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German Society in the Nazi Era: ‘Volksgemeinschaft’ between Ideological
Projection and Social Practice. International conference organized by
the Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin and the German
Historical Institute London.
Date: 25–27 Mar. 2010
Venue: German Historical Institute London
Convenors: Horst Möller (IfZ), Andreas Gestrich (GHIL), Bernhard
Gotto (IfZ), Martina Steber (GHIL)
One of the most striking changes of perspective in recent research on
National Socialism is the new interest which younger historians in
particular are taking in German society during the Nazi period.
Adopting questions, theories, and methods derived from the cultural
turn, they are examining the social foundations of the Nazi dictatorship
in order to explain the regime’s structure and its system of
rule. The term Volksgemeinschaft, which has increasingly been used as
the starting point from which to characterize Nazi society, can help
to define both the visionary dimension of Nazi social policy, and its
integrative and exclusive aspects. This change in perspective can be
observed in Britain as well as Germany. It is noticeable that the social
history approaches which shaped the discussion from the end of the
1970s to the middle of the 1980s rarely serve as reference points for
the new research on Nazi society. Categories such as class or social
inequality no longer play a large part in recent studies, not even in
Britain, where they were the subject of especially close investigation.
The conference will address these new approaches, but emphasize
their social history dimension. It is mainly interested in the social
consequences of social practice inspired by the notion of the
Volksgemeinschaft. It will systematically investigate the functional
mechanisms and characteristics of society in the Nazi Altreich, while
incorporating the enormous dynamic for change which was inherent
in the Nazi regime and casting light on processes of social change
from the Weimar Republic to the immediate post-war period.
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