The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

This was Hitler's point of view. It does not matter that it is nonsensical from the standpoint of economics or that
the political reaction will never succeed in stopping the development of mechanized farming with its danger to
the small farmer. Its mass-psychological propaganda value is, nevertheless, enormous because of its appeal to the
compulsive familial structure of the middle class.
The close relationship between family attachment and agricultural mode of production inevitably found its
expression in National Socialist measures. Since the Hitler movement was basically a middle-class movement,
one of its first steps to win over the middle strata was the edict concerning the New Order of Agricultural
Ownership of May 12, 1933. This edict went back to age-old forms and concepts such as the "inexorable tie of
blood and soil." A few typical excerpts will make this clear:
The inexorable tie between blood and soil is the indispensable pre-[42]requisite of the healthy life of a people. The agricultural
legislation of past centuries in Germany safeguarded this tie which exists in the natural feeling for life of the people. The farmstead
was the unsaleable heritage of the ancestral farm family. Later, foreign laws came in and destroyed the legal basis of this custom.
Most German farmers, with their healthy feeling for the basis of their country's life, nevertheless retained the custom of handing
down their farm, intact, from generation to generation.
It is the imperative duty of the government of an awakening nation to secure the inexorable tie between blood and soil by the
institution of a law regulating the right of succession.
The inheritance of a hereditary farm (Erbhof) which is registered in the local district court takes place according to the
Anerbenrecht. The owner of an Erbhof is called farmer. A farmer has only one Erbhof. He has only one child which can take over
the Erbhof. This child is the Anerbe. The other heirs are supported by the farm until such time as they reach economic independence.
If they become needy through no fault of their own, they still can take refuge on the farm. If the farm is not registered, the right of
succession takes place according to the Anerbenrecht.
An Erbhof can be owned only by a farmer who is a German citizen and of German blood. Nobody is of German blood who has
among his male ancestors, or among his other ancestors for four generations back, a person of Jewish or colored origin. It goes
without saying, however, that every Teuton is, in the sense of this law, a German. Marriage with a person not of German blood will
deprive the children of such marriage of the right to own an Erbhof.
The purpose of this law is that of protecting the farms against heavy indebtedness and harmful splitting up through inheritance, and
of maintaining them enduringly as the heritage of free farm families. At the same time, it intends to effect a healthy distribution of
agricultural property. A great number of well-functioning small and medium farms, distributed as equally as possible over the whole
nation, is necessary to maintain the health of the people and the state.
What tendencies are expressed in this law? It was in conflict with the interests of the large landowners whose
aim was the absorption of the small and medium-sized farms. This conflict, however, was more than outweighed
by a second potent interest [43] of the large landowners, that of maintaining the agricultural middle class which
was the mass basis of their power. Not only does the small farmer identify himself with the large landowner in the
sense of being a private owner of land. What is more important is that the continued existence of small and
medium-size farms guarantees the continued existence of the typical patriarchal atmosphere of the family which
is identical with the economic unit. This type of family produces the best Nationalist fighters and changes the
women structurally in the direction of the Nationalist ideology. This is the basis of the famous "moral value of a
healthy peasantry." The problem is, however, a sex-economic problem.
The interweaving of individualistic production and authoritarian family in the middle classes is one of the
sources of the fascist ideology of the "family with many children." We shall meet this problem again in another
connection.
The alignment of'the small economic units one against the other is reflected in the alignment of the families
against one another and the competition between them. These phenomena are characteristic of the lower middle
classes, in spite of the fascist slogans of the "corporate idea." The basic elements of fascist ideology are
individualistic principles, such as the "Führer principle," family politics, etc. What is collectivistic in fascism
derives from the socialist tendencies in its mass basis, while the individualistic elements derive from the interests
of high finance and the fascist leadership.