Detlef Mühlberger. Hitler's Voice: The Völkischer Beobachter, 1920-1933; Vol. I: Organisation & Development of the Nazi Party, Vol. II: Nazi Ideology and Propaganda. Bern: Peter Lang, 2004. 1083 S. in 2 Bde. $153.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8204-5909-7.
Reviewed by Michael Chad Wallo (Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, The Pennsylvania State University)
Published on H-German (October, 2005)
National Socialist Ideology and Organization in the Early Years
Regardless of how long one studies the National Socialists, their outrageous claims always amaze. According to them, democracy bred corruption and moral decay, Germany needed Lebensraum to survive as a race, and Jews and Freemasons were responsible for Marxism and finance capitalism. Equally dumbfounding were National Socialist loyalists who could have accepted these lies; for them, statements by Hitler and in official party organs such as the Völkischer Beobachter were unadulterated facts. Unfortunately, the horrific actions of the National Socialists necessitate the acute analysis of even the most ridiculous of these proclamations.
Thus, Detlef Mühlberger's work Hitler's Voice: The "Völkischer Beobachter," 1920-1933 is an important addition to the study of National Socialism. In today's scholarship, it is difficult to locate a detailed work on National Socialism that does not rely in some way on the Völkischer Beobachter: it was truly the bullhorn of the party from the time when the National Socialists were no more than a small group of unknowns gathering at the Munich Bürgerbräukeller until they gained power in 1933. Considering the vast amount of literature on National Socialism, however, it is surprising that until now, there have only been shorter articles and two dissertations and not a single comprehensive analysis of the newspaper.[1] Mühlberger's translation of articles from the Völkischer Beobachter addresses this lacuna. He has sifted through eleven years of the paper, condensing them into two volumes. His first volume gives a chronological account of the development and organization of the party until 1933 while the shorter second volume, entitled Nazi Ideology and Propaganda, examines topical issues such as attacks against the Weimar Republic, racism, and attempts by the party to garner support from workers, farmers, and the German Mittelstand.
Aside from public speakers, the Völkischer Beobachter was the main disseminator of party ideology among the German populace during the Weimar Republic. After 1933, the National Socialists began to consolidate the entire German press apparatus under their control, and the Beobachter became less important for the party although its circulation increased by more than a factor of twenty by 1939.[2] During the early years, members made up the bulk of sales, and thus, the main role of the Beobachter was not direct recruitment as much as communication between different regional groups and the Munich headquarters. The Nazis used the paper to announce meeting places, times, and local party news and to report the growth of new branches and of membership. The documents also clearly show party growth constrained in the early 1920s by lack of money; in several articles, party leaders begged members to pay their dues (pp. 1:62, 1:95-96).[3] In later years, they instituted a membership ban because they could not process all the applications and even purged inactive members from the rolls (p. 1:468).
Contributing to this increase in party membership were the National Socialists' excellent organizational capabilities, as Mühlberger's volumes skillfully detail. They created street (pp. 1:287, 1:323, 1:378) and factory cells (pp. 1:368, 1:443, 1:464, 1:476; 2:159-171) to enhance the distribution of propaganda in urban environments and protection squads to guard meetings and Nazi leaders (pp. 1:161, 163, 333). They formed leagues for National Socialist lawyers (p. 1:345), teachers (p. 1:346), doctors (pp. 1:450-453), and farmers (p. 1:459). Resembling a micro-government, one Gau constructed departments of forestry, agriculture, and economic policy before the National Socialists even seized power (p. 1:507). The Hessian District established propaganda, press, and accounting departments (p. 1:531). The district in Hamburg set up a Foreign Countries Organization to spread party ideology abroad (p. 1:510). The Upper Palatine Gau even created two Organization Departments to oversee the organization of the different departments within its district (p. 1:516). Leading up to presidential elections, the National Socialists planned a flurry of rallies and speaking appearances including what the Beobachter termed "Hitler's Freedom Flights" (p. 1:591). The ceaseless activity of such organizations and devoted party members was critical for the party's success and is evident throughout the articles. Several writings praise the tirelessness of party workers (pp. 1:384, 1:470-471).
