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Roland Freisler was a leading Nazi lawyer, civil servant, and judge. The main focus of the thesis is on Freisler's hitherto neglected experiences during the Weimar Republic and his role in facilitating the transition of the German legal system from the democratic Rechtsstaat to the Nazi dictatorship. The first chapter (1893-1920) examines Freisler's experiences during the First World War and its revolutionary aftermath and sheds doubt on the much-repeated claim that he had "converted" to Bolshevism. The second chapter (1920-1922) provides a close reading of his doctoral dissertation and early academic work. The close collaboration with his supervisor, Justus Wilhelm Hedemann, as well as stellar grades paved the ground for a stellar legal career. As the third chapter (1924-1930) shows, these ambitions were squashed and Freisler began to pursue an alternative career as a leading Nazi lawyer, who broke down the boundaries between street, courtroom, and city parliament in order to undermine the Novembersystem. The fourth chapter (1930-1932) looks at Freisler's breakthrough during the early 1930s when he became a leading local politician as well as an indispensable legal advisor. The fifth chapter (1933) provides a close reading of Freisler's role in the Nazi seizure of power, which shows that the especially violent period of transition is instrumental for understanding the nature of legal politics in the 'Third Reich'. The penultimate chapter (1933-1942) traces the residues of these Weimar experiences through a selection of case studies from Freisler's time as Staatssekretär in the Prussian and Reich Ministry of Justice. The final chapter (1942-1945) does the same for his stint as President of the Volksgerichtshof. Having fallen from grace as a senior civil servant, the Volksgerichtshof signified a chance for redemption and, in some sense, a return to the performative struggles of the Weimar period.

A significant historical debate regarding the potential structural similarities and continuities between European colonialism and the Third Reich has been ongoing throughout the last decade. Historians have employed different approaches within the debate ranging from links between policies of the Kaiserreich and the Nazi regime, to comparisons between North American continental expansion into western territory and Nazi Germany's expansion into Eastern Europe. Previous arguments have attempted to prove that certain colonial situations or policies acted as precursors to the Nazi regime. However, despite the various angles through which the debate has been approached, it remains largely unsolved. Although specific elements of colonialism and the Nazi regime are certainly comparable, the extent to which colonialism may have influenced the Third Reich remains unclear. This dissertation will contribute to this debate by utilising a comparative study of two groups of colonial discourses; one group relates to German overseas expansion in Africa whereas the other concerns German continental expansion in Poland. Both these groups of discourses were simultaneously created, shaped and elucidated throughout the Kaiserreich, Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime. Although they were connected to different geographical locations and were informed by different historical events and experiences, the two groups of colonial discourses were strikingly similar. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate and compare these colonial discourses, from the Kaiserreich to the Third Reich, within the context of the resettlement of ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) in Poland between 1939 and 1944. This analysis will provide an example of where and in what ways certain elements of the two groups of colonial discourses overlapped with justifications, fantasies and ideology related to expansion, settlement and the treatment of both the ethnic Germans and the native Polish population during the Third Reich.

