A history essay on the Nazi's concept of Volksgemeinschaft which received an A grade and mark of 20/25. This was written for AQA A-level history Weimar Germany and the Third Reich.
‘The Nazi’s concept of Volksgemeinschaft was primarily a means of justifying the systematic
persecution of minority groups in German Society’. Assess the validity of this view (25
marks) 20/25
Volksgemeinschaft was the ‘people’s community’, an idea put forward by the Nazi’s in order
to unite all German people as one community, who were not separated by class, religious or
cultural barriers. This was achieved through targeting different groups in Germany such as
women, children and workers and creating communities within the groups which would then
incorporate the Nazi ideology through the use of rewards, holidays and Nazi led groups.
However, the Nazi’s idea of Volksgemeinschaft was simply used to persecute minority
groups in Germany and remove them from German society. This affected religious groups
such as Jews, Gypsies and Slavs, people with any mental or physical illness, beggars and
tramps. Over the course of 1933-1939 they were complete ostracised from society, and
many of these people were either killed or sent to concentration camps under the guise of
volksgemeinschaft, which shows that despite there being a sense of a people community
amongst the aryans, volksgemeinschaft was mainly focused on the persecution of minority
groups.
The Nazi’s were able to achieve Volksgemeinschaft through youth groups such as Hitler
Youth and the League of German Girls. They were so popular amongst young people that
the Law for the Incorporation of German Youth made them an official education movement in
1936. The groups were able to bring German youths together and provide opportunities they
would not have had before, such as summer camps and competitions. They were also
extremely popular before membership became compulsory, with Hitler Youth already having
4,000,000 members in 1935. Youth groups were also inclusive of all classes, with there
being no differences in treatment of children from the upper, middle and lower classes. This
was mostly seen in the League of German Girls, which was relatively classless and had a
sense of comradeship to it. Despite this, youth groups were primarily used to ratify racial
purity ideas as well as the supremacy of the Aryans. This was done through making
membership to the groups compulsory in 1939, when it was seen that enthusiasm for the
programmes were beginning to waive, as well as having a set syllabus for both the Hitler
Youth and League of German Girls which included political indoctrination and racial
awareness. In the Hitler Youth specifically, boys were taught to sing Nazi songs and to read
political pamphlets in order to immerse them in Nazi ideology as well as expose them to
racial purity ideas at a young age. Hitler was able to use volksgemeinschaft to radicalise the
younger generation through highlighting the differences between the aryans and non-aryans
from a young age. This was effectively done through the use of songs, ceremonies and
rituals which created the community that the Nazis wanted whilst also being underlaid with
ideas about racial supremacy and purity. By indoctrinating the youth at such a young age it
allowed Hitler to get away with excluding ‘undesirable’ children such as Jews, Gypsies and
Slavs, first from youth groups and eventually from massive societal infrastructures such as
the education system by making special schools for all non-aryan children. Although there
were successes in creating a community for youths under volksgemeinschaft, the main use
of the groups was to alienate children from minority groups from their peers through the
indoctrination of aryan children into the Nazi ideology.
Volksgemeinschaft was also achieved through the formation of women's groups such as the
German Women’s League which united women through common values. The German
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