An ‘Indissoluble Community of Destiny’

Abstract

As a schoolboy, and then as a student during and after the First World War, Goebbels had grown up in a society where there was much talk of the Volksgemeinschaft, an idealized ‘people’s community’ where a sense of shared belonging would transcend class and confessional differences. When he became a political activist in the 1920s, this was a central ideal of the Nazi Party, and after 1933 Goebbels had the opportunity to play a leading role in the construction of the Volksgemeinschaft. Although his formal office as Propaganda Minister might suggest that he was involved directly only with presentation and with the manipulation of opinion, he used his position to intervene much more widely in the formation of policy. He also used his unique status as Hitler’s closest confidant to discuss the smallest details of domestic and foreign policy with him. Inevitably, as a minister and an internationally notorious public figure, his relationship with ordinary people had changed from that cultivated during the ‘years of struggle’. He shared Hitler’s increasing detachment, and together they developed illusions about their enemies and their supporters which often had little correspondence with reality.

Today a new state is being established, the unique feature of which is that it sees its foundation not in Christianity and not in a concept of state; rather it places its primary emphasis on the self-contained Volksgemeinschaft.

Hitler, speaking at the Ordensburg in Sonthofen, 23 November 1937.¹