The memory of resistance to National Socialism in the Third Reich and opposition to SED rule in the German Democratic Republic retains considerable political currency in post-Reunification Germany, particularly within the German museum landscape where the double burden of the dictatorial past continues to dominate German identity politics. This study interrogates the relationship between the collective memory of resistance and national identity within the permanent exhibitions at a wide range of German historical museums, particularly in terms of the mobilisation of resistance narratives in the service of diverse political aims. In the process, this project draws on structuralist theories of narratology and sociological narrative theory in order to devise a systematic method of analysis which examines not only the methods by which museum exhibitions construct and communicate narratives of resistance, but also the range of potential interpretations and visitor experiences which are generated by such exhibitions. This interpretational framework identifies and analyses four primary narrative patterns which constitute German memorial culture: heroic, victim, perpetrator, and everyday narratives. Firstly, it explores heroic narratives of resistance as a form of positive national myth which seeks to discredit the National Socialist and East German dictatorships by emphasising the individuals who opposed them. In particular, it examines the relationship between the temporal elements of these heroic narratives and their spatial representation in the exhibition. Secondly, the analysis of victim and perpetrator narratives alongside one another reveals the importance of narrative perspective in shaping visitor interpretations of the past and encouraging, or forestalling, identification with the victims and perpetrators of the two regimes. Finally, this study examines strong and weak constructions of authorship in the paratexts of the museum and the exhibition content itself, and analyses how everyday narratives precipitate a shift from political history to social history or the history of everyday life (Alltagsgeschichte), paving the way for representations of dissent as well as active resistance (Widerstand). This study concludes by examining how these four competing and overlapping narrative strands interact with one another and with other available narratives, and demonstrates how master narratives of national identity, which sought to legitimise the Berlin Republic by discrediting or normalising the National Socialist and East German dictatorships which preceded it, have begun to give way to narratives of post-national European identity, which promote European integration on the basis of commitment to shared democratic values.

This thesis examines the ideological nexus of nationalism and heritage under the social conditions of neoliberalism. The investigation aims to demonstrate how neoliberal economics stimulate the irrationalism manifest in nationalist idealisation of the past. The institutionalisation of national heritage was originally a rational function of the modern state, symbolic of its political and cultural authority. With neoliberal erosion of the productive economy and public institutions, heritage and nostalgia proliferate today in all areas of social life. It is argued that this represents a social pathology linked to the neoliberal state's inability to construct a future-orientated national project. These conditions enhance the appeal of irrational nationalist and regionalist ideologies idealising the past as a source of cultural purity. Unable to achieve social cohesion, the neoliberal state promotes multiculturalism, encouraging minorities to embrace essentialist identity politics that parallel the nativism of right-wing nationalists and regionalists. This phenomenon is contextualised within the general crisis of progressive modernisation in Western societies that has accompanied neoliberalisation and globalisation. A new theory of activist heritage is advanced to describe autonomous, politicised heritage that appropriates forms and practices from the state heritage sector. Using this concept, the politics of irrational nationalism and regionalism are explored through fieldwork, including participant observation, interviews and photography. The interaction of state and activist heritage is considered at the Wewelsburg 1933-1945 Memorial Museum in Germany wherein neofascists have re-signified Nazi material culture, reactivating it within contemporary political narratives. The activist heritage of Israeli Zionism, Irish Republicanism and Ulster Loyalism is analysed through studies of museums, heritage centres, archaeological sites, exhibitions, monuments and historical re-enactments. These illustrate how activist heritage represents a political strategy within irrational ideologies that interpret the past as the ethical model for the future. This work contends that irrational nationalism fundamentally challenges the Enlightenment's assertion of reason over faith, and culture over nature, by superimposing pre-modern ideas upon the structure of modernity. An ideological product of the Enlightenment, the nation state remains the only political unit within which a rational command of time and space is possible, and thus the only viable basis for progressive modernity.

This thesis analyses the uses of the concept of a Leistungsgesellschaft to explore the breaks and continuities in the transition from Third Reich to Federal Republic as well as within the post-war era. Between 1933 and 1975, the 'achieving society' and the concept of Leistung became ever more widely used and criticised. The individual in the National Socialist period was pressured to achieve in the name of a politically and racially defined commonweal, or risk exclusion from the national community. By contrast, the post-war period witnessed a shift as Ordoliberalism emphasised the individual opportunity a focus on performance in a competitive market generated. However, Ordoliberal theory had a limited impact on policy, also failing to overcome the tension between endorsing individual achievement and the developing welfare state. As part of an increasingly international debate, sociologists assessed how far the opportunities of the market actually extended and gauged the consequences of the Leistungsgesellschaft. These discussions show the active role of researchers in moulding a mental map of a highly advanced 'West'. At the same time, a pattern that coheres with the model of the 'long sixties' is also present in these debates. The increasingly critical tone adopted by sociologists predated and prepared the way for the more radical ideas of the New Left. By the mid-1960s, activists and academics were highlighting the repressive emotional and psychological consequences of stressing achievement, prompting conservative efforts to defend Leistung. On the whole, a gendered line of exclusion and a trend towards Verwissenschaftlichung are the most striking continuities between 1933 and 1975. Racialized understandings of achievement are reframed in the context of debates about the 'underdeveloped' states. The thesis as a whole paints a picture of an increasing individualisation of Leistung as well as growing focus on the pressures and problems inherent in endorsing achievement.

