Volkstum
Encyclopedia
The Volkstum is the entire utterances of a Volk or ethnic minority over its lifetime, expressing a "Volkscharakter" this unit had in common. It was the defining idea of the Völkisch movement
.
The term was coined by German nationalists in the context of Germany's "Freedom Wars
", in marked and conscious opposition to the ideals of the French Revolution
such as universal human rights. This sense of the word is now criticised scientifically, though it is still in use in the protection of ethnic minorities and is a legal standard in Austria.
the adjective volkstümlich usually meant the cultural achievements of uneducated Germans as well as popular culture
. The "Volksdichtung" (People's Poetry) was 'high' literature, the culture of distinction, and partly devalued the elite
education and partly idealised it. The concept was not yet tied to a certain nation, and attributed some of its characteristics to non-German culture.
Justus Möser
(1720–1794), Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803), Johann Georg Hamann
(1730–1788) and other German Romantics
gradually increased the concept by their actions into an unspoiled, organic, person liable closed and eternal "People's character" (Volkscharakter) and charged against the monarchies then dominating Germany. Möser already bordered on being the "Vater der Volkskunde" (Father of Ethnology) the Deutschtum against the cosmopolitanism
of the Enlightenment and against the French Revolution
.
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn
(Deutsches Volksthum 1810) is considered the inventor of the noun Volkstum. He translated the foreign word Nation
and thus moved it into an "unerring something" in every Volk. For him and for Ernst Moritz Arndt
(1769–1860) and Johann Gottlieb Fichte
(1762–1814), German Volkstum was a revolutionary source not only against the foreign domination of Napoleonic France, but also against dynasties and the church, with the word Enlightenment becoming less and less used. For all three thinkers, the idea of a uniform anti-Enlightenment position with an opposed Volkstum was already linked with Antisemitism. Arndt wrote in Der Rhein, Deutschlands Strom, aber nicht Deutschlands Grenze 1813:
He strictly rejected Jewish emancipation
, whilst seeing it as every man's natural right and goal, and in particular of the German people to the whole human race was living. He then summarised the concept as exclusive to those on the inside, not as being outside and expansive.
The more Volkstum concept was now part of a nationalist ideology and political propaganda. It often served as a patriotic or visionary binding-agent to cover over or overcome the real contradictions inside and outside the German empire: for example, by providing a "Volkstumskampf", it summoned a corporate-agrarian Volksgemeinschaft
or ideal community as the key features of Volkstum, though these did not actually exist. It was the term of choice for every figure wishing to turn to an irrational feeling and definition of unity, against both enemies inside and outside the Reich.
While the Brothers Grimm
had not yet distinguished between Gemeinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (society), Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936) noted in his 1887 work Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft that the two were mutually exclusive - he defined "community" as a form of mutual affirmation of the people in themselves as in their resources, their respective communities (such as their family) but as an understood purpose - as opposed to its mutual form as "society" in which the individual himself was a purpose, with a 'community' (e.g. a corporation) watching over his means. 'Community' would in his terms be felt by children as "the permanent and genuine" against the "temporary and apparent cohabitation" of 'society'. This was directed against the Marxism of social democracy, whose "scientific" reasoned ideal of the classless society was felt by Tönnies to be unworkable. He was very sceptical about a concept such as "Volksgemeinschaft" - in the political sphere, he held that the ancient polis
, or the medieval Hanseatic city as its most pronounced form, little more than which could be expected by modern people.
Underscored by the context of Wilhelmine militarism
and imperialism
on the eve of the First World War, however,
Heinrich Claß (chairman of the Alldeutscher Verband) in contrast defined Volkstum as national assertiveness and "Menschlichkeit" (humanity):
He also took the "German disease" to be the German Jewish minority, who for him embodied all the moral values and ethnic roots of "corrosive" internationalism
.
During the war the "deutsche Volkstum“ and "Deutschtum", particularly in universities, again became popular, in the sense of chauvinism
. In "Deutschen Reden in schwerer Zeit" (German Speeches in a black time), 35 Berlin professors spoke out against much degeneration
and foreigners, calling the World War a "Reinigungsbad" and the "fountain cellar of a new culture". Gustav Röthen, for example, saw it as the mass killings of the "sacred flame, faithful to the world-historical mission of the German people against barbarism and sub-culture".
