Beyond the Racial State: Rethinking Nazi Germany (Publications of the German Historical Institute)

The 'racial state' has become a familiar shorthand for the Third Reich, encapsulating its raison d'etre, ambitions, and the underlying logic of its genocidal violence. The Nazi racial state's agenda is generally understood as a fundamental reshaping of society based on a new hierarchy of racial value. However, this volume argues that it is time to reappraise what race really meant under Nazism, and to question and complicate its relationship to the Nazis' agenda, actions, and appeal. Based on a wealth of new research, the contributors show that racial knowledge and racial discourse in Nazi Germany were far more contradictory and disparate than we have come to assume. They shed new light on the ways that racial policy worked and was understood, and consider race's function, content, and power in relation to society and nation, and above all, in relation to the extraordinary violence unleashed by the Nazis. Cover Half-title Series information Title page Copyright information Table of contents List of Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction Burleigh and Wippermann’s The Racial State The Historiographical Context Questioning the Consensus about Nazi Racial Ideology Comparative and Historical Perspectives Race, Science, and Nazi Biopolitics Anti-Semitism Beyond Race Race and Society Race War? Germans and Non-Germans in Wartime Concluding Reflections Notes Part I Comparative and Historical Perspectives 1 Racial Discourse, Nazi Violence, and the Limits of the Racial State Model Race to Reification Race Sciences Race Cultures Anti-Semitism, Race, and People The People’s Community Racial States, Nation-States, and Genocide Conclusion Notes 2 The Murder of European Jewry: Nazi Genocide in Continental Perspective The Greater European Background War, National Consolidation Projects, and Genocide in Harmony ‘‘Cleansing’’ Germany’s Empire, Destroying Eastern Jewry The Europeanization of Genocide: Dynamics of ‘‘Intent’’ War and Genocide in Tension at the European Level The Completion of Genocide Within the German Empire Hungary 1944: Balkan Geopolitics and Genocide Conclusions and Coda Notes 3 Meanings of Race and Biopolitics in Historical Perspective Race as a Biopolitical Category Colonial Racial Politics in Germany (Not) Coming to Terms with National Socialist Racial Politics Notes 4 Racial States in Comparative Perspective Notes Part II Race, Science, and Nazi Biopolitics 5 Eugenics, Racial Science, and Nazi Biopolitics: Was There a Genesis of the ‘‘Final Solution’’ from the Spirit of Science? Conflicts over Sterilization Policy The Fischer Controversy The Controversy over the Notion of a ‘‘German Race’’ Science in Nazi Germany: Science or Pseudoscience? Science and Politics in a Polycratic Regime Was there a ‘‘Genesis of the ‘Final Solution’ from the Spirit of Science’’? Did Racial Science Become Radicalized under the Nazi Regime? Conclusion Notes 6 Race Science, Race Mysticism, and the Racial State Notes 7 Ideology’s Logic: The Evolution of Racial Thought in Germany from the Völkisch Movement to the Third Reich The Semantics of Nation, Volk, and Rasse Race as Ideology Notes 8 Nazi Medical Crimes, Eugenics, and the Limits of the Racial State Paradigm The Nazi Euthanasia Killings: Beyond the Racial State Paradigm? Heredity, Race, and Economics in Nazi Health and Welfare Policy Toward a Political Economy of Population and Race? Notes Part III Anti-Semitism Beyond Race 9 ‘‘The axis around which National Socialist ideology turns’’: State Bureaucracy, the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and Racial Policy in the First Years of the Third Reich I II III IV V Notes 10 Neither Aryan Nor Semite: Reflections on the Meanings of Race in Nazi Germany Notes 11 Racializing Historiography: Anti-Jewish Scholarship in the Third Reich The Institutionalization of Nazi Jewish Studies The Mindset of Judenforschung Race as Spirit and Mind Legitimizing Racism and Persecution Legitimizing Mass Murder Scholarship and Crime Notes Part IV Race and Society 12 Volksgemeinschaft: A Controversy Political Volksgemeinschaft Social Volksgemeinschaft Racist Volksgemeinschaft Historiographical Debates Perspectives Notes 13 Mothers, Whores, or Sentimental Dupes? Emotion and Race in Historiographical Debates about Women in the Third Reich The Historikerinnenstreit Race as Quotidian Practice Sexuality, Lust, and Sentimentality A Gendered History of Emotions in the Third Reich Conclusion Notes 14 Nationalist Mobilization: Foreign Diplomats’ Views on the Third Reich, 1933–1945 An American View of Mein Kampf The Third Reich as a Dictatorship of Mobilization Gaps in Perceptions of Nazi Social Policy The ‘‘Unlimited Persecution of a Race’’ The Mass Murder of the Sick and the Disabled Conclusion Notes 15 Race and Humor in Nazi Germany Humor as a Familiar Cultural Trope Humor as a Communicative Contract Humor as the Embodiment of Power Making Fun, Marking Boundaries Notes 16 Legitimacy Through War? Notes Part V Race War? Germans and Non-Germans in Wartime 17 Volk Trumps Race: The Deutsche Volksliste in Annexed Poland The Racial Turn and Its Pitfalls Competing Traditions: Germanizing Poles Separating Germans from Poles The Struggle for a Unified Selection Process Futile Attempts Conclusion Notes 18 Sex, Race, Violence, Volksgemeinschaft: German Soldiers’ Sexual Encounters with Local Women and Men during the War and the Occupation in the Soviet Union, 1941–1945 Heterosexual Violence Heterosexual Trade Consensual Heterosexual Relations Sexual Encounters between Men Concluding Remarks Notes 19 The Disintegration of the