Hitler, for Example

Registers of National Socialist Exemplarity in Contemporary Germany

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2109263
AutoresNitzan Shoshan (0000-0002-8374-7614, El Colegio de México, autor de correspondencia)
Año2022
Volumen64
Número1
Páginas179-207
Fecha de publicación2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417521000438
OpenAlexW4200569600
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas33

This article examines whether and how the figure of Adolf Hitler in particular, and National Socialism more generally, operate as moral exemplars in today's Germany. In conversation with similar studies about Mosely in England, Franco in Spain, and Mussolini in Italy, it seeks to advance our comparative understanding of neofascism in Europe and beyond. In Germany, legal and discursive constraints limit what can be said about the Third Reich period, while even far-right nationalists often condemn Hitler, for either the Holocaust or his military failure. Here I revise the concept of moral exemplarity as elaborated by Caroline Humphry to argue that Hitler and National Socialism do nevertheless work as contemporary exemplars, in at least three fashions: negativity, substitution, and extension. First, they stand as the most extreme markers of negative exemplarity for broad publics that understand them as illustrations of absolute moral depravity. Second, while Hitler himself is widely unpopular, Führer-substitutes such as Rudolf Hess provide alternative figures that German nationalists admire and seek to emulate. Finally, by extension to the realm of the ordinary, National Socialism introduces a cast of exemplars in the figures of loving grandfathers or anonymous fallen soldiers. The moral values for which they stand, I show, appear to be particularly significant for young nationalists. An extended, more open-ended notion of exemplarity, I conclude, can offer important insights about the lingering afterlife of fascist figures in the moral life of European nationalists today

Aesthetics · Communism · Conversation · Denunciation · German · Nazi Germany · Nazism · Period (music) · Political science · Politics · Realm · Socialism · Sociology · European history and politics · German legal, social, and political studies · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Philosophy