This thesis investigates the background, activities, and motivations of German women who provided administrative support for Nazi institutions and agencies of the Third Reich. It compares women who specifically chose to serve the Nazi cause in voluntary roles with those who took on such work as a progression of established careers. Using a variety of sources, including post-war testimony in criminal cases, it shows how much they knew about the repressive and genocidal aspects of the regime and evaluates the role that ideology, as against other factors, played in their loyalty to their employers. Secretaries, SS-Helferinnen (SS female auxiliaries) and Nachrichtenhelferinnen des Heeres (female communication auxiliaries of the army) held similar jobs: taking dictation, answering telephones, and sending telegrams. Yet their backgrounds differed markedly. While secretaries were habitually recruited on the basis of their prior experience and competencies, the Helferinnen predominantly volunteered, sometimes motivated by ideology and the opportunity to serve their country, sometimes enticed by the prospect of foreign travel or the lure of the uniform. The thesis sheds light on these women's backgrounds: their social status, education, career patterns. It seeks to explain the situations and motives that propelled them into their positions and explores what they knew about the true nature of their work. These women often had access to information about the administration of genocide and are a relatively untapped resource. Their recollections shed light on the lives and work of their superiors, the mundane tasks that contributed to the displacement, deportation and death of millions of people across Europe, and the extent to which information about these atrocities was communicated and comprehended. Attention is paid to the specific role played by gender amongst perpetrators of the Holocaust. The question of how gender intersected with National Socialism, repression, atrocity and genocide forms the conceptual thread linking the separate chapters on these three groups of women who had varied backgrounds and degrees of initial commitment to Nazi ideology.

This thesis examines post-1990 representations of growing up in the Third Reich within German culture. It has two primary aims: to demonstrate how childhood is recalled, represented, and imagined by those with, and without first-hand experience of Nazism; and to situate these narratives as a central part of the post-Unification discourse about identity in the Berlin Republic. The material is organised into five chapters: it begins with an analysis of recent museum displays and exhibitions, followed by German cinema (Hitlerjunge Salomon, NaPolA: Elite für den Führer); autobiographical works, by former members of the Hitler Youth (Günter de Bruyn, Martin Walser, Günter Grass) and by Jewish children (Ruth Klüger, Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt, Günter Kunert); and finally, imagined accounts of growing up in the Third Reich (W.G. Sebald, Binjamin Wilkomirski, Gudrun Pausewang). Through close readings of primary sources, and analysis of their reception, including the public debates which they sparked, this study shows how these narratives interact with historical and contemporary notions of childhood. They are informed by the concern, embedded within post-Unification discourse, that the wealth of documentary and technical accounts of Nazism obscures the individual’s understanding of those events and what it was like to experience them. I argue that because of the close conceptual association between childhood and origins, these narratives contribute to a discourse about how the Third Reich is to be remembered, performing a 'search for a usable childhood'. This is situated within the context of Harald Welzer's notion of 'gefühlte Geschichte'; that is a mode of historical discourse focused on experience, rather than 'factual knowledge', and which appeals to emotions. In assessing narratives of growing up – which take a developmental view of childhood – this study seeks to open up previously rigid categorisations of childhood as found in literary studies which focus on the function of the child’s perspective as a literary device. Thus within a crowded research area the present study offers a differentiated treatment of these works.

