Stephen Fritz - Frontsoldaten

The “socialist” aspect of National Socialism, in fact, made a significantly greater impact on Germans of the younger generation than is generally acknowledged. What especially gripped the imagination of many Landsers was Hitler’s apparent ability to fulfill the promise of Volksgemeinschaft aborted in the defeat of 1918. Although this notion of community as actually practiced by the Nazis turned out to be chauvinistic and totalitarian, it still retained an explosive appeal because it seemed to affirm a commitment to a new society; and Hitler appeared to many the embodiment of a new force that could complete the dynamic modernization of German life. At the same time, a society based on community offered protection against the tensions and insecurities of that very modernization. The Volksgemeinschaft would balance individual achievement with group solidarity, competition with cooperation, as the individual fulfilled and developed his potential within the framework of community. The allure of Nazism, then, lay in its creation of the belief that one was in service to an ideal community which promoted both social commitment and integration.

Despite the coercive nature of society under Hitler, for many Landsers the Nazis accomplished just enough in the 1930s—in the restoration of employment, the extension of social benefits, and the promotion of equality of opportunity and social mobility—to sustain their belief that the Führer was sincere about establishing a classless, integrative society. In a study of German prisoners of war, H.L. Ansbacher discovered that large numbers of Landsers voiced positive opinions of such Nazi achievements as the provision of economic security and social welfare, the elimination of class distinctions and the creation of communal feelings, concern for every Volksgenossen (national comrade), and expanded educational opportunity for poor children. Especially prevalent was the belief that the common people and workers had benefited most from Nazi measures. According to Ansbacher, in fact, labor had more faith in Hitler than virtually all other occupational groups in Germany. To many, Hitler appeared to be “a man of the people”; indeed, a large number of prisoners of war from working-class backgrounds claimed that the Nazi regime had achieved such important socialist goals as increased educational opportunity for the poor, better job opportunities, and social justice. So pervasive was the belief in the benefits of the Nazi revolution that half of Ansbacher’s sample of prisoners could find nothing at all wrong with National Socialism. “Hitler’s only mistake,” claimed Hermann Pfister, a miner, in a postwar interview, “was that we lost the war.” And Pfister’s was hardly an isolated opinion. Hitler’s popularity among German POWs consistently remained above the 60 percent mark, signs of disaffection appearing only in March 1945. Nor was Hitler unaware of this appeal. He ended one of his last messages to the German people, on 24 February 1945, by asserting, “It is our firm will never to cease working for the true people’s community, far from any ideology of classes, firmly believing that the eternal values of a nation are its best sons and daughters, who, regardless of birth and rank… must be educated and employed.” “It was exactly the striving for these goals,” Ansbacher concluded, “which represented the essence of the appeal National Socialism had for its followers.” 42

Volksgemeinschaft became a kind of leitmotif for many soldiers. “We stand before the burning door of Europe” exclaimed one in early September 1939, “and only a shower of faith illuminates our path.” Proclaimed Hermann Witzemann in June 1941, “I would gladly die for my people and for my German Fatherland,” adding almost metaphysically, “Germany was always my primary earthly thought.” Siegbert Stehmann yearned for the triumph of a “unitary order, a spiritual cosmos as in the Middle Ages…, all-embracing, [with] faith and knowledge indivisibly united.” The sense of living in intoxicating times impressed Wolfgang Döring as well, for he regarded “our era as revolutionary.” Reinhard Becker-Glauch agreed, sensing in June 1942 that “this epoch appears to be very similar to a threshold.” 43

And what would this revolutionary threshold lead to? “This [battle] is for a new ideology, a new belief, a new life!” exclaimed one Landser in a not atypical burst of enthusiasm for “our National Socialist idea.” “We know what ideals we fight for,” boasted Private K.B. in April 1940, and as if finishing the thought, Hans August Vowinckel insisted in December of the same year, “Our people stands in a great struggle for its existence and for its mission. We must fight for the meaning, for the giving of meaning to this struggle…. Where our people fights for its existence, that is for us destiny, simple destiny.” Karl Fuchs agreed, arguing in May 1941, “An individual is comparatively insignificant in war and yet, individual sacrifice in the struggle for an ideal is not in vain.” And the ideal? In a later letter Fuchs claimed, “We are fighting for the existence of our entire people, of our Volk …. Our vision must be for the future because we are engaged in a struggle that will assure us of the well-being of our… nation.” Similarly, Martin Pöppel noted in his diary, “Our joy in living and lust for life are stronger now than they’ve ever been, but each of us is ready to sacrifice his life for the holy Fatherland. This Fatherland is my faith, and my only hope.” Long after the war the intensity of this feeling led Pöppel to reflect: “Now, forty years later, as I sit and look at these notes I wrote then, I can only shake my head in wonder at the way our young people were so inspired.” 44

An anonymous Landser insisted in late summer 1944 that although the war had “ripped us out of our childhood and placed us in a struggle for life,” he welcomed it, because the “struggle was for our future.” And he left little doubt what he meant by the future: “We have recently been frequently debating over the present war and have realized that it is the greatest religious war, for an ideology is the new stamp for the word religion. I draw faith from [Nazi ideology] that the struggle will end in a victory of our… beliefs.” Following the German conquest of Poland, Wilhelm Prüller exulted, “It is a victory of sacred belief…, a victory of National Socialism,” adding later, “The others are fighting for a wrong cause…. Today we’re a different Germany from what we were! A National Socialist Germany.” Nor was Prüller in any doubt as to the superiority of this new Germany: “It was the salvation of the Reich that a man arose from its lap and with great effort… led the people to find itself again, and provided it with the one Weltanschauung (ideology) that could unite the people…. A political leadership was established which may be described as ideal: and really one which grew out of the people themselves.” Prüller concluded: “When this war ends, I shall return from it a much more fanatical National Socialist than I was before.” 45

“Every German must of course be proud of his homeland and must be happy and thankful to give his life for this country,” asserted one soldier. More than mere love of country, this attitude revealed a deep commitment to a national community. “Everything small and base must be remote from us as just now it is in battle and in the face of death,” Eberhard Wendebourg exclaimed. “Then the Volksgemeinschaft, a true goodness and love among all Germans, will be secured new and better even than in the years before the war.” Friedrich Grupe recorded that in a speech given to officer candidates in May 1940 the Führer “emphasized that the German soldier should be… ready for any sacrifice for the German people. Always to see in our soldiers national comrades, that is our task; always we should trust the worth and the strength of the German workers. With them he would give our world new meaning, new powers.” 46A world of new content, made of new substances, better even than before the war—this notion of Volksgemeinschaft contributed both to the resiliency of the German soldier and to the harshness of the struggle for survival that many Landsers felt themselves waging.