The Volk

The People of a Nation even when from different ethnic backgrounds , often feel a strong emotional tie to one another and to the land they live in. In most countries, these nationalistic 'feelings' are in regard to the land, the people, the symbols and flag of a country, holidays, culture, tradition, and other events and things regarded as belonging to all of the people. Germany, however, even before WWII, had a concept that was a little larger than just the people or land or nation. The Volk was that concept.

The Definition of the Volk

Many times in reading about the Shoah, the word 'Volk' is used to refer to the German People, or the word is used language as an adjective such as Volkish Mysticism, or Der Völkische Beobachter If we translated the word literally it would be akin to our word 'folk' , meaning, 'the people'. Our 'folklore' is the lore or legends belonging to a people, and their word, 'volkswagen', the car 'invented' by Hitler for practicality and prosperity, meant 'the people's car'. Volkish Mysticism, refers to the legends, religion and myths with their practices belonging to the German people (See Nazi Beliefs and the Anti-Semitic newspaper of the early Nazi movement likewise meant the People's Watcher , or "Observer".

In Germany, though, the 'Volk meant even more than merely the people. It was seen as a mystical whole, greater than the sum of the parts, which comprised the Aryan peoples of Germany and their religions, folklore, language, arts, land, Weltanschaunng or World View and a sort of congregate 'soul' reflecting the embodiment of the totality of the people.

Hitler, the Third Reich & the Volk

This 'common soul' of the people was a frequent target for Hitler and the Third Reich: they appealed constantly in Speeches to the betterment and welfare of the 'Volk'. They sought to bring back Volkish culture and mysticism. This movement was already underway at the turn of the century especially among Germans who wanted a more clearly defined distinction between Germans and the other peoples of Europe. The Brothers Grimm, known for their collection of fairy tales spent most of their careers, one as linguist and one as lawyer exploring, collecting, researching and reintroducing German folk tales, Runes and other ancient languages and other legends and beliefs of the German people. Other German philosophers and occultists sought a return to mystical connections between the land and the people referred to as blut und boden (blood and soil) and Norse legend and myth. Cultural themes of romantic love and cruelty, struggle and war, Giants and fairies, humans with spells cast metamorphicizing them into creatures at night or for long years, witchcraft, and utopias, recurred. Again, it was the people, their arts, beliefs, views and 'soul' which constituted the Volk.

For the Nazis, the Volk could only be Aryan, hence the exclusion of the Jews and others whom they could not see as part of that aryan spirit. In one speech, Hitler refers to the importance and place of the Volk and his relation to it:

I declare myself for the new, because it is my people [VOLK] that is making its way now. Who am I to exclude myself; do I know anything better? No! Within the limits of my powers if I can try to guide the Volk to where I would like to see it; but if I should not succeed, still it would remain my Volk. Volk is a great deal! My intellectual and economic, my language, my life, my human relationships, the entire sum of my brain, I owe primarily to this Volk. My ancestors came from it, my children return to it. ...²

Germans were constantly encouraged under the Reich to see themselves as part of the Volk, to see the Volk as a greater entity, an eternal entity which would live beyond themselves and therefore be worth dying for. The need for the concept of the Volk to remain pure was also repeated: physical perfection, pure bloodlines, a return to the land as essential, and an expulsion of what was not German and therefore not of or for the 'Volk' was critical. The view of the Volk was inspirational in the 1920s and 30s to Germany for it aided in regaining a sense of nation so badly damaged in their WWI defeat.

A Conflict of 'National' Souls

A little explored comparison is that of the conflict and counterpoint between the German nationalistic concept of the 'Volk', and the Jewish National Identity as the 'Chosen People'. While the Jews had no specific 'name' for the Jewish nation other than perhaps the Children of Israel or the 'Chosen', they also had a clear national identity, and that identity, unlike any other people in history lasted in dispersion for over 2000 years. The clash of two strong national identities in Germany in the 20's and 30's grew with time. Additionally, Jews were questioning their own borders as a people among peoples with some encouraging 'assimilation' and others favoring traditional segregation. (See the Jewish Enlightenment) While the Nazis in coming to power often denounced the problem as 'Bolshevism' or communism, they very clearly equated the Jewish people with the system with constant cries of Zionist-bolsheviks or later Zionist-Stalinists. One of the first moves of the Reich was to defraud German Jews of their citizenship. While the Vatican continued to see the Jews as a religious 'people', the Germans saw the Jews as a race, although they treated the Jewish citizenry of Germany as though they were a foreign people. In any event, it is clear that Germany did not wish to include or even define German Jews as part of the Volk, and in fact saw them as anathema to it. The DC [Deutsche Christen]; the apostate Reich Church incorporated much of Volkische Mysticism into Christianity, overemphasizing the former, and gaining the reputation of a heretical Church from the rest of Protestantism and Catholicism. [Evangelicals though few in number, also saw the DC as something other than Christianity.] While the end of WWII saw an end to the ubiquitous reference to the Volk, it remains a concept even today, influencing German art, politics and religious life.

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