Inhumanities: Nazi Interpretations of Western Culture

by David B. Dennis

Inhumanities is an unprecedented account of the ways Nazi Germany manipulated and mobilized European literature, philosophy, painting, sculpture and music in support of its ideological ends. David B. Dennis shows how, based on belief that the Third Reich represented the culmination of Western civilization, culture became a key propaganda tool in the regime's program of national renewal and its campaign against political, national and racial enemies. Focusing on the daily output of the Völkischer Beobachter, the party's official organ and the most widely circulating German newspaper of the day, he reveals how activists twisted history, biography and aesthetics to fit Nazism's authoritarian, militaristic and anti-Semitic world views. Ranging from National Socialist coverage of Germans such as Luther, Dürer, Goethe, Beethoven, Wagner and Nietzsche to 'great men of the Nordic West' such as Socrates, Leonardo and Michelangelo, Dennis reveals the true extent of the regime's ambitious attempt to reshape the 'German mind'.

Genres: History, Germany, World War II, Nonfiction, Cultural, Politics, European History

559 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 31, 2012

Reviews

[Sami Eerola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty detailed book on how Nazis analysed and used culture from the past and present to their ideological needs. There was not much new if you have observed Nazi propaganda long enough. They are pretty predictable about their interpretation. The most interesting thing in this very dry book, is that Nazis seemed to have a kind of proto metapolitics at play, even if they did not acknowledged it as such. The closes concept from that time was Goebbels "cultural warfare" consent. Nazis tired to mold past culture to fit their current ideological narratives, creating a story of European culture that was going to end in Nazi domination.

This is pretty good book about the topic, but very repetitive and boring to read.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Inhumanities, Dennis catalogues the total politicisation and nationalisation of culture under the Nazis through the official newspaper of the Nazis - the Völkischer Beobachter. In doing so, Dennis demonstrates the official Nazi approach to Western, and particularly German Romantic culture, which was to mine it for anti-Semitic, nationalist, and militarist views.

The overall conclusion that the author makes is that the Völkischer Beobachter was a key component of the Nazi propaganda machine, and that the arguments therein were accepted by wider society, providing cultural and academic legitimisation for the Nazis.

At times, the constant stream of anti-Semitic and nationalist arguments is wearying but it is important to persevere, firstly to see how the Nazis utterly commanded Western culture to fit its pre-existing views and secondly, to see how the paper's coverage effected contemporary academic discourse and readership.

Overall, Inhumanities is an excellently researched book - the author has read twenty-five years worth of articles and it shows. The book reveals the extent totalitarian states will go to reshape the mind of its people and therefore, is not only relevant to those interested in Nazi history, culture, or German history on a wider level, but also to those interested in culture as a battlefield in the struggle for control of people's minds.

[C. Varn · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Dennis's study of Volkischer Beobachter as well as many, many articles produced by the Nazi's between 1920 and 1945 illustrate that heuristics of interpretation of culture often matter. In "Inhumanities," Dennis illustrates that Nazi's did not only focus on the most xenophobic or nationalistic elements in German romantic literature, but also "Western Rationalist" literature as a whole. Dennis shows that most of the elements were legitimately in many of the authors and periods that the Nazi's choose to focus on: Goethe's passing comments about jews, ignoring Wagner's battles with Nietzsche, ignoring Nietzsche's anti-German sentiments, the heroic epics of the Greeks decontextualized, Tacitus, etc. All these were real, but had to be curated and problematic elements to fascist and racialist ideologies ignored.

Dennis also shows what the Nazi's wanted to suppress a lot of revolutionary and Enlightenment French philosophy and attribute a crypto-jewishness to authors and artists like Saint-Saens. Furthermore, the Nazi's, more than other fascists, took a particular anti-modernist cue and dismissed much of contemporary German literature outright.

Dennis makes the case that these heuristics served a propose, but only really in the more modern writings, did the Nazi's cultural arm have to take an explicitly counter-factual or propagandistic line. An extremely interesting book although it may feel dry and slightly academic to non-specialists, particularly people who are not well-versed in German literary and artistic culture in the 18th and 19th centuries.

[Michael Griswold · Rating 4 out of 5]

David B. Dennis in Inhumanities: Nazi Interpretations of Western Culture has written a thorough and somewhat frightening look at how the Nazis interpreted Western culture and used that culture to justify their broader policies of racial superiority. The greatest masters of Western culture from Beethoven to Shakespeare and so many others were used to justify some of the most brutal policies that humanity has ever seen. This process took many forms including selective quotation, stretching of the truth, and outright lying in some cases.

Inhumanities is written as an academic work, but I don't think the average reader should be scared off because Dennis doesn't throw around a bunch of hundred dollar words. The reading experience starts slow, but picks up as one becomes acclimated to the book. It's not an easy book to get through, but one feels a moral obligation to see it through to the finish.

It's a book that leaves pivotal questions unanswered such as: How did this use of culture then lead to the millions killed during World War II. Dennis freely admits that these and other questions are topics for other books. Still this book serves as a haunting look inside the Nazi culture that played a role in World War II. Highly recommended.

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Amazon review -

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1J1HM39...