Hitler, for Example

Registers of National Socialist Exemplarity in Contemporary Germany

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2109263
AutoresNitzan Shoshan (0000-0002-8374-7614, El Colegio de México, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume64
Fascículo1
Páginas179-207
Data de publicação2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417521000438
OpenAlexW4200569600
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências 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