This thesis investigates the relationship between Hindemith’s music theory and his evolving compositional practice. It focuses on the first volume of his Unterweisung im Tonsatz (1937); both evaluating the very identity of the treatise and analysing how it may be applied to free composition. Above all, this work highlights the increased use of quartal pitch collections found in Hindemith’s Unterweisung-based compositions. Archival documents from the universities of Yale, Berlin, Buffalo, and the Frankfurt Hindemith Institute augment this process, and are used to revise our understanding of how Hindemith’s music theory originated, and how it relates to his practice and teaching. The dissertation begins by exploring the theoretical and intellectual climate of the Rundfunkversuchsstelle at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik within a critical commentary of Hindemith’s music theory. It then develops a new theoretical perspective of quartal pitch space, and atonal prolongation, to provide an analytical toolkit. The list of compositions in the Unterweisung appendix, which Hindemith felt most successfully demonstrated his theory in practice, structures the next three chapters. The Sonata for Solo Viola op. 25/1, a pre-Unterweisung composition, is followed by the Ludus Tonalis, which was published soon afterwards, which is investigated for its explicit theoretical connections. The third analytical chapter focuses on the Das Marienleben cycle as a work written before the Unterweisung, and subsequently revised with theoretical concerns. The final two chapters investigate the prominent decline in popularity experienced by Hindemith, both regarding his theory and compositions, from the 1950s. This is epitomised by a number of strongly-worded polemics published in The Music Review, much of which, it may be argued, is inaccurate or unduly critical. The thesis ends by constructing a Hindemith legacy based on a selection of archival documents and scores, together with a selection of trends in composition and music theory.

While much is known about the polarities of the Protestant 'Church Struggle' (Kirchenkampf) in Nazi Germany, comparatively little is understood about the complex and collective dynamic of the Landesbischöfe of the only three 'intact' churches to escape incorporation into the Nazi-dominated Reichskirche. Traditionally, literature on the Kirchenkampf has taken a simplistic 'good-versus-evil' approach to the conflict and, arguably inspired by a moral need to come to terms with the less-than-glorious past of the German Protestant Church, has been unable to locate the Landesbischöfe of the 'intact' churches neatly within the conventional historiographical paradigm. By taking as its subject Landesbischöfe August Marahrens of Hanover, Hans Meiser of Bavaria and Theophil Wurm of Wûrttemberg, this dissertation examines the contribution to the Kirchenkampf of three men, who, to ensure the continued existence of German Protestantism in the Third Reich, were ultimately forced to find ways to respond to National Socialism that lay somewhere between the parameters of defiance and compliance. In order to demonstrate the collective contribution of the Landesbischöfe to maintaining the status of the German Protestant Church amidst heightening Nazi tyranny, this dissertation traces how, with reference to external personal, political and socio-cultural conditions, the bishops moved from a seeming commonality of cause to display increasingly varied responses to the manifestations of both political and ecclesiastical National Socialism. By tracing the development of their moderate but nonetheless disparate positions, this dissertation not only questions the traditional historiographical assumptions that Landesbischöfe Marahrens, Meiser and Wurm failed to resist National Socialism effectively or were, at best, collectively neutral in the conflict, but also seeks to delineate, for the first time, the crucial parts played by each of the Landesbischöfe during three distinct stages of the Kirchenkampf. In devoting each of its three central chapters to a particular phase in the conflict, this dissertation demonstrates how each of the Landesbischöfe in turn steered the 'intact' ensemble through the Third Reich as a modest yet effective force of opposition to Nazi despotism. Seen as a whole, this investigation ultimately demonstrates how, through their respective turns at national Church leadership, Landesbischöfe Marahrens, Meiser and Wurm did not undermine the wider Church resistance effort but, rather, saved the Church from subjugation to Nazism more effectively than would have been possible had they stood alone.

Behind every leader is a team of men and women working together. These men and women help complete the leader’s objectives During the rise of Adolf Hitler and then throughout his time as Chancellor/Dictator, men came together with a clear objective. Hitler and a group of five men, known as his inner circle, developed relationships that were tested over time. Unlike previously published works that only examined the individuals within the inner circle and Hitler, this study will examine the relationships that developed and continued throughout the rise of Hitler. Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, Ernst Röhm, and Hermann Göring were picked by Hitler for a specific role. While performing these various roles, these five men developed a relationship that would be tested throughout the reign of the Third Reich.

