Charly Liss

HIST 486

Exam 3

5-4-17

The Third Reich, the period during which Adolf Hitler and Germany’s Nazi

party ruled in the 1940s, created a legacy of racially driven hostility. Throughout the

Third Reich, the Nazi regime was imposed and sustained by force. New lines of

racial stratifications emerged, employing implementation from both the law and

everyday citizens.1 The German support of the Nazi cause enabled its rapid

transformation and mobilization throughout the nation.2 The Nazis rapid

radicalization engulfed Germany; the party’s presence was inescapable during the

1940s.3 Laws enacted, such as “Law for Restitution of a Professional Civil Service”,

enabled German citizens to actively exclude the Jewish population and Communists

in the country. These laws also gave power to citizens to act out Hitler’s goal of an

Aryan- state, eventually ridding Europe of “non-desirables”.4 Hitler wanted his

power extended beyond Germany. His goal was to colonize Soviet land and its

people. Hitler stole land from the Soviets and planned on using its resources solely

for the benefit of Germans, effectively oppressing and starving the Soviets. Hitler’s

Hunger Plan, kill Soviets through starvation, foreshadowed the mass genocide of

1
Fulbrook, Mary, “Uncomfortable compatriots: Societal violence and the crises of
Weimar.” in Dissonant Lives, 52-95. Oxford, 2011.
2
Fulbrook, 99
3
Fullbrook, 99
4
Fulbrook, 101
Jews in Germany during World War II.5 Hitler and his party were successful because

of the complicit German population. German men are remembered in history as

villains, while German women are depicted as heroines.6 German women were not

heroines during the Third Reich. Women were equally as involved in pushing the

Nazi cause as the men. The violent incident described in Mary Fulbrook’s Dissonant

Lives, paints the image of a female teacher encouraging her three female German

students to savagely attack a Jewish student.7 German woman were not innocent,

and their support of Nazi efforts was not heroic. German women mobilized the Nazi

cause by teaching propaganda in the classroom and aiding in the sterilization of

Jews and other non- Aryans.8 Race and the idea of maintaining a nation of sameness

continued past Nazi Germany. These nationalist ideals were not exclusive to Nazi

Germany and neither was the rapid mobilization and transformation of

governments. People were complicit in the transformation, which was arguably

more important than the legal processes that occurred. American ideals were

vehemently rejected and seen as a threat to European states. Europe experienced a

time of superficial transformation after the fall of Nazi Germany, however, the

transformation has gone full circle and returned to its nationalistic roots.

Following World War II, Europe was in a state of rebuilding. The weakness of

Europe was highlighted by France and Germany’s fear of Americanization in their

country. Europe’s vulnerability to new ideas and influencers were cause for an anti-
5
Timothy Snyder, “Racial War in the East.” In How was it possible?: a Holocaust
reader., 285, n.p.: Nebraska: Univeristy of Nebraska Press, 2015.
6
Lower, Wendy. Hitler's furies: German women in the Nazi killing fields. London:
Vintage Books, 2014.
7
Fulbrook, 96
8
Lower, 39-43
America campaign. In the late 1940s, the American Coca- Cola Company was trying

to establish a plant in France. The possibility of the production of an American

product in France threatened French communists. These French communists

opposed the Coca- Cola plant because it symbolized an American capitalism

invasion.9 The threat of Americanization in France was heightened by the looming

fear of a Cold War, a war between communism and capitalism. 10 French communists

had synthesized the threat of Americanization and Coca- Cola by coining it

“cocacolonisation”.11 They feared that the soft drink plant would only be the

beginning of American influences.

Capitalism was not the only threat Americanization brought. Europe feared

the loss of European culture. To lose European culture would be to lose the unity

Europe was fighting to keep after the war. Germany especially feared losing its

identity, which was already unstable. German nationalism was weakened after

World War II. Germany was attempting to separate itself from Hitler and Nazism; its

identity was extremely vulnerable and susceptible to American influences. 12

Attempts to stop Americanization included bans on anything that referenced

America including themes of the Wild West, American gangsters, and jazz music. 13

The ban on jazz music revealed the lasting impression of the Nazis cause. Jazz, a

9
Kuisel, Richard F. "Coca-Cola and the Cold War: The French Face
Americanization, 1948-1953." French Historical Studies 17, no. 1 (1991): 96-
116.
10
Kuisel, 102
11
Kuisel, 106
12
Poiger, Uta G. Jazz, rock, and rebels: cold war politics and American culture in a
divided Germany. Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of California Press, 2009.
13
Poiger, 32
type of music popularized in America by African– Americans, was referred to as

“Negermusik” by Germans. Jazz was a disgrace to civilization. Racial overtones

never left Germany, no matter their attempts of separating the country from the

memory of Hitler.14 The threat of Americanization went beyond the differences of

capitalism and communism in Europe. The looming threat of Americanization was

conflated between politics and race. To bring American culture into Europe was to

bring forth not only capitalism, but also an influx of new racial influences, which was

the ultimate degradation.

