The Dark Side of Transnationalism Social Engineering and Nazism
Erschienen in: Journal of Contemporary History ; 51 (2016). - S. 3-21 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022009415607956 Introduction Journal of Contemporary History 2016, Vol. 51(1) 3–21 The Dark Side of ! The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Transnationalism Social DOI: 10.1177/0022009415607956 Engineering and Nazism, jch.sagepub.com 1930s–40s Kiran Klaus Patel Maastricht University, the Netherlands Sven Reichardt University of Konstanz, Germany Abstract This article introduces the special section on the history of social engineering and Nazism during the 1930s and 1940s. It sketches the object of social engineering, the historiographical debates surrounding it, the place of Nazism in this discussion and the role of transnationality. Moreover, it introduces the contributions and discusses ques- tions for further research. Keywords social engineering, Third Reich, transnational history In the summer of 1936, 32 delegations comprising 1500 individuals travelled to Hamburg to attend the World Congress for Leisure Time and Recreation. The Nazi regime used the event to propagate the organization Strength through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) and its leisure policy more generally.1 Ernst Schuster, for instance, explained on behalf of the German delegation that in Nazi Germany, ‘organizing leisure and recreation’ was about ‘the human being as a whole, and not merely the individual person, but humanity as a totality’. That, he said, distinguished the National Socialist approach from other forms of 1 D. Liebscher, Freude und Arbeit. Zur internationalen Freizeit- und Sozialpolitik des faschistischen Italien und des NS-Regimes (Cologne 2009), 476–85. Corresponding author: Kiran Klaus Patel, Maastricht University, Grote Gracht 90-92, Maastricht, 6211 SZ, the Netherlands.
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