Scholars of the Holocaust have, in recent decades, started to examine the factors that motivated seemingly “normal” people to become willing participants in the Nazis’ pogroms of extermination. Although many social, political, economic, and psychological influences have been analyzed, religion has often been overlooked. This study remedies that gap in the existing literature by examining the ways in which religion impacted the mindsets of those responsible for the Holocaust. First, it explores how the Nazis created a new political faith that indoctrinated average Germans with an unethical value system that validated persecution, violence, and murder. Second, this research evaluates how Holocaust perpetrators used existing religious doctrines—namely those of Christianity and paganism—to supplement their power over human life, cope with their internal psychological and moral conflicts, and justify their crimes of genocide.

This work delves into the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust and indentifies the eras that preceded these events that laid a foundation, the major players in these events, and how the players interacted. Common features and differences are identified as well as a common philosophical thread that crossed generational gaps to link these events. The corruption that found such fertile soil created by the regimes that preached hatred was common to both events. The claim by the Inquisition that it preached Anti-Judaism as a philosophical, religious tenet rather than a racial antisemitic bigotry was in truth not even believed by many of the leaders of the Church and the Holy Office. If it held any validity there would be no reason for them to suspect all the New Christians of being heretics. It would appear that the major difference between the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust is that the purity of blood in the Spanish Inquisition refers to Old Christian Spanish blood and in the Third Reich refers to Aryan blood. In both cases the internal inconsistencies, academic proofs, and the monetary corruption that accompanied both prejudices makes the whole system suspect to an external observer. Prejudices, however, fails to be logical but relies on appeals to emotions. The Spanish Inquisition spanned many centuries while the Holocaust spanned much less than two decades. The Holocaust was responsible for a magnitude of murders hundreds or even a thousand times greater than the Inquisition. The Inquisition, however, created a terror that meant that the accused as well as his family and his progeny for generations would be condemned to a living hell. There are fates in this world worse than death. It is interesting that both regimes were preceded by governments that were extremely tolerant of Jews and racial differences. While the Moslem rulers that dominated Iberia prior to the Christian takeover were not perfect they certainly were a beacon of light for that time period. Even the Christian rulers prior to King Ferdinand considered the Jews to be their personal property and protected them. In Germany prior to the Third Reich the constitution of the Weimar Republic was an extremely tolerant work. If franchised a large percent of its population, including the Jews, and provided a social safety net. Perhaps the take home message from this is that liberty is extremely fragile and must be guarded. The concept of the Chosen People is discussed. It is interesting that the three major players, the Inquisition, the Nazis, and the Jews all laid claim to this title but the implications of this were very different for the Old Christians and Aryans compared to the Jews. The concluding chapter lists many similarities and differences between both eras.

The anti-Jewish policies of the Third Reich progressed from anti-Jewish legislation, stripping German Jews of their rights, to systematic mass murder. Deeply rooted antisemitism and Nazi propaganda serving as a vehicle for ideology fostered an environment of approval among most of the German public for certain anti-Jewish policies such as the Nuremberg Laws. The non-Jewish, German public responses to these anti-Jewish policies by the Third Reich shifted over the course of the Nazi’s rule and during World War II. Most of the German public supported anti-Jewish legislation such as laws removing German Jews from civil service occupations because it made positions available for “Aryan” Germans. However, most of the German public was repulsed by violent acts led by the Third Reich against German Jews. The German public’s abhorrence towards violent acts committed earlier during the Third Reich’s rule against Jews shifted by the end of World War II as they became ambivalent towards stories of mass murder. Concerns for the war effort and constant air raids from the Allies overshadowed any concerns that most of the German public could muster for the persecutions of a maligned minority group.

