressed his desire for peace and love for Christianity, Mein Kampf was publicized and its racism implicitly honoured. Koonz goes on to discuss such topics as academic support for the Nazis (including those old standbys Heidegger and Schmitt). She discusses the soft-sell techniques of Walter Gross and the Office of Racial Politics. "When speaking to general audiences, Gross appealed to ethnic pride; among Nazis, he mobilized racial hatred." There is a chapter on the Nazi approach to youth, again showing the same insidious soft sell, such as providing toy tanks to schools, or using Nazi party leaders' names for spelling exercises. One prominent Nazi primer devoted only 3 of its 256 pages to Jews. Although teachers and students were often repelled by Nazi cruelty towards Jewish children, the emphasis on Volk and Fatherland helped to make segregation more acceptable. There are also chapters on law and intellectuals, about how jurists tried to make rational sense of the racist nonsense they were supposed to using, and slowly but surely accepted more Nazi principles. We also read how the Nazis covered their ideas in pseudo-scientific and pseudo-scholarly garb. We also read about the complementary roles played by the crude SA and the deceptively "moderate" "intellectual" SS. Denunciation of "Jewry" played a minor role in the educational materials assigned to SS recruits. But understating racism made it easier to slip into the more conservative chauvinist consensus. The result was a society where if Germans did not fully appreciate the genocide of their fellow citizens, "they knew enough to know it was better not to know." Instead of communist societies which rigidly repeated their rigid dogmas and could expect little better than to have it parroted back to them, Nazi Germany was more successful in gaining internal adherence precisely because it was less "totalitarian." Its conscience was close enough to the pre-Nazi version in its emphasis on sacrifice and high moral purpose to blur those of the majority and encourage the cruelty of its soldiers. Precisely because the German mind was not a blank slate it could even be allowed a certain initiative. Instead of the crude counter-chauvinism of Daniel Goldhagen, Koonz presents a process that need not be confined to Germans. Indeed, we have already seen it among one of Germany's victims, Serbia, and much of the rest of Yugoslavia. And we may yet see it elsewhere.

Claudia Koonz, Professor of History at Duke University, has written what in my eyes is likely to be one of the very best books ever written about Nazi ideology in general and the hatred of the Jews in particular. It's an amazing read, packed with information, pictures of Nazi propaganda, extensive sources, and a text that is eerie, fascinating, and very, VERY instructive.

It's hard, to a certain extent even impossible, to understand how Hitler and his National Socialism managed to rise to such enormous power and popularity, and it's probably safe to say that a large number of people in today's world don't `know how widespread and well planned the Nazi ideology really was in Germany during the height of its popularity. But this is just what Koonz wants to explain with her book, and she definitely doesn't fail in describing the rise of Nazi power, how the people chose to embrace it, and how the "Jewish menace" came to be an accepted fact among large segments of the population.

It doesn't matter if one, quite understandably, hates the Nazi ideology and everything it resulted in; one still cannot deny the fact that the systematic indoctrination and the power of Hitler's speeches was quite impressive considering what the results were. And that's just as true today as it was back then, since during the 1930s when the Nazis really came to power, many Europeans "looked on from neighboring countries with envy even if they deplored the Nazi state" (p.163).

But how could it happen? That's a question that's been asked millions of times by millions of people, but if you read Koonz' book the whole thing will without a doubt become at least somewhat more understandable, thanks to examples as this one about the bizarre hatred of the Jews, taken from a chapter about the creation of the ultimate SS man:

"By conjuring up an image of the Jewish enemy as both morally debauched and deviously intelligent instructors presented racial persecution as rational self-defense, not emotional prejudice" (p.243)

Discussions and details about Hitler appear from time to time, obviously, but the greater part of the text is not about him. The Nazi Conscience is not a biography about Hitler; its more a biography about the German people, and even though the man behind it all only appears from time to time, I still haven't ever read a book that taught me more about Nazism and its power of attraction than The Nazi Conscience did.

Now, there's a factor that often appears when you read well-written books about Nazism and Nazi ideology, and this factor is just as frightening as it is fascinating: You understand them. You understand the Nazis, and you realize that they were people, too, even though their particular worldview was quite different to the one that most people have today.

This understanding easily leads to another insight, namely the fact that one has to accept the fact that one self could very likely have ended up being a devoted Nazi is one had grown up in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, no matter how well-educated and rational one happens to be.

Realizations like this can really mess with your head. I know it did to me. It's not a very pleasant thing; this understanding of the Nazi universe, but it's an extremely important one. Because only when you realize who the Nazis were, how they thought, and why they turned out to be the vicious killers that many of them were.

Then, and only then, can you begin to understand them.

Yes, there was a "Nazi conscience" that had its positive aspects--at least for those who followed it.

Dr. Koonz has established a reputation as one of the foremost scholars on everyday life in Nazi German (see Mothers in the Fatherland). She lives up to and expands that reputation here.

Too often the popular interest in Nazi Germany has centered around the death camps, the SA/SS and the more violent aspects of the rise of Nazism. But as Koonz points out, the Nazis and Adolf Hitler built a program that fed into concepts and desires that had already germinated in 20th century Germany. True, the Nazis possessed the levers of power to impose much of their will on the country, but the population was never as unwilling or as blindly led as we might like to admit.

Koonz builds her thesis upon the legitimization of postive ethics by the Nazis; namely, the establishment and veneration of das Volk, i.e. an extreme ethnic nationalism that only later manifested itself in the Holocaust. Dr. Koonz shows that the path to the Holocaust passed through the disenchantment with 19th/20th century liberalism, the expansion of "polite" anti-semitism, and contemporary (yet hotly debated) principles of science and genetic racialism. She also elaborates on the hyper-masculinity of the Nazi regime.

The narrative is a subtle one, for Dr. Koonz does not play her arguments into evocative or forceful prose. This book is methodical, understated; a worthy read, however, and will offer much insight onto what, borrowing from Hanah Arendt's description of "the banality of evil." Also includes compelling photographs.