There are no doubts, no suspicion at the coarse and hysterical tone of the dispatches, no hint that they may be inexact or false. No, these things are part of the everyday world of the Nazis, like the Blockwart, the swastika, the signs reading “No Jews allowed.” They add up to an atmosphere that is torture, a fuming poison for a free-born human being.
The German child breathes this air. There is no other condition wherever Nazis are in power; and here in Germany they do rule everywhere, and their supremacy over the German child, as he learns and eats, marches, grows up, breathes, is complete.
But, past the general influence of Nazi atmosphere, three special influences in the Reich determine the life of the child: the intimate circle of the family, the school, and the Hitler youth organizations.
THE FAMILY
T HE TWO SLOGANS BEST used between 1919 and 1933 by the rising National Socialist movement were: “With the help of National Socialism we shall rescue religion from the threat of Bolshevism!” and “With the help of National Socialism we shall rescue the family from Bolshevism, which is trying to destroy it!”
They struck home in Germany, appealing as they did to two prime concepts. Even at the outset, National Socialism knew very well what it was about when it frightened the great bulk of the German middle class with the warning that Bolshevism would destroy religion, and so annul all the rights of conscience; that it would tear the family apart and offer up its members to an all-powerful government; that it would deify this monster State in place of religion. The middle-class German, traditionally a religious family-man, listened with horror to all of this. Shopkeeper, caretaker’s wife, married office girl, and well-brought-up society woman — they all agreed to support the National Socialists who desired to protect religion and the family, and who ought to be strengthened in their work.
Hans Schlemm, who in 1933 became Bavarian Minister of Education, published a challenging pamphlet two years before Hitler made himself Chancellor. He called it Mother or Comrade. Here were all the praises of the family as a unit, its rights under the state, and the individual rights of “millions of separate personalities.” And he condemned the “completely automatic, mechanically-functioning ‘mass-apparatus.’ ”
Today we regard with historical curiosity the eagerness of the man, denouncing as “Bolshevistic” the plans and ideas about to be realized in Germany by the National Socialists who later made him their Minister of State. We may replace the emblems with ‘swastika” in this passage by Schlemm, who wrote under the heading “Religion — Family”: “Brutal measures initiated this struggle [against religion]…. The cross and pictures of saints were replaced by the Soviet star, the red flag, the hammer and the sickle…” and we have an accurate picture of the daily battle against religion in Germany. “Of course,” Schlemm continues, “it is impossible to survey the process of destruction to which the family is subjected. But the family as an institution cannot be destroyed until the citadel has been razed which protects that precious jewel: the strong walls of prayer, of faith in God…. On a road of stifled prayers, Bolshevism beat its way into the life-center of the people — the family.”
Again, all we have to do is replace “Bolshevism” with “National Socialism” to have a fairly exact picture. The Nazis recognized, to their own use, that the ideology of the German citizen was fixed by two concepts: “fear of God,” and “family.” Both of these had to be attacked if either one was to be destroyed.
“It is not merely a matter of economical, financial, technical or political measures… or the socialization of goods… oh, no, it is a matter of human dignity as such. The question is this: shall free human beings be transformed into a horde of slaves?”