Creating the Nazi Marketplace by Wiesen

Author:Wiesen [Unknown]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780511988097
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2015-10-19T16:00:00+00:00

Confronting the United States

Thus far we have seen how Rotarians attempted to understand elite and mass culture in the distinct setting of Third Reich and how their thinking converged with the Nazis’ own understanding of commercial relations. While they addressed international developments in mass marketing and consumption, their discourses reflected the hopes and fears that accompanied the onset of Nazi rule. But in the Third Reich, Rotary was not only in dialogue with its own political surroundings. As Rotarians looked for ways of understanding mass consumption, it was inevitable that they would turn to the spiritual home of their movement, the United States. Already in the Weimar years, Rotarians and other business elites’ relationship to the United States was marked by an ambivalence. They derived inspiration from America as the paradigm of consumer capitalism and business sociability, but they questioned the ability of the American model to function in Germany. For intellectual and business leaders, the United States had the allure of democracy and the vibrancy of a modern, pulsating industrial society. But it also represented a cultural wasteland, pandering to the lowest common denominator through its mass media.64 Regardless of these criticisms, America was the trend setter in most forms of production and commerce – Fordism, Taylorism, advertising, and public relations. The American economy was the site of much curiosity among Weimar elites, who often traveled to factories in the United States to witness firsthand the changes taking place in American industry.65

This obsession with the United States did not end upon the Nazi seizure of power.66 Hitler may have diverted Germany from “American” models of political democracy and consumer capitalism, but the United States remained a point of orientation for German elites after 1933. During the Third Reich, Rotarians devoted some of their weekly lectures to discussions of American history, society, and culture. H. E. Steche, a factory owner and member of RC Leipzig, lectured in 1936 about the American Civil War, proclaiming that President Abraham Lincoln and General Robert E. Lee reminded him of Hitler in their decisiveness. But he also contrasted the Americans’ altruistic desire to reconstruct the postbellum South with the shabby treatment Germany had received after World War I.67 More common were lectures about Paul Harris, the father of the Rotary movement and its symbolic leader. Since his retirement as president of RI in 1912, Harris had remained active in the movement, lecturing about world peace and international brotherhood. He visited Germany in the summer of 1932, where he attended several club meetings and participated in a “friendship tree” planting in Berlin. Rotarians in Germany revered Harris as their patron saint, albeit not without an (unfounded) concern in the Nazi Party and among closely associated clubs that the Rotary founder had “Jewish ancestry.”68

Because of the Nazi Party’s complicated views of the United States – as economic inspiration and competitor – Rotarians toed a careful line in their lunchtime reflections about America. On the one hand, they praised Franklin Roosevelt for his activism and his capabilities as a “führer.

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