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This thesis analyses the uses of the concept of a Leistungsgesellschaft to explore the breaks and continuities in the transition from Third Reich to Federal Republic as well as within the post-war era. Between 1933 and 1975, the 'achieving society' and the concept of Leistung became ever more widely used and criticised. The individual in the National Socialist period was pressured to achieve in the name of a politically and racially defined commonweal, or risk exclusion from the national community. By contrast, the post-war period witnessed a shift as Ordoliberalism emphasised the individual opportunity a focus on performance in a competitive market generated. However, Ordoliberal theory had a limited impact on policy, also failing to overcome the tension between endorsing individual achievement and the developing welfare state. As part of an increasingly international debate, sociologists assessed how far the opportunities of the market actually extended and gauged the consequences of the Leistungsgesellschaft. These discussions show the active role of researchers in moulding a mental map of a highly advanced 'West'. At the same time, a pattern that coheres with the model of the 'long sixties' is also present in these debates. The increasingly critical tone adopted by sociologists predated and prepared the way for the more radical ideas of the New Left. By the mid-1960s, activists and academics were highlighting the repressive emotional and psychological consequences of stressing achievement, prompting conservative efforts to defend Leistung. On the whole, a gendered line of exclusion and a trend towards Verwissenschaftlichung are the most striking continuities between 1933 and 1975. Racialized understandings of achievement are reframed in the context of debates about the 'underdeveloped' states. The thesis as a whole paints a picture of an increasing individualisation of Leistung as well as growing focus on the pressures and problems inherent in endorsing achievement.

Existing studies of festivity in the Third Reich have focused on its role as an effective instrument of social integration and control; that is, festivals are interpreted either as a form of propaganda or as an outward manifestation of a secular religion. Such approaches, while advancing our understanding of public celebration in Nazi Germany, fail to take into account the festival experience as a form of popular culture that mediated between the complex forces binding state, economy, and society. Fundamental to this process was the role played by modern technology. In its efforts to involve all Germans in the public celebration of the 'national community', the NSDAP exploited the technical resources of the highly industrialized German state to such an extent that the modern world of technology came to redefine the context of popular festivity in the Third Reich. As an expression of forwardlooking nationalist aspirations, however, the Nazi version of the modern festival experience ultimately clashed with the diverse festival cultures already embedded in German society. The thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the formalization of festivity as a dynamic expression of a formalization ethnically and culturally pure society organized according to the nationalist military ethos of Nazism. Drawing on various public opinion reports gathered by Nazi and state agencies as well as the underground network of the exiled SPD, Chapters 2 and 5 reconstruct the popular response to Nazi attempts to extend organizational control into all areas of public celebration. Ranging from widespread enthusiasm to open dissent, the diversity of popular attitudes vis-a-vis Nazi festivity conforms to the image of a modern, pluralistic society, within whose public arena Germans selected or reJected aspects of festivity according to their individual political, social, economic and cultural needs. Traditional folk festivals as a form of consumer-oriented popular culture, and Nazi attempts to transform this cultural sphere, is the focus of chapter 3. Chapter 4 examines the functional appeal of the festival industry to a Nazi state determined to alleviate Depression conditions and thereby reinforce its legitimacy. The final chapter, extending many of these themes into the war period, argues that only in the context of a deteriorating war situation did the Nazi state attempt to institutionalize its 'totalitarian' form of social control with respect to the festival and ceremonial. At the same time, however, it suggests that the ultimate failure of an increasingly isolated Nazi administration to recast the culture of celebration and ceremony owed as much to the monumental success of the Nazi festival style before 1939 as it did to the severe restrictions on material and human resources and the declining public morale that accompanied the war. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The goal of this thesis is to find out if racial and antisemitic propaganda had an impact on Czech people. This goal was realised on antisemitic programmes which were aired in Český rozhlas during the years 1938- 1945. Then I made interviews with people who lived during Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia and who already participated on my previous research. The interviews helped to find out whether the antisemitic propaganda had any impact on the people and if it had, to what extent.

