The Nazification of an Academic Discipline: Folklore in the Third Reich

by James R. Dow (Editor), Hannjost Lixfeld (Editor)

This volume explores the involvement of German and Austrian folklorists with the institutions and ideology of the Third Reich. In his introduction, James Dow traces the roots of this Nazification of folklore to the Nazis' exploitation of eighteenth-century concepts and philosophies. Contributors examine the establishment of folklore departments at German and Austrian universities during the National Socialist era; the perversion of the discipline for political ends by the government; and the attempt to establish a pan-German Reich Institute as an instrument of a fascist ideology. The establishment of departments of Volkskunde offered scholars the opportunity to broaden the base of their discipline. Ambition led many to implicitly and explicitly support the aims of their Nazi benefactors. Although not all the scholars in positions of authority were Party members, most became tools of a regime obsessed with its own racist mythology. In the postwar years there was no attempt to investigate this abuse of folklore. Instead, a legend of two folklores evolved - one of a racially biased and tainted discipline and one of a discipline that maintained itself above Nazi aims and manipulations. Here German and Austrian scholars examine this long-unexplored past in recent essays, now made available to the English-speaking world. Also included are previously unpublished documents that laid the groundwork for the National Socialists' perversion of folklore.

Genres: Germany, Folklore

Hardcover

First published April 1, 1994

Reviews

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1911, John Meier took over the League of German Societies for Folklore. This organization would go on to heavily influence the two competing ideological schools of National Socialism: The Rosenberg Bureau, headed by Alfred Rosenberg, dedicated to the teachings of Leopold Von Schroeder; and the SS Ancestral Inheritance(Ahnenerbe), headed by Heinrich Himmler, dedicated to the teachings of Rudolf Much. After World War II ended, John Meier and his organization claimed independence and neutrality during the Third Reich era; thus, he was able to continue National Socialist folk research under a new umbrella organization called The German Folklore Society. With the help of John Meier's disciple, Will-Erich Peukert, and also Friedrich Heinz Schmidt-Ebhausen, who was a minister in the Reich Ministry of Folk Enlightenment and Propaganda of Dr. Joseph Goebbels, National Socialist folk research would live on, uninterrupted, through the dark gate of the future.


It wasn't until 1965, when two professors from the University of Tubingen, Hermann Bausinger and his disciple, Wolfgang Emmerich, tendentiously confronted the National Socialist undertones of the academic discipline of volkskunde. Emmerich advocated for the removal of National Socialist elements apparent in volkskunde, and suggested a Marxist interpretation of Wilhelm Riehl, invoking the names of the well-read Marxist literati, including Adorno and Horkheimer. Emmerich claimed this should be done as a part of Germany's Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Wilhelm Riehl was a contemporary of Karl Marx and challenged Marx in the field of sociology; Riehl advocated and promoted volkskunde as a political science and was very influential in the formation of National Socialist thought. Bausinger and Emmerich were condemned by professors and scholars in the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland; National Socialist volkskunde was able to persist until another major confrontation in the 80's. This book is presented as a Volume I introduction to Volume II which is titled: "Folklore & Fascism: The Reich Institue for German Volkskunde".