Völkisch movement
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The völkisch movement is the German interpretation of the Populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic." The term völkisch derives from the German word Volk, corresponding to people or nation, with connotations in German of "people-powered," "folksy," "folkloric," and "populist."
The völkisch movement had its origins in Romantic nationalism, as it was expressed by early Romantics such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte in his Addresses to the German Nation published during the Napoleonic Wars, from 1808 onwards, especially the eighth address, "“What is a Volk, in the higher sense of the term, and what is love of the fatherland?”, where he answered his question, as to what could warrant the noble individual's striving "and his belief in the eternity and the immortality of his work," that it could only be that "particular spiritual nature of the human environment out of which he himself, with all of his thought and action... has arisen, namely the people from which he is descended and among which he has been formed and grown into that which he is" [1].
The movement combined sentimental patriotic interest in German folklore, local history and a "back-to-the-land," anti-urban Populism with many parallels in the writings of William Morris. The dream was for a self-sufficient life lived with a mystical relation to the land; it was a reaction to the cultural alienation of the Industrial revolution. Similar feelings were expressed in the US during the 1930s by the writers grouped as the Southern Agrarians.
In addition, the völkisch movement as it evolved, sometimes combined the arcane and esoteric aspects of folkloric occultism, alongside "racial adoration" and in some circles, a type of anti-Semitism linked to ethnic nationalism. The ideas of völkisch movements also included anti-communist, anti-immigration, anti-capitalist, and anti-Parliamentarian principles. Their ideologies were influential in the development of Nazism. Indeed, Joseph Goebbels publicly asserted in the 1927 Nuremberg rally that if the Populist (völkisch) movement had understood power and how to bring thousands out in the streets, it would have gained political power on 9 November 1918 (failed Communist revolution, end of the German monarchy)[2].
A number of the völkisch-Populist movements that had developed during the late 19th century in the German Empire, under the impress of National Romanticism, were reorganized along propagandistic lines after the German defeat in World War I, as the word "the People" (Volk) became increasingly politicized as a flag for new forms of ethnic nationalism.
Yet at the same time, Volk was also used by the international Socialist parties in the German lands as a synonym for the Proletariat. Indeed the Leftist political press popularized folk-culture, such as folk music, black-letter calligraphy, runes, and Medieval myths and legends, much in the same way that the American Left popularized folk-singing, ballads, and organic farming in the 1960's.
From the Left, elements of the folk-culture spread to the parties of the middle-classes. But whereas Volk could mean Proletariat among the Left, it meant more particularly Race among the center and Right. The secret society called the Teutonic Order or the German Order, was founded in Berlin in 1912 by Theodor Fritsch, Hermann Pohl, and Philipp Stauff as a splinter group formed from the Masonic Germanische Glaubensgemeinschaft ("Community for Germanic Beliefs"), which was founded in 1907 by Professor Ludwig Fahrenkrog of Bremen. This branch of the Völkisch movement quickly developed a hyper-nationalist sentiment and anti-Semitism, then rising throughout the Western world. As was becoming increasingly typical of Völkisch organizations, it required its candidates to prove that they had no non-Aryan bloodlines and required each to promise to maintain purity of his stock in marriage. Local groups of the sect met to celebrate the summer solstice, an important neopagan festivity in Völkisch circles and later in Nazi Germany, and more regularly to read the Eddas as well as some of the German mystics [3].
Another Völkisch society, the Thule-Gesellschaft (Thule Society), was founded August 17, 1918, by Rudolf von Sebottendorff. Its original name was Studiengruppe für Germanisches Altertum (Study Group for Germanic Antiquity), but it soon started to disseminate anti-republican and anti-Semitic propaganda. The Thule Society was instrumental in the foundation of the Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei (German Workers' Party, or DAP) which later became the NSDAP (Nazi Party). It had members from the top echelons of the party, including Rudolf Hess and Alfred Rosenberg, though not Adolf Hitler (he was a visiting brother). Its press organ was the Münchener Beobachter (Munich Observer) which later became the Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer). Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf (My Struggle) "the basic ideas of the National-Socialist movement are populist (völkisch) and the populist (völkisch) ideas are National-Socialist."
Another völkisch movement of the same time was the Tatkreis.
Not all folkloric societies with connections to Romantic nationalism were Germanic: contemporary folkloric communities in Italy, such as those of Monte Verita in Ascona, embraced a mix of anarchism, libertarian communism and various forms of artistic bohemianism and neo-paganism.
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- Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas The Occult Roots of Nazism; Secret Aryan Cults and their influence on Nazi Ideology, New York, New York University Press, 1985, 1992.
- E. Kurlander, "The Rise of Völkisch-Nationalism and the Decline of German Liberalism: A Comparison of Liberal Political Cultures in Schleswig-Holstein and Silesia 1912–1924," in European Review of History vol. 9.1 (January 2002) pp. 23-36 Abstract.
- Mosse, George L. The Crisis of German Ideology : Intellectual Origins Of The Third Reich, New York : Grosset & Dunlap, 1964.
- Stern, Fritz The Politics Of Cultural Despair; A Study In The Rise Of The Germanic Ideology, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1961, 1963.de:Völkische Bewegung