The articles show the great extent to which members worked for Hitler and how the Beobachter helped centralize Hitler's power by spreading the cult of his person. Whole pages are devoted to the celebration of his birthday (pp.1:51-52, 1:134-135). National Socialists believed that only Hitler could return "life-bringing energies" to the fatherland and correct the "spiritual collapse" that had occurred with the founding of the Weimar Republic (p. 1:51). The articles show National Socialism as a unified, dynamic movement whose members would do anything for Hitler's causes.
In his selections of articles, Mühlberger presents an excellent mixture of these causes. For instance, the anti-capitalistic and materialistic rants attacking finance (pp. 2:64, 2:72), department stores (pp. 2:204-209, 2:218-222), syndicates (p. 2:64), the stock market ( p. 1:67; 2:137), and profiteering (p. 67) are found throughout the writings. National Socialists tried to overcome the divisiveness of the period by attempting to build a classless national community or Volksgemeinschaft (pp. 2:28, 2:68, 2:109, 2:129-131). The stab-in-the-back mythos and accusations against so-called November criminals are also found in the first volume (p. 1:92). The Nazis virulently attacked the Weimar "system," as they called it (pp. 2:21, 2:31, 2:44, 2:49), demanding its removal (pp. 1:597, 1:600).
The Republic was associated with consumerism and materialism, which directly opposed National Socialism's crusade against pleasure. One article in the Beobachter quotes Hitler as exhorting followers to accept the "misfortune" heaped on them because it causes them to think about their shame and to complain about France (p. 1:87). Another reported that one Gauleiter worked himself to death; the newspaper comments about this event by saying "the individual is nothing, the cause everything!" (p. 1:530). The cult of the front soldier, the military structures of the party, and the idea of sacrifice permeate the two volumes. The rag called itself a "combat newspaper," National Socialism was a "Combat Movement" (p. 1:146) and the party's "Combat League for German Culture" had the goal of educating Germans about race (p. 1:346). On one occasion, the Beobachter exhorted its branches to send its "shock-troops" forward (I: pp. 1:96-97) and praised SA sections that fought with Marxists (pp. 1:89, 1:329). It treated those members who died in these brawls as martyrs (pp. 1:329, 1:454, 1:475, 1:477, 1:481, 1:505, 1:507) including one whose reported last words were "Hitler, for you, I die willingly!" (p. 1:514).
Characteristic of National Socialism's militant anti-Semitism was the belief that Jews were responsible for creating pleasure in society and luring Germans away from sacrificing for the nation: "Today [the Jew] drives us into one new frenzy of pleasure after another and robs millions of our national comrades of a clear view of our situation" (p. 1:55). Internationalism was a Jewish phenomenon (pp. 1:138, 1:153, 1:437), and the Beobachter devoted sections to eugenics and racial hygiene (pp. 2:61, 2:69-72, 2:88-89, 2:91-103). National Socialist racism was not only applied to Jews. Articles on the 1932 Olympic games in Los Angeles criticize white Americans as opportunistic businessmen who "used Black Olympians to secure victory" instead of making sure "the Negro occupies the position that is appropriate for him" (p. 2:85). In one of more laughable claims, the newspaper stated that flying airplanes demands a racial elite such as Orville and Wilbur Wright who were "tall, had long skulls, large noses, and were also blue-eyed" (p. 2:87).
The German peasantry was to provide the racial and cultural core of Germany's rebirth (p. 2:256); blood and soil were the "basis of life for the German people" (p. 2:286). Articles in the Völkischer Beobachter constantly employ such terms as "rebirth," "renewal," and the "reawakening" of Germany or of the German people (pp. 1:88, 1:90-91, 1:121, 1:451, 1:574, 2:50, 2:78). The party thought of itself as the salvation of the German people. My own developing research demonstrates a frequent use of such vocabulary not only among Nazis but also among literary Expressionists and conservatives like Ernst Jünger--which indicates a broad appeal for these ideas and thus a deep dissatisfaction among Germans during this period.
National Socialists tried to appeal to Germans' displeasure by hammering their ideology home through propaganda. The Beobachter contained "how to" articles on propaganda and on starting one's own party branch (p. 1:156). A great help to the growth of the party was the construction of a National Socialist Speakers' Correspondence School in which the main party office forced each district to enroll members (pp. 1:337-338). Speakers were thoroughly coached on what to say: during the 1930 Reichstag elections; the party handed out a "special folder with thirty-one subsections" dealing with all potential questions that could arise during the campaign.
