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“In The Spirit Of A Millennial Inheritance:” The Nazi Ambition To Regenerate German Civilization Through The Visual Arts, Marco J. Lloyd Apr 2023

“In The Spirit Of A Millennial Inheritance:” The Nazi Ambition To Regenerate German Civilization Through The Visual Arts, Marco J. Lloyd

Student Publications

This paper intends to explain the complex and seemingly contradictory implementation of Nazi cultural policy regarding the visual arts by understanding Nazi cultural ideology. By examining the writing and speeches of Adolf Hitler and his ideological predecessors, it is apparent that the Nazis did not object to many modern art styles for purely aesthetic reasons. Instead, they associated the perceived degeneration of art with the degeneration of German society due to the influence of Jews and political opponents. Therefore, the Nazi hope to regenerate German civilization informed the policy of removing “degenerate art” from public display and purifying the art …


Women’S Advocate Or Racist Hypocrite: Gertrud Scholtz-Klink And The Contradictions Of Women In Nazi Ideology, Mary C. S. Frasier Apr 2021

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 Apr 2020

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 Apr 2019

"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 Apr 2019

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 Apr 2016

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 Apr 2016

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 Apr 2014

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 Apr 2014

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 Apr 2014

“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.


5. The Democracies Between The Wars (1919-1939), Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart Jan 1958

5. The Democracies Between The Wars (1919-1939), Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XVIII: The Western World in the Twentieth Century: The Historical Setting

At first glance, the events of World War I seemed to be a triumphant vindication of the spirit of 1848. It was the leading democratic great powers - Britain, France, and the United States - who had emerged the victors. In the political reconstruction of Europe, republics had replaces many monarchies. West of Russia, new and apparently democratic constitutions were established in Germany, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. Yet the sad truth was that by the outbreak of World War II in 1939 the majority of the once democratic states of central and eastern Europe …


6. The New Totalitarians: Fascism And Nazism, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart Jan 1958

6. The New Totalitarians: Fascism And Nazism, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XVIII: The Western World in the Twentieth Century: The Historical Setting

In discussing the modern movements which threatened democracy, a distinction can be made between those which were anti-revolutionary and those which were counter-revolutionary. In practice, they often blur into one another. Differentiation between the two types does help to distinguish between those backward-looking elements which offered little more than mere negation of the democratic and radical movements of the preceding century, and those which used certain democratic devices against democracy itself. The Franco regime in Spain is essentially anti-revolutionary, except for the group running the single party, the Falange, which is counterrevolutionary. Latin American dictatorships generally belong in the first …


7. Modern Totalitarianism: Russian Communism, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart Jan 1958

7. Modern Totalitarianism: Russian Communism, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XVIII: The Western World in the Twentieth Century: The Historical Setting

Some political analysts place fascism at the extreme right of the political spectrum, Communism at or near the extreme left. This classification has been much favored by Marxist writers who believe that fascism is the last desperate effort of embattled capitalism to stave off the proletarian victory. Doubtless, Communist writers are aware of the value in some circles of the leftist label with its overtones of progress, freedom, and the general welfare. We have already noted the origin of the terms "Left" and "Right" in the French Revolution when they were used to distinguish between the advocates of change and …