War torn Europe needed policies to help reconstruct its countries, both

economically and socially. Policies regarding people and emigration highlighted the

contradictions between wanting to create a national identity while also wanting to

employ people from different regions. Nations needed to repopulate their state for

employment, but also wanted to establish a united nation. Countries were

devastated after World II; they needed human capital to aid in the physical

rebuilding of cities.15 Much of Europe had lost their population through casualties

and war- occupation, expelling its citizens.

Reconstruction policies contained racial undertones. Postwar repatriations

of non-natives were directly linked to ethnic cleansing practices. In Czechoslovakia,

the government was forcibly removing Germans from their country; cleansing their

country of an unwanted identity, similar to what Hitler practiced in his own

country.16 The contradiction of ethnic cleansing while also rebuilding a state was
14
Poiger, 42-3
15
Zahra, Tara. Great departure: mass migration from eastern europe and the
making of the free world, 106: W W Norton, 2017.
16
Zahra, 224
found in the skills of people. Outsiders were only accepted if they had something to

offer; it was conditional. There was a bending of racial sameness, a bending of the

rules that Hitler had set in place. In a French memo, mentioned in Tara Zahra’s The

Great Departure, government officials argued “The best specimens should be offered

special benefits in exchange for repopulating and revalorizing the abandoned French

countryside”.17 Postwar policies highlighted the difficulties of wanting to form a

united nationalist identity, but also wanting the best workers. European nations had

an internal struggle of trying to achieve a want, nationalism, versus a need, skilled

workers.

Poland was devastated after World War II. Its demographics were

considerably altered and its resources decimated. Poland had lost twenty percent of

its population from casualties, and sixty percent of its industrious capacities had

been lost.18 Poland lost a lot after the war, but it did not lose its anti- Semitic values.

Poland’s anti- Semitism was cruel. It extended past the violent aggressions

mentioned in Fulbrook’s Dissonant Lives.19

Jews in Poland were associated with communism, threatening the stability of

the recovering state through governmental means.20 Similar to the Nazis exertion of

power, Poland’s government oppressed Jews through societal control. Jews could

not live peacefully in Poland. Poles had been encouraged by the Nazi government to

kill Jews, and its effects continued to haunt Polish Jews. Jews became associated
17
Zahra, 229
18
Kochanski, Halik. Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World
War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014.
19
Fulbrook, 96
20
Gross, Jan Tomasz. Fear: anti-semitism in Poland after Auschwitz: an essay in
historical interpretation. New York: Random House, 2006.
with the myth of wealth. The myth of Jewish wealth continued past the fall of

Nazism. While trying to rebuild the state, Poles would seek burial grounds of Jewish

people and steal from the remains. Grave digging became a sick form of

accumulating money in Poland. The rebuilding of the physical landscape in Poland

coincided with the degradation of humanity in its citizens. Racism was not exclusive

to Nazi Germany. Its reach extended past Germany and past WWII into a post-

conflict society. Reconstruction of Europe occurred, but in its rebuilding of the

physical landscape. Society did not change; it continued the legacy of anti- Semitism.

Prejudicial hate is not transformative in the history of European states.

Within sixty years of the fall of the Third Reich, decolonization efforts arose.

As decolonization became a reality, the influx of immigrants moving to Europe rose

sharply, further increasing racial hostility. Efforts to decolonize began after World

War I, with an increased urgency after the Second World War. Woodrow Wilson, the

United States’ President at the time, had created his Fourteen Points plan after

World War I. His plan led the charge to form peace and decolonize. In his plans, the

League of Nations formed, historically considered a failure. However, after the end

of World War II, the United Nations rose from the death of the League of Nations.

With the formation of the UN, decolonization became a reality. 21 The influx of

new immigrants, along with the white settlers, began to migrate to Europe. 22

Decolonization created problems for European states. White settlers were coming

back to a country that they were no longer familiar with, and along with white

21
Jarausch, Konrad Hugo. Out of ashes: a new history of Europe in the twentieth
century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.
22
Jarausch, 500
settlers came an increase in minority population of European regions. People of

color were making a home in countries that did not want them. Europe’s

nationalistic ideals were being threatened, again, sixty years after WWII. New issues

arose, but the underlying cause, racism, had been the same.

