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agreement actually served Hitler personally, as it led to the dissolution of the Catholic Labor Union which he feared as a rival.²² In his 1934 speech in Marburg, von Papen further gave the appearance that the Nazis were not at all inclined to foster a “Volkish” dictatorship at the expense of the Christian conscience and the concept of a united Christendom in Europe. Whatever might look somewhat “extreme” in regard to the Nazis’ practical politics, he assured his audience, was only to be understood as the result of some temporary measures, and it was the Party’s goal to achieve the freedom of every member of the German folk community, including his voluntary participation in the work of the folk community.²³

      During the National Convention of the German Teachers Association in Magdeburg in June, 1933, Hans Schemm, President of the Association, used similar rhetoric to von Papen by reminding his colleagues that the German folk community under National Socialism actually stood for the “unity of Christianity,” and that both the Catholic and the Protestant churches now stood united in its cause.²⁴ Schemm’s speech was greeted with strong applause, and then all of the 155 regional delegates, one by one, stepped forward and signed a document committing them formally to the Party’s policy of Gleichschaltung (coordination), which also implied a submission to censorship. There were no abstentions. In retrospect, we realize that it was dangerous for individuals at that time to express their dissent openly, for in practice the Gleichschaltung was already enforced by the power politics of Party and State. Some sources made available after World War II indicate that during the Convention opinions among teachers were actually still divided among those who supported Wolgast’s liberal ideas on behalf of education through children’s literature and those who joined Rüttgers’ call to follow the “God-given leadership of the Führer.”²⁵

      Still, it was not clear to many educators among the latter group of enthusiasts that Hitler actually was out to reverse the Romantic concept of the Volk (folk). To the Nazis, it embodied what one ideologist called “the essential reality of race, tradition, mythos, and fate”²⁶ and what another one appraised as “the very spirit of homogeneity, solidarity, and organization”²⁷—an idea that soon was to be echoed on thousands of Nazi posters bearing the slogan: “Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Führer!” (One Folk! One Reich! One Leader!). In contrast to the Romantic concept, the Nazis’ concept no longer stood for diversity within unity, but it implied a uniformity that made no allowance for individual differences. By abolishing the opposition and by levelling the “subjective element,” the Nazis hoped to form a society that was totally committed to the Führer and the National Socialist ideology.

      According to Meinecke, Hitler seized upon the idea of the “folk community” for two particular reasons: to get rid of the class-egotistical nationalism promoted by the heavy industry patrons of the bourgeoisie and to overtrump the Marxism of the Russian Bolshevists. While trying to preserve the natural groupings of society, he felt that they must be steered around and educated to serve a community including all of them. From the “Aryan racial point of view” it was a convenient means to transcend all social differences while boosting the average man’s self image. The economic recovery, the reduction of unemployment, and large-scale recreation and travel programs for workers further strengthened the popular appeal of this concept.²⁸

      The Romantic concept of the “folk” was closely linked with that of the “community,” but in their interpretation of these concepts the Romantic writers had granted the individual the freedom to select his own associations and to formulate his unique aesthetic, intellectual or political ideas. Both cultural and political Romanticism had thus been characterized by “diversity in unity” as far as their “Volkish” aspirations had been concerned. The Nazis consciously employed an ambiguous language to simulate this tradition. When Rosenberg, as the Nazis’ chief ideologist, announced that the National Socialist Cultural Community (Nationalsozialistische Kulturgemeinde) had set as its ultimate goal the revival of German folk culture, this appeal sounded like an echo of Romantic thought and found a sympathetic reception by the German population who welcomed the idea of a cultural renewal on the basis of native folklore and the Nordic Germanic folk heritage.²⁹

      Rosenberg defined the Nazi ideology ambiguously as “an attitude rather than a dogma”³⁰ while referring to its objectives of forming the German people’s attitudes toward the “fighting spirit” of the German nation. He began his career as Chief of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur (Fighter League for German Culture) in 1927, with the goal to counteract the “rootless” and “decadent” life of the cities by a return to the “healthy sources” of German nationhood still to be found among the peasants in the countryside. Later, this League was merged with the Kulturamt or Kulturgemeinde (Culture Office or Cultural Community) in the Third Reich that came entirely under Rosenberg’s sphere of influence.³¹

      From the beginning, Rosenberg’s interest in the German cultural community was colored by his fascination with the Nordic Germanic folk heritage. He worked closely with the Nordische Gesellschaft (Nordic Society) and even sponsored its major journal Der Norden (The North).³² Over several years, he tried to promote cultural exchange programs among German and Scandinavian writers and artists and also cooperated with the Reichsbund für deutsche Vorgeschichte (Reich Office for German Prehistory) on behalf of drawing up plans for a national institute dedicated to Nordic Germanic history and folklore. Throughout his career, he maintained intimate contacts with the Institut für deutsche Volkskunde (Institute for German Folklore), and even sponsored the publication of folklore journals by his Office.³³ These ties are important to remember if we consider the Nordic Germanic orientation of the National Socialist ideology and the significant role which German and Nordic Germanic folklore came to play in the Nazis’ cultural politics.

      Even the concept of folklore had changed its meaning since Romantic times, for the Nazis remained ambiguous about the distinction between the traditional folk heritage on the one hand and the new values of the folk state on the other. This was one of the major reasons why the status of folklore, as a science, was called into question after the war.³⁴ The National Socialists further confused the terms “Nordic,” “Germanic,” “Nordic Germanic,” and “German,” so as to create the impression that the present regime was merely a natural extension of the traditional past. To the Nazis, ambiguity itself served as an ideological tool.³⁵ Even Rosenberg’s Cultural Community assumed the appearance of a “continuity” of thought in regard to what the art critic Strzgowski called “Germany’s return to the Indo-Germanic North of Europe. “While it paid homage to Nordic Germanic traditions and “Volkish thought” it also pretended to continue the Nordic Faith movement led by Bergmann and Günther in the twenties.³⁶ Only to some more critical minds it was evident that the Nazis had changed the original “faith community” into a “fate community” determined by the fighting spirit of National Socialism and its goal of political action.

      Plate 7

      Dr. Johann von Leers, History on Racial Foundations

      As children were to become the most prominent members of such a future “fate community,” and as all of children’s literature during the Third Reich was subordinated to the Nazis’ Volkish ideology, we may do well to take a closer look at its meaning. The Nazis’ definition of ideological goals echoed the Romantic quest for an “organic” unity and a metaphysical “totality,”³⁷ although the new context changed its meaning to a “total sacrifice” of the individual to the state and a denial of existence of the individual outside of the folk community. According to Dr. Gross, Director of the Racial-Political Office, the system of liberalism had created an “individualistic society” that was basically “unfree” in spirit. In order to regain his true freedom, he said, every individual should sacrifice his desires and goals entirely to the State. Only in this sense could he become a true “folk personality” that had the right to a so-called “higher existence.” Like most of the Nazi ideologists, Gross appealed to the spirit of altruism and idealism when he spoke about the individual’s contributions

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