For Hitler, community-building efforts and establishing a Nazi state were based on the principle of Volksgemeinschaft which means ‘the community before the individual was part of the broader goal of achieving absolute supremacy. In Mein Kampf this idea is often discussed, with the motto being Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer (one people, one empire, one leader). Volksgemeinschaft or the people’s community was an attempt by the Nazis to found a nation-state that dismissed all prevailing class, religious and sectional differences and replaced them with increased national awareness. The aim was to restructure German society and the Nazi regime made a number of changes in line with their community-building efforts (Kershaw, 1987; Lee, 1988).
Hitler believed that people should not forget how completely dependent they were on their nation, that their past, present, and future was Germany, which has given sense and meaning to their lives. However, Germany was faced with a problem: it faced the possibility of being harmed by external forces, who wanted to see its demise. Hence, National Socialism was the solution Hitler came up with to prevent Germany was breaking into pieces, by working to unite the German people and bring them together into one invincible whole. For this purpose, all social and class divisions were done away with and a ‘national community’ was built, based on ethnic unity and true German values (Welch, 2004).
Mass media and art, in general, we’re used to informing people about the government’s activities and extol reasons why it needed the people’s unity and support. Press, radio, newsreels as well as film documentaries all publicized the welfare schemes the Nazis had implemented such as the National-socialistic Volkswohlfahrt, Strength Through Joy, and Winter Aid. Charitable appeals were aired on the radio while there were newsreels that showed content laborers enjoying the ‘People’s Theatre’ and cruise holidays. Newspapers constantly emphasized the value of a ‘national community’ and the need to put the interests of the state ahead of one’s personal wants. The status of the ‘ordinary’ worker was elevated and May Day became the ‘National Day of Labor’, a symbol of the national community where all workers, as well as their employers, would participate in a parade all over Germany and listen to a speech given by Adolf Hitler, who played a key role in raising the status of the labor force. Nazi feature films and documentaries also portrayed a Germany where social conformity was the norm and class barriers were rapidly disintegrating (Welch, 2004).
Volksgemeinschaft‘s premise was that every ‘pure’ German, his social or professional background notwithstanding, had a right to claim equality, and the Nazi efforts to build a national community were successful to an extent because they did lead to a heightened sense of national awareness. People, even if they did not view this as a fundamental social change, made use of this to secure employment, or as a route to self-advancement. Even if workers were aware of the intentions behind Volksgemeinschaft, they took advantage of the schemes and benefits introduced by the regime and gave credit for the regime. All in All, the regime was successful in building support for itself by uniting the public into one unified whole, as was their intention (Welch, 2004).
Joseph Stalin is also a leader who is celebrated for his attempts to revive e nationalism in Russia. Stalin and his comrades wanted to build popular support for a communist state and even though Stalin himself was a Marxist, which called for an international order with the class as the defining criteria, the worldwide, as well as domestic emergence of nationalism, caused Stalin to turn to nationalism as a means of combating the ominous Nazi threat (Fitzpatrick, 2001).
In the middle of the 1930s then, the regime started celebrating the rich Russian history. The military and cultural personalities of the pre-revolution era were the new heroes and Stalin championed Russia as “first among equals”, and the natural heir to the Tsarist empire. Aside from promoting heroes from the tsarist era, the Stalinist leadership also made prominent figures from the revolution and the civil war role models for the Russian people. But the purges of the 1930s led the emphasis to be more on figures from the pre-revolution era. The Russian people were not concerned with the motives or intent behind this shift in Stalinist ideology and embraced Russian nationalism and the national Bolshevik promoted by the regime (Fitzpatrick, 2001).
The people strove to develop the public Soviet identity which was promoted by the Stalinist regime, which had as its characteristics an utmost devotion to the public good and the abolition of a private sphere independent of the public. The Soviet citizen was told to not just speak Bolshevik but also think and act Bolshevik so that he internalizes his national identity. Through this ideology, Stalin was successful in promoting national identity and a sense of unity among people and managed to mobilize popular support in 1941. During World War II, citizens, as well as members of the military, propagated language and imagery which were symbols of their nationalist spirit. The Stalin regime was successful in creating Russian nationalism as the Russian national character developed and laid the ground for modern Russian nationalism (Fitzpatrick, 2001).
References
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Kershaw, Ian. The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.
Lee, Stephen. European dictatorships 1918-1945. London: Routledge, 1988.
Welch, David. Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People’s Community. Journal of Contemporary History, 39.2 (2004): 213-238.