French decolonization efforts caused a wave of Muslim immigrants to enter

the country. The large rise of Muslims, and France’s inability to accept them as

people, has created a hub of hostility that has been fermenting for years. In 2008,

then- President Sarkozy had condemned the French Muslim population for not

integrating into French culture, for not assimilating. He argued that the lack of

assimilation by Muslims is the reason they have been facing racial threats.

President Sarkozy’s argument implies that the presence of a hijab, a headdress worn

by Muslim women for modesty, is why Muslims face prejudicial hate. It is the

responsibility for immigrants, and children of immigrants to assimilate to a new

culture.23

Muslims, both in France but also globally, are thought of as a collective,

homogenous group. The homogeneity of Muslims globally denies the complexity of

a person. The removal of diverseness within the Muslim community creates faulty

stereotypes that are applied to every Muslim. Seeing Muslims as one thing, not a

religion that millions practice, has led to the media categorizing all Muslims as

radicals and terrorists whenever an act of terrorism occurs. The collectivist thought

of Muslims as radicals has led the French to believe that Muslims cannot coexist with

French people. Muslims in France are labeled with other stereotypes aside from
23
Fredette, Jennifer. Constructing Muslims in France: Discourse, Public Identity,
and the Politics of Citizenship. Temple University Press, 2014.
radical terrorism. Muslims are considered rapists, criminals, lazy, and violent. The

stereotypes placed on Muslims by the French are ironic considering how the French

treat them. There is a divide between the two groups, creating conflict between

French Muslims who are not immigrants, but are children of immigrants.

The elitist political system in France aids on the homogeneity of the Muslim

community. The French government offers little room for successful oppositional

forces to speak out and win. There is a struggle in trying to challenge an oppressive

authority when it requires familiarity. The elitist system is also insular, making it

hard to breakthrough.24 Muslims faced, and will continue to face, systematic

oppression reminiscent of Hitler and Jews if nothing changes.

The systematic oppression and disassociation of Muslims in France and the

subsequent stereotypes that followed is reminiscent of African- Americans in the

United States. African- Americans have a long and contentious history with the

United States in terms of feeling accepted. A recent connection between French

Muslims and African- Americans is their stance on the national anthem. As detailed

by Fredette, in 2008, French Muslims booed during the playing of the national

anthem, protesting the oppressive government.25 In the United States, Colin

Kaepernick, former quarterback in the National Football League, protested the

national anthem by kneeling. The issue of race is not exclusive to France or Europe,

but rather a global issue.

The same goal of reaching sameness remained past the fall of Nazi Germany.

World War II highlighted the lowest lows racial hate can reach and how barbaric
24
Fredette, 7
25
Fredette, 2
humans can become. World War II will be memorialized for its death tolls and the

brutality. The history of the Third Reich transcends the twentieth century. Hate did

not begin with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party. Hate did not end with the fall of

Hitler and the Nazi party. Patterns of hate formed before Nazism, and have

continued. However, saying “never again” in reference to the Holocaust is slowly

losing its meaning. Race and space is increasingly becoming an issue again and

Europe is at the center of it. While Europe did go through transformations following

the fall of Nazi Germany, it would be hard pressed to argue how radical the

transformation was. Politically, government changed, and different world leaders

took different forms of communism, namely capitalism. But, the racial undertones

never disappeared. The largest transformation in terms of race and space was who

the targets were. The complicit actions of the governments and the people did not

change, there was no transformation seen. Complicity is still seen and done. In the

1940s, it was the Jews. Today, it is the Muslims. Race and space did not disappear; it

just adjusted to modern times.

Bibliography

Fredette, Jennifer. Constructing Muslims in France: Discourse, Public Identity, and the

Politics of Citizenship. Temple University Press, 2014.

Fulbrook, Mary, “Uncomfortable compatriots: Societal violence and the crises of

Weimar.” in Dissonant Lives, 52-95. Oxford, 2011.

Gross, Jan Tomasz. Fear: anti-semitism in Poland after Auschwitz: an essay in

historical interpretation. New York: Random House, 2006.

Jarausch, Konrad Hugo. Out of ashes: a new history of Europe in the twentieth century.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.

Kochanski, Halik. Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014.

Kuisel, Richard F. "Coca-Cola and the Cold War: The French Face Americanization,

1948-1953." French Historical Studies 17, no. 1 (1991): 96-116.

Lower, Wendy. Hitler's furies: German women in the Nazi killing fields. London:

Vintage Books, 2014.

Poiger, Uta G. Jazz, rock, and rebels: cold war politics and American culture in a

divided Germany. Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of California Press, 2009.

Timothy Snyder, “Racial War in the East.” In How was it possible?: a Holocaust reader.,

285, n.p.: Nebraska: Univeristy of Nebraska Press, 2015.

Zahra, Tara. Great departure: mass migration from eastern europe and the making of

the free world, 106: W W Norton, 2017.