Understanding the Nazi Idea of Volksgemeinschaft

Understanding the Nazi Idea of Volksgemeinschaft The Volksgemeinschaft was a central element in Nazi thinking, although it has proved difficult for historians to determine whether this was an ideology or just a nebulous concept built from propaganda displays. Essentially the Volksgemeinschaft was a new German society which rejected old religions, ideologies, and class divisions, instead forming a united German identity based around ideas of race, struggle, and state leadership. The Racist State The aim was the creation of the Volk, a nation or people made up of the most superior of the human races. This concept was derived from a simplistic corruption of Darwinian and relied on Social Darwinism, the idea that humanity was composed of different races, and these competed with one another for dominance: only the best race would lead after a survival of the fittest. Naturally the Nazis thought they were the Herrenvolk- Master Race- and they considered themselves to be pure Aryans; every other race was inferior, with some like Slavs, Romany, and Jews at the bottom of the ladder, and while the Aryans had to be kept pure, the bottom could be exploited, hated and eventually liquidated. The Volksgemeinschaft was thus inherently racist and contributed greatly to the Nazi’s attempts at mass extermination. The Nazi State The Volksgemeinschaft didn’t just exclude different races, as competing ideologies were also rejected. The Volk was to be a one party state where the leader- currently Hitler- was accorded unquestioning obedience from his citizens, who handed over their freedoms in exchange for- in theory- their part in a smoothly functioning machine. ‘Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer’: one people, one empire, one leader. Rival ideas like democracy, liberalism or- especially repugnant to the Nazis- communism was rejected, and many of their leaders arrested and imprisoned. Christianity, despite being promised protection from Hitler, also had no place in the Volk, as it was a rival to the central state and a successful Nazi government would have brought it to an end. Blood and Soil Once the Volksgemeinschaft had pure members of its master race, it needed things for them to do, and the solution was to be found in an idealistic interpretation of German history. Everyone in the Volk was to work together for the common good but to do it in accordance with mythical German values which portrayed the classic noble German as a land working peasant giving the state their blood and their toil. Blut und Boden, Blood and Soil, was a classic summary of this view. Obviously, the Volk had a large urban population, with many industrial workers, but their tasks were compared to and portrayed as part of this grand tradition. Of course traditional German values went hand in hand with the subjugation of women’s interests, widely restricting them to being mothers. The Volksgemeinschaft was never written about or explained in the same way as rival ideas like communism, and may simply have been a highly successful propaganda tool rather than anything the Nazi leaders genuinely believed in. Equally, members of German society did, in places, show a commitment to the creation of the Volk. Consequently, we arent really sure to what extent the Volk was a practical reality rather than a theory, but Volksgemeinschaft does show quite clearly that Hitler wasnt a socialist or a communist, and instead pushed a race-based ideology. To what extent would it have been enacted if the Nazi state had been successful? The removal of races the Nazis considered lesser had begun, as had the march into living space to be turned into the pastoral ideal. Its possible it would have been put entirely in place, but would almost certainly have varied by region as the power games of the Nazi leaders reached a head.

Why do you need to prep for the SAT

Why do you need to prep for the SAT SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you thinking about how much to prep for the SAT, or whether you should even prep for the SAT? This article answers your questions on that! The Origins of the SAT When the ETS (the folks who make the SAT) began, way back in 1947, college admission was based entirely on high school records and admissions counselors’ opinions of students’ â€Å"character.† Obviously, this was a bad way to form a student body and also extremely unfair. There had to be some way to assess all the students in the country uniformly to be able to compare between them. The Challenge of the SAT But how do you test â€Å"scholastic aptitude,† as the SAT used to claim it did? You have to use only material that everyone has been taught in school, or it’s unfair. You have to make it multiple choice, or grading would be impossible (the essay is an attempt to bypass some of the limitations of multiple choice testing). They’re not trying to test subjects, they’re trying to test reasoning: â€Å"to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic; to find an answer to a problem by considering various possible solutions† (adapted from the New American Oxford Dictionary). But there are lots of systems in which logic operates: which to choose? What They Decided to Do In an effort to be fair to â€Å"language people† and â€Å"math people† alike, they chose to include both systems in their test of â€Å"scholastic aptitude.† (They had to change this acronym because many people claimed that the SAT was not an accurate test of scholastic aptitudenow the letters â€Å"SAT† technically don’t stand for anything.) But, inevitably, the standardization of the testfrom student to student and year to yearrequired that they use the exact same elements of these two subjects, phrased in the exact same way, in every test. So they ended up with a test that has the same question formats testing the same concepts over 170 questions per test, 7 tests per year, for as many years as they can get away with not changing it. Because this test can make or break a student’s college options (and, arguably, his or her life options), each question has to be totally airtightno exceptions, no way to interpret the answer in multiple ways. The point of all this is that the SAT is, by definition, an extremely rigid, consistent and unintuitive testand those 3 aspects of it make SAT prep almost a necessity for most students. Test Format The ETS tests (SAT, GRE, and TOEFL, among others) are unlike any other test you’ve ever taken. They’re held in these specific places and times, have multiple sections about alternating subjects, and are extremely particular about what you are and aren’t allowed to use (e.g. a calculator and a watch are fine; your phone is not). This aspect alone is something everyone who cares to do well on the test should be prepared for. Question Format Originally, the ETS claimed that the test was designed not to require preparationafter all, reasoning is reasoning, right? But out here in the real world, people were learning different. Eventually the College Board (the people who own the SATETS only designs and runs it) was compelled to produce some limited preparation materials in response to public pressure. One main reason for this is that the questions on the SAT are both strangely worded and totally predictable, a combination practically designed to benefit those who prepare for the test. For example, a common Math question type is formatted like this: If someone tells you it’s opposite day, which of the following must be true? I. It is opposite day II. It is not opposite day III. The person is lying A: I only B: II only C: I and II only D: I and III only E: I, II and III Don’t think too hard about this one. The point is that this question seems much harder than it is, because this is an insane way to phrase a question. Good SAT prep (including PrepScholar) will familiarize you with how to handle these question types, among others that will almost definitely confuse students who have never seen them before. Question Content The content of the SAT, on the other hand, will be familiar to most high schoolers. The highest levels of math it requires are some complicated algebra and plane geometry; all the English skills it requires are basic tenets of writing. In fact, the content of the SAT has been pretty much the same since the 50s. The addition of the Writing section in 2005 was the biggest recent change to the test, but it’s just as formulaic and consistent as the others, for the reasons we discussed earlier in this post. The consistency of the content of the SAT is perhaps the most compelling reason to prep thoroughlyit asks about things that may seem random to the unprepared, but are actually part of a very narrow band of language and math skills. Similarly, the content that the SAT doesn’t test can be helpful to know, because it’s easy to get distracted by thing that seem odd about a question but aren’t actually ever tested. The Takeaway If you’re trying to plan your SAT prep, this blog post should be able to help you out. You don’t have to prep with us, but you should prep with something. The ETS tried to make a pure test of reasoning, but it can’t be done. The result is an idiosyncratic, seemingly random, set of topics and questions for which it is essential to prepare. And if you found this helpful or interesting, please share it or consider joining the mailing list to get our updates and insights 1-2 times per week! Also, get our FREE EBOOK on SAT Prep: