Nazi persecution was not uniform and could be negotiated by the groups being targeted based on a number of factors including the racial status of the group being persecuted, the willingness of the group members to cooperate with the regime, the services and skills the group had to offer and the willingness of the regime to allow cooperation. The experience of Freemasons under the Third Reich provides an example of the ability of targeted groups to negotiate Nazi persecution based on these factors. As members of the educated and professional class, Freemasons belonged to the demographic that most strongly supported Hitler from the late 1920s until war's outbreak in 1939. For Hitler, the skills these men possessed as doctors, lawyers, businessmen and bankers were essential to the success of the regime. So what would have otherwise been a mutually beneficial relationship eagerly sought after by both parties was prevented by the fact that the men were Freemasons and thus had ties to an organization whose ideology stood in complete contrast to that of National Socialism. However, because the identifier "Freemason" was not one based on biology or race, Freemasons had the ability to shed their identity as Freemasons by leaving the regime, an ability that they willingly and eagerly exercised. In return, the Nazi Party had to decide to what extent former Freemasons, whose professional skills and talent were so essential, could be allowed to work with the regime. Thus began the complex dance of compromise as each side tested the limits of what it could and couldn't do in order to cooperate with the other. For former Freemasons, the goal was trying to prove loyalty to the regime in the face of their previous lodge membership. For the regime the goal was finding a balance between ideological purity and practical necessity. Though the Nazis destroyed Freemasonry as an institution, the success of former Freemasons in aligning with the party as individuals shows the ability of Germans, even those in targeted groups, to escape persecution and even benefit from the regime that had previously targeted them.

This thesis deals with the problem of determining the reasons behind the purge conducted by various high officials in the Nazi regime on June 30-July 2, 1934.

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Thesis--Catholic University of America. / Bibliography: p. 203-217.

When Sir Eric Phipps arrived in Paris in April 1937 to begin his duties as H.M. Ambassador at Paris, he had just completed four years service as HM Ambassador at Berlin where he had achieved a reputation as a staunch anti-Nazi and as an anti-appeaser. By the end of his tenure at Paris in October 1939, however, he was widely accused of being a "defeatist/appeaser" and his reputation has never recovered. When Phipps left Berlin, German military power was in its ascendancy. He arrived in Paris at the age of 62 when French military preparations were at their nadir and the Popular Front was disintegrating. These factors led him to support that French political faction which was opposed to a resolute French policy and which by inclination was not Anglophile. This put him out of step with, and open to criticism from, the Foreign Office. His consciousness of French economic, political and military weakness propelled Phipps into playing a role which French historians have termed that of "the English Governess" towards the French, pressing them into adopting British policies and interfering in their internal affairs. While this was within the general framework of his instructions from the Foreign Office, he pursued his conception of Chamberlain's appeasement policy with a zeal that seems to have been based on closer contact with the Prime Minister and his entourage rather than with his professional colleagues. From the Spring of 1939 onwards, Phipps adopted a firmer attitude towards Germany bringing him more into conformity with the new orientation of British policy. On instructions from London, he took advantage of divisions in the French Cabinet to support Bonnet in bringing pressure on Daladier to make concessions to Italy which brought him into increasingly direct contact with 10 Downing Street. At the onset of the war, Phipps was a resolute advocate of a total Anglo-French victory over Nazi Germany.

The intrinsic power and subtle influence of broadcasting is not readily recognized by the average consumer of mass media. This circumstance has an abusive potential for those wishing to use the electronic media for ulterior motives. Such was the case between 1933 and 1945 when the Nazis unleashed their manipulative mass media campaign that helped facilitate totalitarian control over the German people. This dissertation is the study of its radio component. Special emphasis is placed on the origins, construction, and subsequent implementation of Nazi broadcast rhetoric heard on domestic and short wave radio during the twelve-year period of the Third Reich. <br>In refusing the notion that a solitary critical perspective can be used in the creation of political consciousness and culture, I admit to using any theoretical insight or concept that sheds light on rhetorical efforts. In the practice of criticism, I believe this is the function of rhetorical theory. Therefore, the following selected theoretical methods are employed: <br>Crable’s theory of rhetoric as organization is shown as an appropriate means of describing the radio divisions within the bureaucratic Propaganda Ministry. <br>Bitzer’s work on the significance of the rhetorical situation is applied to the simple act of listening to finely crafted radio programming in Nazi Germany. <br>The speaker’s link between rhetoric and ideology is explained with McGee’s “ideograph” theory. <br>The construction of a new language suited to the goals of the Nazis is analyzed by examples of Burke’s unifiers and McGuire’s close textual work on Mein Kampf. <br>Marcuse divides the language into pragmatic and mythical layers, while the rhetoric and motivations of eight American “radio traitors,” who served as Nazi broadcasters, are investigated and tied into the overall propaganda scheme. The consequences of this inquiry indicate that the National Socialists, with Dr. Goebbels’ masterful propagandistic insights, tapped into the needs of a post-World War I German society and rebuilt a nationalistic spirit that unfortunately led to war and greater devastation than had been seen some three decades earlier. The new medium of radio, as a major source of information or mis-information, played no small part in this tragic outcome. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts / Communication and Rhetorical Studies / PhD / Dissertation

Thesis--Freiburg. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-210).