Beyond The Racial State: Rethinking Nazi Germany

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series information......Page 5
Title page......Page 7
Copyright information......Page 8
Table of contents......Page 9
List of Contributors......Page 11
Acknowledgments......Page 13
Burleigh and Wippermann’s The Racial State......Page 15
The Historiographical Context......Page 17
Questioning the Consensus about Nazi Racial Ideology......Page 20
Comparative and Historical Perspectives......Page 22
Race, Science, and Nazi Biopolitics......Page 26
Anti-Semitism Beyond Race......Page 29
Race and Society......Page 31
Race War? Germans and Non-Germans in Wartime......Page 34
Concluding Reflections......Page 37
Notes......Page 39
Part I Comparative and Historical Perspectives......Page 43
1 Racial Discourse, Nazi Violence, and the Limits of the Racial State Model......Page 45
Race to Reification......Page 47
Race Sciences......Page 49
Race Cultures......Page 51
Anti-Semitism, Race, and People......Page 56
The People’s Community......Page 59
Racial States, Nation-States, and Genocide......Page 61
Conclusion......Page 65
Notes......Page 66
2 The Murder of European Jewry: Nazi Genocide in Continental Perspective......Page 72
The Greater European Background......Page 75
War, National Consolidation Projects, and Genocide in Harmony......Page 82
‘‘Cleansing’’ Germany’s Empire, Destroying Eastern Jewry......Page 87
The Europeanization of Genocide: Dynamics of ‘‘Intent’’......Page 94
War and Genocide in Tension at the European Level......Page 97
The Completion of Genocide Within the German Empire......Page 100
Hungary 1944: Balkan Geopolitics and Genocide......Page 102
Notes......Page 104
3 Meanings of Race and Biopolitics in Historical Perspective......Page 109
Race as a Biopolitical Category......Page 113
Colonial Racial Politics in Germany......Page 117
(Not) Coming to Terms with National Socialist Racial Politics......Page 123
Notes......Page 126
4 Racial States in Comparative Perspective......Page 130
Notes......Page 151
Part II Race, Science, and Nazi Biopolitics......Page 159
5 Eugenics, Racial Science, and Nazi Biopolitics: Was There a Genesis of the ‘‘Final Solution’’ from the Spirit of Science?......Page 161
Conflicts over Sterilization Policy......Page 163
The Fischer Controversy......Page 165
The Controversy over the Notion of a ‘‘German Race’’......Page 168
Science in Nazi Germany: Science or Pseudoscience?......Page 172
Science and Politics in a Polycratic Regime......Page 174
Was there a ‘‘Genesis of the ‘Final Solution’ from the Spirit of Science’’?......Page 177
Did Racial Science Become Radicalized under the Nazi Regime?......Page 180
Conclusion......Page 182
Notes......Page 183
6 Race Science, Race Mysticism, and the Racial State......Page 190
Notes......Page 205
7 Ideology’s Logic: The Evolution of Racial Thought in Germany from the Völkisch Movement to the Third Reich......Page 211
The Semantics of Nation, Volk, and Rasse......Page 214
Race as Ideology......Page 217
Notes......Page 224
8 Nazi Medical Crimes, Eugenics, and the Limits of the Racial State Paradigm......Page 227
The Nazi Euthanasia Killings: Beyond the Racial State Paradigm?......Page 228
Heredity, Race, and Economics in Nazi Health and Welfare Policy......Page 235
Toward a Political Economy of Population and Race?......Page 245
Notes......Page 248
Part III Anti-Semitism Beyond Race......Page 253
I......Page 255
II......Page 258
III......Page 263
IV......Page 270
V......Page 276
Notes......Page 278
10 Neither Aryan Nor Semite: Reflections on the Meanings of Race in Nazi Germany......Page 286
Notes......Page 297
11 Racializing Historiography: Anti-Jewish Scholarship in the Third Reich......Page 302
The Institutionalization of Nazi Jewish Studies......Page 303
The Mindset of Judenforschung......Page 306
Race as Spirit and Mind......Page 309
Legitimizing Racism and Persecution......Page 313
Legitimizing Mass Murder......Page 317
Scholarship and Crime......Page 320
Notes......Page 323
Part IV Race and Society......Page 329
12 Volksgemeinschaft: A Controversy......Page 331
Political Volksgemeinschaft......Page 332
Social Volksgemeinschaft......Page 335
Racist Volksgemeinschaft......Page 338
Historiographical Debates......Page 340
Perspectives......Page 343
Notes......Page 345
13 Mothers, Whores, or Sentimental Dupes? Emotion and Race in Historiographical Debates about Women in the Third Reich......Page 349
The Historikerinnenstreit......Page 352
Race as Quotidian Practice......Page 356
Sexuality, Lust, and Sentimentality......Page 360
A Gendered History of Emotions in the Third Reich......Page 363
Conclusion......Page 365
Notes......Page 366
14 Nationalist Mobilization: Foreign Diplomats’ Views on the Third Reich, 1933–1945......Page 376
An American View of Mein Kampf......Page 378
The Third Reich as a Dictatorship of Mobilization......Page 380
Gaps in Perceptions of Nazi Social Policy......Page 382
The ‘‘Unlimited Persecution of a Race’’......Page 383
The Mass Murder of the Sick and the Disabled......Page 387
Conclusion......Page 388
Notes......Page 389
15 Race and Humor in Nazi Germany......Page 394
Humor as a Familiar Cultural Trope......Page 395
Humor as a Communicative Contract......Page 398
Humor as the Embodiment of Power......Page 404
Making Fun, Marking Boundaries......Page 409
Notes......Page 411
16 Legitimacy Through War?......Page 416
Notes......Page 436
Part V Race War? Germans and Non-Germans in Wartime......Page 443
The Racial Turn and Its Pitfalls......Page 445
Competing Traditions: Germanizing Poles......Page 449
Separating Germans from Poles......Page 450
The Struggle for a Unified Selection Process......Page 453
Futile Attempts......Page 457
Conclusion......Page 461
Notes......Page 464
18 Sex, Race, Violence, Volksgemeinschaft: German Soldiers’ Sexual Encounters with Local Women and Men during the War and the Occupation in the Soviet Union, 1941–1945......Page 469
Heterosexual Violence......Page 471
Heterosexual Trade......Page 476
Consensual Heterosexual Relations......Page 478
Sexual Encounters between Men......Page 482
Concluding Remarks......Page 487
Notes......Page 490
19 The Disintegration of the Racial Basis of the Concentration Camp System......Page 496
The Rationalization of the Camp System......Page 497
The Lifting of Racial Selection Criteria in the Camps......Page 500
Negative Selection......Page 501
Positive Selection......Page 504
The Abandonment of Racial Criteria in Recruiting Camp Guards......Page 509
The Collapse of the Camp System and the ‘‘Death Marches’’......Page 512
Notes......Page 514
Index......Page 523