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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Women’S Advocate Or Racist Hypocrite: Gertrud Scholtz-Klink And The Contradictions Of Women In Nazi Ideology, Mary C. S. Frasier
Women’S Advocate Or Racist Hypocrite: Gertrud Scholtz-Klink And The Contradictions Of Women In Nazi Ideology, Mary C. S. Frasier
Student Publications
The Reichsfrauenführerin, Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, led the National Socialist Women’s League from 1934 until she went into hiding in 1945. During her career in the Nazi Party, she created a female focused sector of the party that promoted pronatalist propaganda, discouraged women from engaging in politics, and urged women to only perform gender-suitable work. In contradiction to her message, Scholtz-Klink was the highest-ranking female political figure and a divorcee, who regularly chose her political career with the Nazi Party over her duties in the private sphere. Although she had little to no political power in the inner circle because of her …
The Silent Reich: Austria’S Failed Denazification, Henry F. Goodson
The Silent Reich: Austria’S Failed Denazification, Henry F. Goodson
Student Publications
Between 1945 and 1956, the Second Austrian Republic failed to address the large number of former Austrian Nazis. Due to Cold War tensions, the United States, Britain, and France helped to downplay Austria’s cooperation with the Nazi Reich in order to secure the state against the Soviets. In an effort to stall the spread of socialism, former fascists were even recruited by Western intelligence services to help inform on the activities of socialists and communists within Austria. Furthermore, the Austrian people were a deeply conservative society, which often supported many of the far-right’s positions, as can be seen throughout contemporary …
"Ein Pakt Mit Dem Teufel": Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph Of The Will, And The Nature Of Guilt, Andrew O. Burns
"Ein Pakt Mit Dem Teufel": Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph Of The Will, And The Nature Of Guilt, Andrew O. Burns
Student Publications
Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will is rightly considered a massive technical achievement in the world of cinema and propaganda. However, this achievement was undertaken at the behest of the immoral, murderous regime of Nazi Germany, a regime that Riefenstahl was more than willing to work with and glorify in order to further her career. This thesis will argue that Riefenstahl’s onscreen deification of Hitler, visual representation of völkisch ideology, and use of the music of Richard Wagner make her later claims of ignorance as to the film’s ultimate meaning impossible to correlate with established facts.
Education In Nazi Germany, Ian R. James
Education In Nazi Germany, Ian R. James
Student Publications
This essay investigates the sweeping educational reforms that the Nazi government implemented to use elementary education to further its political goals. Along with the major laws concerned, it concentrates on several personal accounts of families and students during this era to better understand how these educational reforms affected Germans. Additionally, it analyzes the Hitler Youth and other such recreational organizations that the Nazis created to continue to mold students’ ideologies. It examines the stories of several people who were children in these organizations and what their impressions were of the groups. Finally, it places these Nazi reforms in the context …
Battle For The People: Ideological Conflict Between Soviet Partisans, The German Military, And Ukrainian Nationalists In Nazi-Occupied Ukraine, David L. Heim
Student Publications
Soviet historiography discusses the People’s War during the Second World War, the idea that all of the Soviet people rallied to the cause and fought off the Nazi invaders, but this is far from the truth. Within the western borderlands of the Soviet Union multiple conflicting groups fought for control of and support from the people. This was especially true in Ukraine where the German Army, Soviet Partisans and Ukrainian nationalists all fought ‘for the people’ and for their own ideologies. This paper is an attempt to discuss the ideological conflict between the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Ukrainian nationalists, …
A Coercive Courtship: German Awareness Of And Responses To The Sudeten Germans, 1929-1934, Jesse E. Siegel
A Coercive Courtship: German Awareness Of And Responses To The Sudeten Germans, 1929-1934, Jesse E. Siegel
Student Publications
Following the end of World War I and the creation of the first Czechoslovak Republic, the Sudeten Germans sought to raise the awareness of Germans in Germany and Austria of their situation under Czechoslovak rule. In the period between 1929 and 1934, the public discourse in Germany altered, as Nazi control began to direct further concentration on the Sudeten Germans, away from broader discussion of their minority status to a German nationalistic perspective. The Nazis, however, were both manipulative and ambivalent in their awareness of the Sudeten Germans, treating them as an extension of the Nazi Party while also beyond …
In Her Own Right: A Study Of Freya Von Moltke In The German Resistance 1940-1945, Sarah E. Hayes
In Her Own Right: A Study Of Freya Von Moltke In The German Resistance 1940-1945, Sarah E. Hayes
Student Publications
Freya von Moltke was a member of the Kreisau Circle resistance group in Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1944. This intellectual group planned for the future of Germany after the anticipated downfall of the Nazis and was led by Helmuth von Moltke, the husband of Freya, and Peter Yorck. Despite the significance of her resistance in comparison to the majority of the German population, the resistance story of Freya von Moltke is often overwhelmed by that of her husband. The examination of Freya von Moltke’s interviews, letters, and memoirs as well as a variety of secondary sources reveals that she …
Banished From The Present: Musicians In Nazi Germany, Thomas G. Bennett
Banished From The Present: Musicians In Nazi Germany, Thomas G. Bennett
Student Publications
This essay analyzes musical life in the Third Reich. More specifically, the focus will be on the Nazis’ regulation of music and the role that musicians themselves played in determining and enforcing cultural coordination. While some evidence extends into the war years (1939-1945), the bulk of the information presented here took place in the pre-war Nazi era (1933-1939). The purpose here is to show that those musicians who worked with and under the Nazis were affected in different ways and had varying levels of agency within the National Socialist system. Some have been branded collaborators, others victims, and this paper …
“Long Live Freedom!”: Moral Motives Behind The White Rose Resistance, Katelyn M. Quirin
“Long Live Freedom!”: Moral Motives Behind The White Rose Resistance, Katelyn M. Quirin
Student Publications
This paper examines the motives behind the White Rose resistance group. Active from 1942-1943, the White Rose consisted primarily of university students who produced anti-Nazi leaflets. By examining documents such as letters, diaries, the leaflets themselves, and Gestapo interrogations, the motives of the group are evident. The members resisted the Nazi regime for moral and ideological reasons, specifically in relation to the failures World War II, atrocities committed by Nazis in Poland and the Eastern Front, the restriction on personal rights, and an inner duty to oppose the regime.