Community's Discontent: The Ideology of the Volk Community in National Socialism

Abstract

National Socialism, the German type of fascism, is analysed in this article with respect to the question of its ideological foundations, the ideology of the Volk community, and its consequences for a relevant type of social practice, Volk welfare. Under National Socialism the form of state social work intervention was transformed. The German welfare state became an educational state. Social education, which encompassed social work, was a system geared to complete social control through the establishment and maintenance of the ’Volk community’. The ’Volk community’ was a social policy which combined welfare and repression – sometimes in a murderous way – as the means of achieving the social organisation of everyday life. The way in which the ’Volk community’ shaped individual consciousness and constructed social relations is elaborated and demonstrates the extent to which the eugenics and racism embedded in this ideology were central to all social institutions, including ’Volk welfare’.