, in Mein Kampf
, put Volkstum alongside race
, "because the Volkstum, better than Race, lies not just in the speech, but in the blood."
After the "Machtergreifung
", various university and non-university groups oriented towards völkisch and volkstum-politics were linked to cross-disciplinary "research communities", into which "Volk history" and "Ostforschung" were integrated, closely connected to the Nazi state and party. Their specialist disciplines became programmes with more state backing and funding than ever before. The concept of an "ethnic Volkstum" was divided into "Volksgenossen" (Volk comrades) and "Volksfeinde" (Volk enemies), so that the Volkstum concept was revised and became more strongly oriented towards racist and warlike solutions.
Above all, the Prussian archivist Albert Brackmann
advocated and led the Gleichschaltung
of the Nordostdeutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (Northeast German Research Foundation), which centrally directed research on East German history and controlled numerous projects on the issues of border demarcation and population policy. The young historians of Königsberg
supported the "Ostpolitik" (Eastern Policy) of the NSDAP, for no academic elite had emerged within the party itself. After 1937 the Norddeutsche and Ostdeutsche Forschungsgemeinschafts combined as a single large state-funded research organization. The impact of Volkstum historians was decisive in the use of their expertise in the Nazi ethnic policies in the conquered areas of eastern Europe from 1939 onwards. They drafted numerous maps and statistics, serving Nazi planning as the basis of its settlement and population policy in Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus.
The policy of "Eindeutschung" propagated and legitimated by the Volkstum historians, which made so-called German installations as ethnically and culturally, also favoured the Holocaust, even if they did not conceive it and were not directly involved in it.
). Bertolt Brecht
formulated it as: The Volk is not tümlich. In the DDR the term "Volk" – without "-tum" – expressed the supposed conformity of the population with the SED and the state in such word combinations as Volksdemokratie, Volkspolizei
and Volksarmee. By contrast a later opposition slogan was "Wir sind das Volk".
In Austria the concept was equally needed, but in a multi-ethnic monarchy. Thus in the 1976 National Minorities Act the term "Volksgruppe" served approximately as a synonym for national minority, according to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe. Section 6 in the German Federal Sales Act also used the expression. The legislature of Switzerland explained Volkstum, at the time of ratification of the Framework Convention, as "inspired by the desire [...] to together preserve what relates to their common identity, including their culture, their traditions, their religion or their language". In accordance with this legislation Volkstum is primarily used to mean an expression of the self-perception of a population group. In its popular sense (close to the usual English sense of folklore
), the term appears occasionally in Germany as describing regional traditions (the Volkstum of the Danube Swabians, Sorbs, Frisians, etc.).
Völkisch movement
The volkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic"...
.
The term was coined by German nationalists in the context of Germany's "Freedom Wars
War of the Sixth Coalition
In the War of the Sixth Coalition , a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and a number of German States finally defeated France and drove Napoleon Bonaparte into exile on Elba. After Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia, the continental powers...
", in marked and conscious opposition to the ideals of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
such as universal human rights. This sense of the word is now criticised scientifically, though it is still in use in the protection of ethnic minorities and is a legal standard in Austria.
Origins
In the Age of EnlightenmentAge of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
the adjective volkstümlich usually meant the cultural achievements of uneducated Germans as well as popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. The "Volksdichtung" (People's Poetry) was 'high' literature, the culture of distinction, and partly devalued the elite
Elite
Elite refers to an exceptional or privileged group that wields considerable power within its sphere of influence...
education and partly idealised it. The concept was not yet tied to a certain nation, and attributed some of its characteristics to non-German culture.
Justus Möser
Justus Möser
Justus Möser was a German jurist and social theorist.Having studied law at the universities of Jena and Göttingen, he settled in his native town as a lawyer and was soon appointed advocatus patriae by his fellow citizens...
(1720–1794), Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803), Johann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann was a noted German philosopher, a main proponent of the Sturm und Drang movement, and associated by historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin with the Counter-Enlightenment.-Biography:...
(1730–1788) and other German Romantics
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
gradually increased the concept by their actions into an unspoiled, organic, person liable closed and eternal "People's character" (Volkscharakter) and charged against the monarchies then dominating Germany. Möser already bordered on being the "Vater der Volkskunde" (Father of Ethnology) the Deutschtum against the cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism...
of the Enlightenment and against the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
.
