Oxford University Press
454 p., £ 85,00
ISBN: 9780198828969
Information on the website of Oxford University Press
(Series: Studies of the German Historical Institute, London)
Published: 15 November 2018
Nazism across Borders argues that Nazi social policies were part of transnational exchanges and processes. Beyond territorial conquest, the Nazis planned to export and internationalize their version of welfare, and promoted a new kind of internationalism, pitched as a superior alternative to its liberal and Communist contenders.
Since the late nineteenth century, the 'German social model' had established itself as a powerful route for escaping from the precarious conditions associated with wage work. The Nazis capitalized on this reputation, continuing some elements, but also added new measures, mainly to pursue their antisemitic, racist, and highly aggressive goals.
The contributions in this collection shed new light on the complex ways in which German and Nazi ideas were received and negotiated by non-German actors and groups around the world before the Second World War. Why were they interested in what was going on in Germany? To what extent did Nazi policies emulate programmes elsewhere (for example, in Fascist Italy), and where did they serve as role models? Nazi social policies, we argue, were a benchmark that societies as diverse as Japan, Norway, and the United States considered in making their own choices.
Nazism across Borders breaks new ground for the history of the Second World War and 'Hitler's empire' in Europe. How did the Nazis export their ideas when they finally occupied large swaths of the continent and what was the role of non-German actors? What were the links to the better-known stories of exploitation of lands, resources, and peoples?
Sandrine Kott and Kiran Klaus Patel: Fascist Internationalism: Nazi Social Policy as an Imperial Project—An Introduction
Part I. Paths of Internationalization
Sandrine Kott: Competing Internationalisms: The Third Reich and the International Labour Organization
Ulrike Schulz: The First Takeover: The Implementation of Social Policy Measures in Austria by the Reich Ministry of Labour after the Anschluss
Alexander Klimo: An Unhappy Return: German Pension Insurance Policy in Alsace
Radka Šustrová: A Dilemma of Change and Co-Operation: Labour and Social Policy in Bohemia and Moravia in the 1930s and 1940s
Part II. Allies and Models
Daniela Liebscher: Transferring Radicalization? Social Policy Exchanges between Fascism and National Socialism
Daniel Hedinger: The Axis at Work? Towards a Transnational History of Japan’s Social and Labour Policy in the 1930s and Early 1940s
Amélie Nuq: When Fascism Does Not Keep its Promises: The Ambivalent Relations of Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain in the Field of Social Policy
Mats Ingulstad: Under the Hard Law of War: Norwegian Social Reforms under German Influence
Alexander Korb: From the Balkans to Germany and Back: The Croatian Labour Service
Part III. Reception and Alternatives
Jill M. Jensen and Kiran Klaus Patel: Defining Alternatives: Nazi Social Policies and the New Deal
Ursula Prutsch: Labour Policy, Germanness, and Nazi Influence in Brazil
Part IV. Occupied Countries: Rejection and Hidden Implementation
Rasmus Mariager and Klaus Petersen: Danish Social Policy in the Shadow of Nazi Germany, 1933–1945
Marcel Boldorf and Hervé Joly: The Nazi Social Order Implemented? The Case of France
Kenneth Bertrams and Sabine Rudischhauser: German Ambitions and Belgian Expectations: Social Insurance and Industrial Relations in Occupied Belgium, 1940–1944