This article examines the issue of the 'Volksgemeinschaft' (folk community) in terms of political culture, to give a general outline of the Third Reich.
The 'Volksgemeinschaft' was a central concept of National Socialist ideology, a constantly used slogan promising a unified society no longer split into classes. But, in fact, the structure of the Nazi regime was polycratic and chaotic, divided into various competitive organs of State and Party. So, this study asserts that the 'Volksgemeinschaft' was by no means an actual, but a fictive political community.
Nazi politics represented this fiction variously and inconsistently. The 'Volksgemeinschaft ' was imagined as a society, that was both traditional and modern, both elitistic and equalitarian. But, on the other hand, this fictive community mediated and neutralized the ambivalence, and organized itself into a real significant sphere. This sphere of the 'Volksgemeinschaft' was mainly characterized by its firm order and vast expanse.
Moreover, this significant sphere was publicly staged and visibly embodied in mass ceremonies, mass cultures, and Hitler himself. Nazi politics constantly maintained its reality and thereby realized a tacit national consensus. Thus, the 'Volksgemeinschaft' symbolized political unity of the nation, and was reified as a real and self-evident sphere.
Finally, this study concludes that the rule of the Third Reich was based on the 'Volksgemeinschaft' , and that Hitler' s dictatorial power could only be exercised through this sphere of self-evidence.
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