Emmel #5

Mosse, George L. Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Culture, and Social Life in the Third Reich. New
York: Schocken Books, 1966.

Nazi Culture is a collection of excerpts from primary sources detailing the Nazi ideas of
culture during the Third Reich; it is self-described as a documentary history. These selections
are all from books or speeches of prewar Nazi Germany. None of the selections is more than a
handful of pages; many are only a paragraph in length. Each selection is documented in standard
style following the passage. There is no bibliography or index. The photograph selection shows
visual themes that cannot be conveyed by text alone, such as what an Aryan looks like.
The book is divided into eleven sections covering such topics as education, Christianity,
racism, art, and culture. Mosse has a comprehensive introduction that outlines his chain of
thought concerning the subject and he introduces each section with an overview of its content
and a brief look at the assorted authors. One area that Mosse does not specifically look at is the
Nazi obsession with anti-Semitism. He states in the introduction that the racist policies of the
Nazis so pervaded the world view that it cannot be studies separately.
Mosse's thesis is that the Nazi Party, after it came to power in 1933, effectively used
traditional German ideals of patriotism and family to spread its own culture throughout the land.
This culture was designed to control every aspect of the citizenry's life. The primary focus of
Nazi culture was to create a solid mass of nationalistic citizens. Germans were to become proud
to be German, even if that ideal put them at odds with the rest of the world and were to be
physical in action rather than intellectual. The ideal Nazi saw his family and life as extensions of
the Volk framed in a struggle to become the greatest People in the world.