This book reveals how, over the course of the Third Reich, scenes involving alcohol consumption and revelry among the SS and police became a routine part of rituals of humiliation in the camps, ghettos, and killing fields of Eastern Europe. The book draws on a vast range of newly unearthed material to explore how alcohol consumption served as a literal and metaphorical lubricant for mass murder. It facilitated “performative masculinity,” expressly linked to physical or sexual violence. Such inebriated exhibitions extended from meetings of top Nazi officials to the rank and file, celebrating at the grave sites of their victims. The book argues that, contrary to the common misconception of the SS and police as stone-cold killers, they were, in fact, intoxicated with the act of murder itself. The book highlights the intersections of masculinity, drinking ritual, sexual violence, and mass murder to expose the role of alcohol and celebratory ritual in the Nazi genocide of European Jews. Its surprising and disturbing findings offer a new perspective on the mindset, motivation, and mentality of killers as they prepared for, and participated in, mass extermination.

While most scholars focus on analyzing the content of photographs taken under Nazi rule, this dissertation examines photographic practices as social acts aimed at building the Nazi racial community (Volksgemeinschaft). Nazi officials envisioned photography as both an action and a shared experience which would transform Germans into National Socialists and unite them. Beginning in 1933, the dictatorship promoted photography for those who belonged to that community and set about excluding Jews from it. The dispossession of Jews in the photographic industry reinforced the connection between photography and national belonging even further. Because of the regime’s active intervention in the marketplace, many Germans had come to view photography by 1939 as a pastime that strengthened the bonds between members of this exclusive community, an association which acquired new significance during the Second World War. German soldiers and their families were actively encouraged by Nazi authorities to exchange photographs in order to fortify morale during military conflict. Based on a review of hundreds of albums, it is clear that soldiers and their loved ones understood sharing photographs and compiling photo albums as both a medium of intimate communication and a form of patriotic duty. On the war front, the act of photographing daily routines and the intervals between combat situations provided a way for Wehrmacht soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front and SS-men guarding concentration camps to reaffirm the values of comradeship and family that the Nazis viewed as fundamental to the racial community. Focused as they were on enacting these values, soldiers largely omitted atrocities in the photographs they sent home for their albums. Ultimately, it would fall to concentration camp prisoners to use photography to expose the violence and cruelty on which the Nazi project also depended, but which popular photography under National Socialism had treated as a secondary subject all along.

El 13 de julio de 1933 la Radio de Baviera transmitió la ópera Columbus del compositor alemán Werner Egk. Dicha ópera fue el primero de los tres acercamientos al mundo hispánico de este compositor, cuyo ascenso en el mundo musical de su país coincidió con el establecimiento de la Alemania nazi. En Columbus, Egk representó la historia de Cristóbal Colón desde sus entrevistas con los Reyes Católicos hasta su muerte en la miseria, tras su deposición del gobierno de las colonias españolas en América. El libreto, escrito por el compositor, utilizó los estereotipos negativos sobre España que existían en el imaginario alemán para criticar el colonialismo de la época. Irónicamente, la ópera terminaría incorporándose a la cultura musical de la Alemania nazi.

This thesis examines foreign men accused of homosexuality in Nazi Germany. Most scholarship has focused solely on German men accused of homosexuality. Court records from the General State Prosecutor's Office of the State Court of Berlin records show that foreign homosexual men were given lighter sentences than German men, especially given the context of the law and the punishments foreigners received for other crimes. This discrepancy is likely due to Nazi confusion about homosexuality, the foreign contribution to the German war effort, issues of gender, and because these men were not a part of any German government, military, or all-male organizations.