Mühlberger also presents articles that examine National Socialist film and sport. As early as 1928, the National Socialists were experimenting with film and slides as a means of propaganda (pp. 1:340-342, 1:365-367), but high costs limited their use. The party also formed a "Gymnastic and Sport Section" (p. 1:55) and a "Sports Association" in the Berlin Gau (p. 1:202) to prevent the decline of the German "race" among youth. More information on these two topics would have been interesting for the reader.
Most fascinating is the debate among women that appeared in the Beobachter in 1926. In her article "The German Women's Movement," Dr. Emma Hadlich asserted that women played more important roles than the party's official line suggested. She believed that "apart from the basic differences in their sexual features, there are no inevitable male and female characteristics of a physical and intellectual sense" (p. 2:323). Another female contributor to the Beobachter, Thilda Hecht, found men guilty of horse-trading, lies, and cheating in politics and called the Revolution of 1918/19 a "product of 'male' politics" (p. 2:329). As one can expect, such statements engendered a strong protest from National Socialist loyalists. Although this discussion on women's issues within the party was short-lived, that the National Socialists allowed a few "feminist" essays to appear in the official party organ is surprising for a party that epitomized chauvinism. Even more surprising is the women's choices to air such ideas in hopes they would change the party.
Because there is material of interest for every scholar of National Socialism in the Völkischer Beobachter, a strictly chronological two-volume set with less commentary and the omission of topical sections in the second volume would have provided researchers with more and other interesting information. Mühlberger omitted, due to space constraints, some fascinating material on the National Socialists' utopian vision of the Third Reich (pp. 2:12-13) and their ideas on religion, including the Aryanization of Christianity (pp. 2:16-17). Those looking for new information on the National Socialist party in introductions to each chapter and other commentary will be disappointed, but the readings themselves are of course the focal point of the work. The documents unfortunately contain neither pictures nor advertisements even though one reading makes reference to advertisements (p. 1:159). The photos could have yielded interesting information. It would also have been intriguing to see which types of firms advertised in the rag. At times, the many reports from each party branch and Gau are repetitive and tedious. The redundant descriptions of Gau in chapter three of the first volume take up almost fifty pages (pp. 181-227). A truncated version would have been sufficient to demonstrate the expansion and size of the National Socialist party. The author could also have eliminated the more obvious footnotes; most readers should already be familiar with Paul von Hindenburg (p. 1:91) and Erich Ludendorf (p. 2:112).
These criticisms are minor when considering the overall significance of Mühlberger's work. He introduces an English-speaking audience to a resource previously available only in German. Because of the importance of the Völkischer Beobachter as a primary source for National Socialist ideology, Hitler's Voice will be essential for those researchers of National Socialism and the Weimar Republic who could not readily access these materials in the past. Hitler's Voice is highly recommended.
Notes
[1]. The most recent and major publications are, in reverse chronological order, Alfred D. Low, "The Völkischer Beobachter, 1933," Social Science 55 (1980): pp. 195-202; idem, "The Völkischer Beobachter 1920-1933. The Nazi Party Newspaper in the Weimar Era," Central European History 3 (1970): pp. 353-82; idem, The Völkischer Beobachter, 1925-1933, A Study of the Nazi Party Newspaper in the Kampfzeit (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1965); Sonja Noller, Die Geschichte des Völkischen Beobachters von 1920-1923 (Ph.D. diss., Munich, 1956).
[2]. In 1929, the newspaper had 26,715 subscribers, and in 1939, it had a circulation of 740,000. Statistics from David Welch, The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda, 2nd ed. (New York and London: Routledge, 1993), p. 12; and Norbert Frei, Nationalsozialistische Eroberung der Provinzpresse: Gleichschaltung, Selbstanpassung und Resistance in Bayern (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), p. 88.
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Citation:
Michael Chad Wallo. Review of Mühlberger, Detlef, Hitler's Voice: The Völkischer Beobachter, 1920-1933; Vol. I: Organisation & Development of the Nazi Party, Vol. II: Nazi Ideology and Propaganda.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
October, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11203
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