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn was a German gymnastics educator and nationalist. He is commonly known as Turnvater Jahn, roughly meaning "father of gymnastics" Jahn.- Life :...
(Deutsches Volksthum 1810) is considered the inventor of the noun Volkstum. He translated the foreign word Nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
and thus moved it into an "unerring something" in every Volk. For him and for Ernst Moritz Arndt
Ernst Moritz Arndt
Ernst Moritz Arndt was a German nationalistic and antisemitic author and poet. Early in his life, he fought for the abolition of serfdom, later against Napoleonic dominance over Germany, and had to flee to Sweden for some time due to his anti-French positions...
(1769–1860) and Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a German philosopher. He was one of the founding figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, a movement that developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant...
(1762–1814), German Volkstum was a revolutionary source not only against the foreign domination of Napoleonic France, but also against dynasties and the church, with the word Enlightenment becoming less and less used. For all three thinkers, the idea of a uniform anti-Enlightenment position with an opposed Volkstum was already linked with Antisemitism. Arndt wrote in Der Rhein, Deutschlands Strom, aber nicht Deutschlands Grenze 1813:
He strictly rejected Jewish emancipation
Jewish Emancipation
Jewish emancipation was the external and internal process of freeing the Jewish people of Europe, including recognition of their rights as equal citizens, and the formal granting of citizenship as individuals; it occurred gradually between the late 18th century and the early 20th century...
, whilst seeing it as every man's natural right and goal, and in particular of the German people to the whole human race was living. He then summarised the concept as exclusive to those on the inside, not as being outside and expansive.
German Empire
The founding of the German Reich in 1871, as a "Kleindeutsche Lösung" under Prussian domination, only fulfilled part of the German nationalists' objectives, wishing and struggling as they did for the unification of all German speakers in a single nation state.The more Volkstum concept was now part of a nationalist ideology and political propaganda. It often served as a patriotic or visionary binding-agent to cover over or overcome the real contradictions inside and outside the German empire: for example, by providing a "Volkstumskampf", it summoned a corporate-agrarian Volksgemeinschaft
Volksgemeinschaft
Volksgemeinschaft is a German expression meaning "people's community". Originally appearing during World War I as Germans rallied behind the war, it derived its popularity as a means to break down elitism and class divides...
or ideal community as the key features of Volkstum, though these did not actually exist. It was the term of choice for every figure wishing to turn to an irrational feeling and definition of unity, against both enemies inside and outside the Reich.
While the Brothers Grimm
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
had not yet distinguished between Gemeinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (society), Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936) noted in his 1887 work Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft that the two were mutually exclusive - he defined "community" as a form of mutual affirmation of the people in themselves as in their resources, their respective communities (such as their family) but as an understood purpose - as opposed to its mutual form as "society" in which the individual himself was a purpose, with a 'community' (e.g. a corporation) watching over his means. 'Community' would in his terms be felt by children as "the permanent and genuine" against the "temporary and apparent cohabitation" of 'society'. This was directed against the Marxism of social democracy, whose "scientific" reasoned ideal of the classless society was felt by Tönnies to be unworkable. He was very sceptical about a concept such as "Volksgemeinschaft" - in the political sphere, he held that the ancient polis
Polis
Polis , plural poleis , literally means city in Greek. It could also mean citizenship and body of citizens. In modern historiography "polis" is normally used to indicate the ancient Greek city-states, like Classical Athens and its contemporaries, so polis is often translated as "city-state."The...
, or the medieval Hanseatic city as its most pronounced form, little more than which could be expected by modern people.
Underscored by the context of Wilhelmine militarism
Militarism
Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....
and imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
on the eve of the First World War, however,
Heinrich Claß (chairman of the Alldeutscher Verband) in contrast defined Volkstum as national assertiveness and "Menschlichkeit" (humanity):
He also took the "German disease" to be the German Jewish minority, who for him embodied all the moral values and ethnic roots of "corrosive" internationalism
Internationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
.
