The Nazi Conscience

By Stefan Isaksson

The Nazi Conscience
Claudia Koonz
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
362 pages
ISBN: 0674018427

Claudia Koonz, Professor of History at Duke University, has written what in my eyes is likely to be one of the very best books ever written about Nazi ideology in general and the hatred of the Jews in particular. It’s an amazing read, packed with information, pictures of Nazi propaganda, extensive sources, and a text that is eerie, fascinating, and very, VERY instructive.

It’s hard, to a certain extent even impossible, to understand how Hitler and his National Socialism managed to rise to such enormous power and popularity, and it’s probably safe to say that a large number of people in today’s world don’t ‘know how widespread and well planned the Nazi ideology really was in Germany during the height of its popularity. But this is just what Koonz wants to explain with her book, and she definitely doesn’t fail in describing the rise of Nazi power, how the people chose to embrace it, and how the “Jewish menace” came to be an accepted fact among large segments of the population.

It doesn’t matter if one, quite understandably, hates the Nazi ideology and everything it resulted in; one still cannot deny the fact that the systematic indoctrination and the power of Hitler’s speeches was quite impressive considering what the results were. And that’s just as true today as it was back then, since during the 1930s when the Nazis really came to power, many Europeans “looked on from neighboring countries with envy even if they deplored the Nazi state” (p.163).

But how could it happen? That’s a question that’s been asked millions of times by millions of people, but if you read Koonz’ book the whole thing will without a doubt become at least somewhat more understandable, thanks to examples as this one about the bizarre hatred of the Jews, taken from a chapter about the creation of the ultimate SS man:

”By conjuring up an image of the Jewish enemy as both morally debauched and deviously intelligent instructors presented racial persecution as rational self-defense, not emotional prejudice” (p.243)

Discussions and details about Hitler appear from time to time, obviously, but the greater part of the text is not about him. The Nazi Conscience is not a biography about Hitler; its more a biography about the German people, and even though the man behind it all only appears from time to time, I still haven’t ever read a book that taught me more about Nazism and its power of attraction than The Nazi Conscience did.

Now, there’s a factor that often appears when you read well-written books about Nazism and Nazi ideology, and this factor is just as frightening as it is fascinating: You understand them. You understand the Nazis, and you realize that they were people, too, even though their particular worldview was quite different to the one that most people have today.

This understanding easily leads to another insight, namely the fact that one has to accept the fact that one self could very likely have ended up being a devoted Nazi is one had grown up in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, no matter how well-educated and rational one happens to be.

A realization like this one can really mess with your head. I know it did to me. It’s not a very pleasant thing; this understanding of the Nazi universe, but it’s an extremely important one. Because only when you realize who the Nazis were, how they thought, and why they turned out to be the vicious killers that many of them were; then and only then can you begin to understand them.