Neues Volk

Neues Volk (German: [ˈnɔʏ.əs ˈfɔlk], New People) was the monthly publication of the Office of Racial Policy in Nazi Germany.[1] Founded by Walter Gross in 1933, it was a mass-market, illustrated magazine.[2] It aimed at a wide audience, achieving a circulation of 300,000.[1] It appeared in physicians' waiting rooms, libraries, and schools, as well as in private homes.[2]

Dr Walter Gross wearing a Nazi Party uniform of a Hauptstellenleiter in 1933.

Subject matter

Its subject matter was the "excellence" of the Aryan race and the "deficiencies" of Jews, Poles, and other groups.[1] Articles ranged from profiles of Mussolini, reports on Hitler Youth camps, and travel tips, but eugenic and racial propaganda continued throughout it.[3] The first six issues presented solely ethnic pride, before bringing up any topic on "undesirables."[4] In the next issue, one article presented the types of the "Criminal Jew" surrounded by images of the ideal Aryan, which generally predominated.[4] Such articles continued, showing such things as demographic charts showing the decline of farmland (with generous Aryan families) and deploring that the Jews were eradicating traditional German peasantry.[4]

It included articles defending eugenic sterilization.[5] Photographs of mentally incapacitated children were juxtaposed with those of healthy children.[4] It also presented images of ideal Aryan families[6] and ridiculed childless couples.[7] After the inception of the Nuremberg Laws, it urged that Germans show no sympathy for Jews and presented articles to show Jewish life still flourishing.[8] By the mid-1930s, it had doubled its pages and greatly increased its discussion of Jews.[9] Other articles described the conditions under which Hitler would be a child's godfather,[10] discussed the importance of giving children Germanic names, answered racial questions from readers—marriage between a Chinese man and a German woman was impossible, despite the woman's pregnancy, and they had seen to it that the man's residence permit was revoked, and even an infertile German woman cannot marry a half-Jew, but a Dutch woman, if she had neither Jewish nor colored blood, was acceptable—praised German farming in contrast to French, declared art was determined by racial world-views, and many other topics.[1] During the war, it published articles about how the foreign workers were welcome but sexual relations with Germans were prohibited.[1]

See also

• Nazi propaganda

Notes and references

1. "Neues Volk"
2. Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p. 117. ISBN 0-674-01172-4.
3. Koonz, p. 117-9.
4. Koonz, p. 119.
5. Rodenfels, H. (2007) [Published in German in May 1939]. "Frauen, die nicht Mutter werden dürfen" [Women Who May Not Be Allowed to become Mothers]. Neues Volk. Vol. 7. Translated by Bytwerk, Randall. pp. 16–21 – via German Propaganda Archive.
6. "Fascism and the Cult of the Nation"
7. Koonz, p. 117.
8. Koonz, p. 121.
9. Koonz, p. 198.
10. "The Führer as Godfather"