During the war the "deutsche Volkstum“ and "Deutschtum", particularly in universities, again became popular, in the sense of chauvinism
Chauvinism
Chauvinism, in its original and primary meaning, is an exaggerated, bellicose patriotism and a belief in national superiority and glory. It is an eponym of a possibly fictional French soldier Nicolas Chauvin who was credited with many superhuman feats in the Napoleonic wars.By extension it has come...
. In "Deutschen Reden in schwerer Zeit" (German Speeches in a black time), 35 Berlin professors spoke out against much degeneration
Degeneration
The idea of degeneration had significant influence on science, art and politics from the 1850s to the 1950s. The social theory developed consequently from Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution...
and foreigners, calling the World War a "Reinigungsbad" and the "fountain cellar of a new culture". Gustav Röthen, for example, saw it as the mass killings of the "sacred flame, faithful to the world-historical mission of the German people against barbarism and sub-culture".
Third Reich
Under National Socialism Volkstum was aggressively interpreted. Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, in Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
, put Volkstum alongside race
Race (biology)
In biology, races are distinct genetically divergent populations within the same species with relatively small morphological and genetic differences. The populations can be described as ecological races if they arise from adaptation to different local habitats or geographic races when they are...
, "because the Volkstum, better than Race, lies not just in the speech, but in the blood."
After the "Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...
", various university and non-university groups oriented towards völkisch and volkstum-politics were linked to cross-disciplinary "research communities", into which "Volk history" and "Ostforschung" were integrated, closely connected to the Nazi state and party. Their specialist disciplines became programmes with more state backing and funding than ever before. The concept of an "ethnic Volkstum" was divided into "Volksgenossen" (Volk comrades) and "Volksfeinde" (Volk enemies), so that the Volkstum concept was revised and became more strongly oriented towards racist and warlike solutions.
Above all, the Prussian archivist Albert Brackmann
Albert Brackmann
Albert Brackmann was a leading German historian associated with the Ostforschung, a multi-disciplined organisation set up to co-ordinate German research on Eastern Europe....
advocated and led the Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung , meaning "coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line", is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society. The historian Richard J...
of the Nordostdeutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (Northeast German Research Foundation), which centrally directed research on East German history and controlled numerous projects on the issues of border demarcation and population policy. The young historians of Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
supported the "Ostpolitik" (Eastern Policy) of the NSDAP, for no academic elite had emerged within the party itself. After 1937 the Norddeutsche and Ostdeutsche Forschungsgemeinschafts combined as a single large state-funded research organization. The impact of Volkstum historians was decisive in the use of their expertise in the Nazi ethnic policies in the conquered areas of eastern Europe from 1939 onwards. They drafted numerous maps and statistics, serving Nazi planning as the basis of its settlement and population policy in Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus.
The policy of "Eindeutschung" propagated and legitimated by the Volkstum historians, which made so-called German installations as ethnically and culturally, also favoured the Holocaust, even if they did not conceive it and were not directly involved in it.
Since 1945
After 1945 the concept was first used in its political sense in Germany as an expression of nationalist ideology and avoided by neutral words like "Bevölkerung" (populationPopulation
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
). Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
formulated it as: The Volk is not tümlich. In the DDR the term "Volk" – without "-tum" – expressed the supposed conformity of the population with the SED and the state in such word combinations as Volksdemokratie, Volkspolizei
Volkspolizei
The Volkspolizei , or VP, were the national police of the German Democratic Republic . The Volkspolizei were responsible for most law enforcement in East Germany, but its organisation and structure were such that it could be considered a paramilitary force as well...
and Volksarmee. By contrast a later opposition slogan was "Wir sind das Volk".
In Austria the concept was equally needed, but in a multi-ethnic monarchy. Thus in the 1976 National Minorities Act the term "Volksgruppe" served approximately as a synonym for national minority, according to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe. Section 6 in the German Federal Sales Act also used the expression. The legislature of Switzerland explained Volkstum, at the time of ratification of the Framework Convention, as "inspired by the desire [...] to together preserve what relates to their common identity, including their culture, their traditions, their religion or their language". In accordance with this legislation Volkstum is primarily used to mean an expression of the self-perception of a population group. In its popular sense (close to the usual English sense of folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
), the term appears occasionally in Germany as describing regional traditions (the Volkstum of the Danube Swabians, Sorbs, Frisians, etc.).