Franz Schreker (1878-1934) was a Jewish-Austrian composer of great success during the first decades of the twentieth century. Schreker’s reputation diminished after 1933 when Hitler came to power and, in 1938, his compositions were labeled Entartete Musik (“degenerate music”) by the Nazis in a public display in Düsseldorf. The Third Reich and post-war Germany saw Schreker as a decadent outcast, misunderstanding his unique style that combined elements of romanticism, expressionism, impressionism, symbolism, and atonality. This study of Schreker’s Lieder will pursue two goals. First, it will analyze the Mutterlieder (before 1898), the Fünf Gesänge (1909), and the first piece from Vom ewigen Leben (1923) stylistically. Schreker composed nearly four dozen Lieder, incorporating a wide range of styles and ideas. By studying and performing these songs written at various points in his career (including early songs, songs written after he met Schoenberg, and his last songs during the height of his fame), I hope to develop a clearer understanding of how Schreker synthesized the many cultural forces and artistic movements that seem to have influenced his compositional style. Second, this study will consider the sociopolitical circumstances that fueled the disintegration of his reputation. This disintegration occurred not just during the Third Reich, but also afterwards, notably in an often discussed essay by Theodor Adorno. Only in the last thirty years have scholarly voices critical of such rejections of Schreker emerged. My ultimate goal, then, is to join this reevaluation, studying and contextualizing this repertory to develop a new understanding of an oft-neglected chapter in the history of the German Lied.

Between September 1944 and March 1945 the Nazi regime deported over 250,000 German civilians living in western Germany. These clearances drew upon brutal techniques of population control perfected earlier in occupied Europe. Led by veterans of the anti-partisan war in Eastern Europe, the Rhineland’s security personnel forcibly removed civilians from areas threatened by the Allied advance and appropriated their personal property, such as food and livestock, for the war effort. During the deportations, security officers forced men and teenage boys into militia units sent to the front, and executed suspected criminals, spies, and deserters. In theory and in practice, the Rhineland deportations were reminiscent of the so-called “dead zone” operations previously carried out in Nazi Europe to deny enemy partisans food and shelter. However, this time the regime used these methods to coerce its own war weary population into defending the country. This intersection between counterinsurgency methods and domestic policing during the last months of the Third Reich is the subject of this dissertation. It examines how a ruthless anti-partisan war waged abroad reshaped policing at home through the rotation of security personnel between outposts on the edges of Nazi Europe and offices inside Germany. Deploying personnel to war zones profoundly influenced the already radical nature of Nazi security culture. Participation in genocide and counterinsurgency operations hardened officers’ interpretation of contradictory civilian behaviors, and allowed them to conflate common criminality and war weariness with resistance. The intentional use of criminal tropes to describe guerilla fighters encouraged personnel to draw parallels between their experiences abroad and the social unrest they confronted on the home front as the Third Reich collapsed, with tragic results. By tracing the careers of the security officers responsible for the atrocities committed in the Rhineland, my research highlights the strong continuities in ideas, policies, practices, and personnel between Nazi Germany and its occupied territories that caused violence against civilians on the German home front at the end of World War II.

This dissertation analyses the roles and functions of the German film press during the Third Reich and explores the changes and tensions that characterized German cinema and, by extension, German society during that time period. A close reading of three major publications -- a trade journal, Film-Kurier, a popular magazine, Filmwelt, and the regime's official publication, Der deutsche Film -- first challenges the traditional view of a monolithic, top down control by the Nazi regime. I show the extent and the limits of the regime's utilization of culture and media and demonstrate how different parties used the film press to pursue different, but not mutually exclusive goals. By delineating the film press as a more dynamic public forum than previously assumed, this study secondly informs us about the multifaceted uses and functions of the film publications, and about the changing relationships between the film industry and the regime, as well as the theater, the music, and the press industries. I combine a media specific approach--demonstrating the central role of film publications in articulating the contradictions within film culture--with an exploration of the media convergence in place at the time. I thus firmly position the film press at the nexus of politics, business, film professionals, and the audience, and uncover a lively, albeit restricted, discursive system, with theoretical and practical discussions about film, its achievements under the new regime, its weaknesses and the need for improvement. I focus on the three most discussed issues: the relationship between film and theater, between film and music, and, as a correlation of the two previous topics, the need to train a new generation of film professionals, the Nachwuchs. This dissertation thus traces an important moment in German film history characterized by sustained debates about political, technical, aesthetic, and social aspects of film. More importantly, it uses the film press as a mirror to some of the tensions that characterized German society along several divides such as the masses and the elite, the past and the present, as well as the contradictions in its treatment and representation of gender and sexuality.