Racial Basis of the Concentration Camp System The Rationalization of the Camp System The Lifting of Racial Selection Criteria in the Camps Negative Selection Positive Selection The Abandonment of Racial Criteria in Recruiting Camp Guards The Collapse of the Camp System and the ‘‘Death Marches’’ Notes Index Part I. Comparative And Historical Perspectives -- Racial Discourse, Nazi Violence, And The Limits Of The Racial State Model / Mark Roseman -- The Murder Of European Jewry : Nazi Genocide In Continental Perspective / Donald Bloxham -- Meanings Of Race And Biopolitics In Historical Perspective / Pascal Grosse -- Racial States In Comparative Perspective / Devin O. Pendas -- Part Ii. Race, Science, And Nazi Biopolitics -- Eugenics And Racial Science In Nazi Germany : Was There A Genesis Of The Final Solution From The Spirit Of Science? / Richard F. Wetzell -- Race Science, Race Mysticism, And The Racial State / Dan Stone -- Ideology's Logic : The Evolution Of Racial Thought In Germany From The Volkisch Movement To The Third Reich / Christian Geulen -- Nazi Medical Crimes, Eugenics, And The Limits Of The Racial State Paradigm / Herwig Czech -- Part Iii. Anti-semitism Beyond Race --^ The Axis Around Which National Socialist Ideology Turns : State Bureaucracy, The Reich Ministry Of The Interior And Racial Policy In The First Years Of The Third Reich / Jurgen Matthaus -- Neither Aryan Nor Semite : Reflections On The Meanings Of Race In Nazi Germany / Richard Steigmann-gall -- Racializing Historiography : Anti-jewish Scholarship In The Third Reich / Dirk Rupnow -- Part Iv. Race And Society -- Volksgemeinschaft : A Controversy / Michael Wildt -- Mothers, Whores, Or Sentimental Dupes? : Emotion And Race In Historiographical Debates About Women In The Third Reich / Annette F. Timm -- Nationalist Mobilization : Foreign Diplomats' Views On The Third Reich, 1933-1945 / Frank Bajohr -- Race And Humor In Nazi Germany / Martina Kessel -- Legitimacy Through War? / Nicholas Stargardt -- Part V. Race War? : Germans And Non-germans In Wartime -- Negotiating Volkisch And Racial Identities : The Deutsche Volksliste In Annexed Poland / Gerhard Wolf --^ Sex, Race, Volksgemeinschaft : German Soldiers' Sexual Encounters With Local Women And Men During The War And The Occupation In The Soviet Union, 1941-1945 / Regina Muhlhauser -- The Disintegration Of The Racial Basis Of The Concentration Camp System / Stefan Hordler. Edited By Devin O. Pendas, Mark Roseman, And Richard F. Wetzell. Papers From A Conference Held At Indiana University, Bloomington, October 23-25, 2009. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. "Over the past fifteen or twenty years, scholarship on the Third Reich has increasingly recognized the centrality of racial thought to the formulation of policy in a wide array of fields. During the 1980s, scholars began to depict the Third Reich as, in Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann's resonant phrase, a 'racial state.' Moving away from an exclusive focus on anti-Semitism, this racial turn broadened the understanding of Nazi racial policy. It expanded awareness of the range of Nazi victims, incorporating, for instance, the murder of the mentally and physically handicapped, and also the sterilization and incarceration of people considered 'asocial,' into a comprehensive account of Nazi biopolitics. This approach also broached the question of how broad the support for Nazi racial policies was, interrogating the extent to which ordinary Germans cooperated in the projects of the racial state, for instance, as mothers of 'Aryan' children or as supervisors of 'racially inferior' forced laborers. While the benefits of this approach have been significant, it has become increasingly clear in the last few years that the racial state paradigm has begun to obscure as much as it reveals about the reality of the Third Reich. First, this approach tends to reify race as an epistemological category, presenting it as more coherent and comprehensive than it in fact was. The Nazis themselves were aware of the internal tensions and contradictions that plagued any effort to articulate a coherent and comprehensive racial 'science.' Second, the ongoing salience of alternative categories of identity in the Third Reich (ethnic, völkisch, religious, class-based) is difficult to explain within the racial state paradigm. Third, the racial turn blurs the tensions between, on the one hand, specifically racial ideas and policies and, on the other hand, broader traditions of domination and empire-building that acquired at most a superficial racial gloss during the Third Reich. Questions of military necessity or economic advantage coexisted with biopolitical projects"--From German Historical Institute website The 'racial state' has become a familiar shorthand for the Third Reich, encapsulating its raison d'être, ambitions, and the underlying logic of its genocidal violence. The Nazi racial state's agenda is generally understood as a fundamental reshaping of society based on a new hierarchy of racial value. However, this volume argues that it is time to reappraise what race really meant under Nazism, and to question and complicate its relationship to the Nazis' agenda, actions, and appeal. Based on a wealth of new research, the contributors show that racial knowledge and racial discourse in Nazi Germany were far more contradictory and disparate than we have come to assume. They shed new light on the ways that racial policy worked and was understood, and consider race's function, content, and power in relation to society and nation, and above all, in relation to the extraordinary violence unleashed by the Nazis.