Jürgen Habermas is a preeminent European intellectual who was a German teenager during World War II. He was profoundly impacted by the devastation wrought by the Nazi regime and the social regression that it embodied. He dedicated his intellectual efforts to studying philosophy and developing a theoretical framework that demonstrates how collaboration and unimpeded dialogue are consistent with the promotion of human interest and how there exist quasi-transcendent protections against threats to modern social progress. This thesis explicates how the Third Reich, from Habermas's perspective, exemplifies violence to Habermas's model of communicative action and how we can learn to better protect it, thereby stimulating more healthy social development.

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This dissertation examines the roles played by Catholicism on the German Home Front during the Second World War. It analyses to what extent German Catholics supported their nation’s war effort, and how they sought to reconcile their religious convictions with Nazism and its conduct of the conflict. The thesis examines the oscillations of morale within the Catholic ‘milieu’ during the war years, and analyses its responses to German defeats from 1943 onwards. In addition to these overtly political themes, this dissertation analyses the social history of religion during this period. In order to focus its analysis on a manageable scale, this thesis focuses on the experiences and activities of Catholics from the Rhineland and Westphalia. Its concluding chapter uses its findings concerning Catholicism during the war years to revise current understandings of the formation of a conservative ‘restoration’ in West Germany after May 1945. Many existing works concerning German Catholicism during this period provide a monolithic portrayal of the confession’s internal coherence, and domination of its adherents’ political beliefs. This thesis, by contrast, argues that profound divides existed amongst German Catholics during the Second World War. Younger clergymen were frequently more sympathetic to völkisch nationalism than their older colleagues, and desired a more pro-Nazi stance from the German episcopate. The Catholic laity, moreover, was similarly often frustrated by the conservatism of episcopal Neo-Scholastic theology, and wanted sermons and pastoral letters that would endorse the German war effort in more unambiguous terms. The war years witnessed a complex negotiation of religious, political and national loyalties amongst Catholic communities, ensuring the thesis provides a nuanced picture of the confession’s place in German society during this period.

Thesis advisor: Devin Pendas / Ernst Juenger lived through almost the entire 20th century. This longevity has placed him at the center of many of the most defining moments of modern German history. It is not, however, simply his longevity but his attitudes that have caused such a controversy to grow up around him. A staunch nationalist and one might venture to say, war-monger, during the First World War and a virulent enemy of the Weimar Republic, many historians have classified him as a Nazi author. This thesis explores the relationsihp of Ernst Juenger to the National Socialists in the context of his writing and political leanings between the First World War and the end of the Second. Without understanding the integral differences between his ideology and that of the NSDAP (namely their divergence on the issues of racial purity, parliamentarianism, communism, the use of power, and the position of art)one cannot appreciate his place in history and his perspective on Germany. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2006. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: John Michalczyk / Although the National Socialists' ultimate intentions in regard to religion were concealed from the pubic under layers of political rhetoric, their objectives were nonetheless clear. The National Socialists sought the destruction of the Christian religion, whose teachings and values were seen as inimical to those of the State, and the establishment of a Reichskirche that would preach the doctrines of National Socialism. The German government during the Third Reich was a totalitarian regime, but there was one matter in which the Nazi Party did not have carte blanche, religion, which made it an intrinsic threat to the authority of the State. Many Nazi officials saw Christianity as the inherent and irreconcilable enemy of National Socialism, but they knew they risked losing the support of the German people if they instantly dissolved the Christian Churches. Instead of vehemently attacking the Christian confessions the way they did in Poland, in Germany the National Socialists set up a mirage of support for and acceptance of religious institutions, all while working to undermine the Christian tradition that they considered of greatest detriment and danger to their State. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

This thesis focuses on the concept of cultural national identity during the Third Reich and how the Nazis attempted to shape an image of Germany to their liking. By specifically examining musical culture and restrictions, this thesis investigates the methods the Nazis used to define Germany through music by determining what aspects of Germany’s culture were not “traditionally” German—namely those of the Jewish minority in Germany. Therefore, this study follows the Nazi restrictions on the German population who participated in the creation and performance of music and is then contrasted with those imposed upon the corresponding Jewish population. The resulting conclusion is that the Nazis created a place for exclusion and oppression, but managed to, ironically, create a place of refuge for Jewish musicians in the Third Reich. Music was, in the end, an unstoppable force which the Nazis could not control or fully regulate.