This thesis focuses on the concept of cultural national identity during the Third Reich and how the Nazis attempted to shape an image of Germany to their liking.  By specifically examining musical culture and restrictions, this thesis investigates the methods the Nazis used to define Germany through music by determining what aspects of Germany’s culture were not “traditionally” German—namely those of the Jewish minority in Germany.  Therefore, this study follows the Nazi restrictions on the German population who participated in the creation and performance of music and is then contrasted with those imposed upon the corresponding Jewish population.  The resulting conclusion is that the Nazis created a place for exclusion and oppression, but managed to, ironically, create a place of refuge for Jewish musicians in the Third Reich.  Music was, in the end, an unstoppable force which the Nazis could not control or fully regulate.

This dissertation investigates Nazi Germany's diplomacy and intelligence-gathering in Argentina from 1933-1945. It does so from three perspectives. This study first explores the rivalries that characterized the bureaucracy in the Third Reich. It argues that those rivalries negatively affected Germany's diplomatic position in Argentina. The actions of the AO in Argentina in the 1930s were indicative of this trend. This created a fear of fifth-column activity among Latin American governments with large German populations. Second, this study explores the rivalry between the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service, SD) of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office, RSHA) and Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Ministry, AA). It argues that the rivalry between these two organizations in Argentina was part of a larger plan on the part of Amt VI, SS Foreign Intelligence to usurp the functions of the AA. Intelligence operations were not necessarily undertaken to further the foreign policy goals of Nazi Germany, but to further the ambitions of the head of Amt VI, Walter Schellenberg. Third, this dissertation looks at the issue of ideology. Argentina was one of the last countries to break relations with Nazi Germany. This dissertation attempts to answer the question of how much ideology permeated individuals who were not exposed to Nazi ideology on a daily basis. This section attempts to add to recent studies that have argued the importance of ideology in Nazi Germany. In answering these questions, this study mainly relies on the German-language records of the AA held in College Park, MD. It also utilizes interrogation reports of individuals involved in diplomacy and espionage in Argentina, as well as messages decrypted by the British between German spies in Argentina and their superiors in Berlin. This study fits into new examinations of the nexus between intelligence and diplomacy and the role of ideology in the Third Reich.

Ernst Juenger lived through almost the entire 20th century. This longevity has placed him at the center of many of the most defining moments of modern German history. It is not, however, simply his longevity but his attitudes that have caused such a controversy to grow up around him. A staunch nationalist and one might venture to say, war-monger, during the First World War and a virulent enemy of the Weimar Republic, many historians have classified him as a Nazi author. This thesis explores the relationsihp of Ernst Juenger to the National Socialists in the context of his writing and political leanings between the First World War and the end of the Second. Without understanding the integral differences between his ideology and that of the NSDAP (namely their divergence on the issues of racial purity, parliamentarianism, communism, the use of power, and the position of art)one cannot appreciate his place in history and his perspective on Germany.

Although the National Socialists' ultimate intentions in regard to religion were concealed from the pubic under layers of political rhetoric, their objectives were nonetheless clear. The National Socialists sought the destruction of the Christian religion, whose teachings and values were seen as inimical to those of the State, and the establishment of a Reichskirche that would preach the doctrines of National Socialism. The German government during the Third Reich was a totalitarian regime, but there was one matter in which the Nazi Party did not have carte blanche, religion, which made it an intrinsic threat to the authority of the State. Many Nazi officials saw Christianity as the inherent and irreconcilable enemy of National Socialism, but they knew they risked losing the support of the German people if they instantly dissolved the Christian Churches. Instead of vehemently attacking the Christian confessions the way they did in Poland, in Germany the National Socialists set up a mirage of support for and acceptance of religious institutions, all while working to undermine the Christian tradition that they considered of greatest detriment and danger to their State.