Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists between Authenticity and Performance

by Timothy S. Brown

Exploring the gray zone of infiltration and subversion in which the Nazi and Communist parties sought to influence and undermine each other, this book offers a fresh perspective on the relationship between two defining ideologies of the twentieth century. The struggle between Fascism and Communism is situated within a broader conversation among right- and left-wing publicists, across the Youth Movement and in the “National Bolshevik” scene, thus revealing the existence of a discourse on revolutionary legitimacy fought according to a set of common assumptions about the qualities of the ideal revolutionary. Highlighting the importance of a masculine-militarist politics of youth revolt operative in both Marxist and anti-Marxist guises, Weimar Radicals forces us to re-think the fateful relationship between the two great ideological competitors of the Weimar Republic, while offering a challenging new interpretation of the distinctive radicalism of the interwar era.

Genres: History, Politics

225 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book Brown argues that both the Nazis and Communists in Weimar Germany adopted the symbols of the other in order to gain new adherents from a conflicted middle ground between the two (Spannungsfeld). This act of performance from the parties was opposed by many rank and file members and activists who in response sought and displayed "Authenticity", that is, a true reflection of their anti-authoritarian desires. In the end the Nazis were better able than the communists to offer a form of self expression, and upon their victory, their radicalism was constrained and transformed into a state-sanctiomed ideology. The idea of Nazism and communism as two disparate poles which attempted to influence, but did not control, a larger swell of capitalist discontents seemed to me highly convincing, as did accounts of the mass' opposition to the two parties.

Quotes:

1.
"The real importance of [the] mimetic element is that it suggests the way that in quoting each other, extremist movements played with a set of ideas and terms "socialism", "nationalism", "revolution" among others- that whatever their differing valence from situation to situation, made up part of a discourse that extended across organizational boundaries and allowed radicals of differing stripes to talk to each other." (4)

2.
"The staging that movements attempted to enact for their own followers became entwined with the mimetic staging that they enacted for the purposes of prosyletization or subversion of their competitor." (5)

3.
"Communist and Nazi parties [spoke] not just for the masses but literally in the voice of the masses, playing a heavily mediated version of grassroots populism back to the grassroots in an attempt not only to gain political influence and win adherents but also to bring together seemingly irreconcilable opposites: The spirit of revolt against the increasing bureaucratization and regimentation of daily life with the wideread longing for mass, collective solutions to these problems." (9)

4.
"The space between the two movements is to be seen less as an area of overlap than a space in which the two movements played with the meaning of symbols in an effort to win over militants and the masses." (149)

5.
"On both sides of the spectrum, there was a powerful tension between the authentic activist impulses of the rank and file- the "from below"- and the version of rank-and-file activism created "from above"." (150)

[ehk2 · Rating 1 out of 5]

crudely speaking, I see just another attempt to equate Communists with Nazis, i.e. as they both shared main parameters of the political culture of Weimar era. Chapter 4 is especially insulting with its highly use of very subjective/pejorative adjectives against KPD & communist movement -no matter how historically they pursued wrong tactics, resembled national socialists etc.

In the conclusion, author writes: "National Socialism and German Communism ... should not be seen as two sides of the same totaritarian coin -they were not the same; but both did pursue a mythological politics ... which meant that they possessed certain common characteristics ..." (p.151)

But throughout the book he implies the contrary, I think.