Nazi Charity: Giving, Belonging, and Morality in the Third Reich
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2018 Nazi Charity: Giving, Belonging, and Morality in the Third Reich John William Rall University of Tennessee Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Rall, John William, "Nazi Charity: Giving, Belonging, and Morality in the Third Reich. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2018. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4942 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by John William Rall entitled "Nazi Charity: Giving, Belonging, and Morality in the Third Reich." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in History. Monica A. Black, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Vejas G. Liulevicius, Daniel H. Magilow, Denise Phillips Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Nazi Charity: Giving, Belonging, and Morality in the Third Reich A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville John William Rall May 2018 ii Copyright © 2018 by John William Rall. All rights reserved. iii To my mother and father. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I don’t have enough gratitude to express to everyone who helped me along this long, academic path and will no doubt fail to muster enough here. Nevertheless, I must try. For providing generous funding to support my research, I would like to thank the Central European History Society, the American Council on Germany, and the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, as well as the University of Tennessee History Department, the Galen Broeker Fund, and the Center for International Education. Without the help and support from archivists and librarians on both sides of the Atlantic, I would not have been able to navigate the vast troves of resources. Thank you to helpful archivists at the Caritas Archives Freiburg, Archiv des Evangelischen Werkes, Bundesarchiv, Landesarchiv-Berlin, and the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich. Thank you to Megan Lewis at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as well as the helpful folks at the National Archives for facilitating productive research closer to home. Among the most heartfelt thanks I have to offer go to the University of Tennessee Interlibrary Loan Staff. I no doubt have been a thorn in your side for the duration of my time at UT, however I could not have completed this project without your unmatched patience and diligent work. A special thank you goes to Andrew Bergerson and Leo Schmieding who made room for my research in an innovative new approach to writing history and giving me the confidence to pursue professional historical inquiry. Additionally, Julia Timpe, Elissa Mailänder, and Alex Oeser for listening to and encouraging the voice of a young scholar. This project has roots extending deep into my academic past, and my mentors along the way deserve recognition. At Centre College, Ian Wilson first introduced me to the German language, David Hall for encouraging my curiosity in studying religion, and Rick Axtell for highlighting the contradictions of welfare and charity. At the University of Alabama, thank you to the guiding mentorship of George Williamson and Daniel Riches who helped to mold an eager young mind into a more mature student. I am grateful that I spent most of my time in graduate school at the University of Tennessee where I built friendships with some of this discipline’s most creative young scholars. Thank you to the various members of the Dissertation Writing Workshop and its convener, Dan Feller, who all offered important feedback on rough and half-thought iterations of these chapters while also providing a forum to share our commiserations through this whole dissertation process. I have been lucky to be by such an ambitious and thoughtful cohort of European scholars, including Jordan Kuck, Brad Nichols, Robert Rennie, and Josh Sander. A gracious thank you to my Americanist friends, Robert Glaze, Max Matherne, Josh Hodge, who endured italicized German words to provide valuable feedback. A special thank you goes to Mike McConnell for countless exchanges about topics historical and not. Of course, this project would not exist without the faculty mentors who guided me throughout this process. Thank you to Helene Sinnreich for your welcomed mentorship and encouragement to be confident as a professional historian. Each in different ways, the members of my dissertation committee—Vejas Liulevicius, Daniel Magilow, and Denise Phillips—have had formative influences on my development at UT and the course of this project, and a gracious thank you is extended to each of them. Lastly, finding the words to thank my advisor, Dr. Monica Black, is a Herculean task. A creative inspiration and a fearless scholar, Monica will continue to be model of academic excellence, and I will forever be indebted to her for her endless patience and help. v I must save a word for friends outside the world of academia without whom I might have gone insane. To Paul Beck, Lars Barthel, and Charlie Cairnes, I say, “Prost!” To Brian Sims, Jake Hill, and Brian U’Sellis, your friendship is a necessary pillar of strength and stability. The last word of thanks goes to my family. To Matt, Kate, and Clara for reminding me what is possible to achieve. To Sarah for supporting me how only a big sister can. And to my parents, Margaret and John, whose unwavering support truly made this project possible. To them I am forever grateful. I would not be who I am without any of you. Thank you endlessly. vi ABSTRACT This dissertation is a cultural history of the practices and ideas that constituted poor relief under the Nazi regime. It argues that Nazis practiced an inward-looking and exclusionary type of charity that aimed at the salvation and protection of German people, not the alleviation and resolution of material problems. Nazi officials, who came to power with little experience or interest in social work or public welfare, drew on the traditional moral values of a middle class who often perceived the increasing visibility of poverty and destitution in modern Germany as a threat to bourgeois order. A new National Socialist conception of poverty, infused with moral- racial interpretations, became a central theme of Nazi propaganda and a call to action to animate German collective action to building an idealized and homogenous national community through initiatives like the Winter Help Aid. However, these charitable activities only served the purposes of the National Socialist government—to spread Nazi ideology, protect Nazi loyalists, and guarantee a Nazi future. These thinly veiled initiatives often created conflicts with the needy individuals, German donors, and social workers, all of whom had their own expectations about how poor relief should unfold and used charity as a mode to negotiate and renegotiate the contours of society under Nazi rule. This shifting notion of poverty would also come to serve as justification for Nazi imperial ambitions in Eastern Europe as well as shaping relief efforts once Allies began bombing the German home front. However, Nazi conceptions of poverty ultimately jeopardized the ability to respond effectively to new conditions of destitution wrought by total war. Consequently, needy civilians reevaluated once more their social values and the usefulness of Nazi ideals as the Third Reich crumbled to the ground. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………….……1 CHAPTER ONE—The Bekämpfung des Bettelunwesens: Making Enemies and Establishing Order, 1931-1933…………………………………………………………………………..……33 CHAPTER TWO—Community and Belonging: Collection Drives under Nazi Rule, 1933- 1939……………………………………………………………………………………..………..86 CHAPTER THREE—Defining Poverty: Ideology and Practices of German Social Work, 1932-1939………………………………………………………………………………………142 CHAPTER FOUR—“The First Act of the National Socialist Greater German Reich”: Welfare and Exclusion in Eastern Europe, 1939-1941………………………...……………186 CHAPTER FIVE—Destitution and Total War: Making Ends Meet at the End of World War II, 1942-1945………………………………………………………………..……………222 CONCLUSIONS—The Contradictions of Nazi Welfare………………………..………….284 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………….……………….293 VITA…………………………………………………………………………...………………313 1 INTRODUCTION The biting cold had already set in as fall in Vienna gave way to winter in 1909. For shoppers, commuters, and other among the crowds passing along the Ringstrasse, the cold proved a mild inconvenience as they carried on with their business. However, for Vienna’s homeless population, freezing winter temperatures presented a formidable obstacle to finding work or shelter. Wandering the streets looking for work became a perilous endeavor while huddling under a blanket to beg similarly provided no respite. Sleeping on park benches could be life-threatening, and many among Vienna’s homeless population sought any warm space available, even taking refuge below ground in the sewer tunnels.1 To be homeless during the Viennese winter meant more than suffering deep, bitter cold. It meant fighting for one’s wellbeing, dignity, and survival on the borders of society while much of the Viennese population looked the other way. In this winter of 1909, before World War II, before the Great Depression, and before the Nazi rise to power, one such man found himself homeless, shuffling between emergency shelters, warming halls, and soup kitchens, reliant on the meager support offered either by Viennese municipal authorities, local private charities, or small, solicited donations.