Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People's Community

This article argues that the concept of a national or peoples community (Volksgemeinschaft) was a key element in the revolutionary aims of the nazi regime, and illustrates the remarkably ambitious nature of its propaganda. Propaganda presented an image of society that had successfully manufactured a national community by transcending social and class divisiveness through a new ethnic unity based on true German values. But was there a gap between the claims trumpeted in nazi propaganda and social reality? The intention of this article is to reappraise the effectiveness (or otherwise) of Volksgemeinschaft by analysing the response from two sections of the community; the industrial working class and German youth.