Understanding Nationalism in Nazi-Germany

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Sociology - Classics and Theoretical Directions, grade: 1,3, University of Southern Denmark, language: English, abstract: Theoretical understanding using Elias' 'The Germans', to construe a picture of Nationalism in Germany. Elias demonstrates a profound working knowledge of the mentality behind the atrocities of the National Socialist movement in Nazi Germany. His book The Germans (1996) mainly focuses on the historical foundation and social psychological processes of cause and effect to illustrate sociological reasoning behind, as well as after, the rise of Hitler. The main theme throughout this paper will be the concept of Nationalism; in this sense, a social as well as political ideology including the connotations associated with the term and how they have changed. This paper will attempt to explain the extremism behind Germany's nationalist mentality as well as create a neutral platform for the concept by observing different points of approach. For example, at the other end of the spectrum there exists Anderson's positive conception of nationalism through media and capitalism. In Imagined Communities (2001) he asserts that nationalism is a mental and cultural phenomenon necessary for functioning democracies, as well as political integration. The standards of national identity and what it means to develop and cultivate a believing population, have changed over the years by market economies, globalization, and capitalist enterprise today. Nationalism, still, takes the forefront of critique since the Holocaust even if in its simplest form, is a naturally occurring phenomenon.