Once public health offices received a referral, they assigned the case to a physician certified in racial biology. One young woman, accompanied by her fiancé, entered the doctor’s office:

  The doctor read from my files and held it against me that my sisters had been in reform school and my mother had had a prior conviction, which I didn’t know. I was very embarrassed.… The doctor went from one room to another before he suddenly stopped in front of me and said something like, if 1 pound costs 7 pfennig, how much do 7 pounds cost? Very timidly I said 1.05 Mark. What! screamed the doctor; if ½ pound costs 15 pfennig, how much do seven cost. 70 pfennig I said quietly.

  Nothing better represented the revaluation of morality and health in the Third Reich than the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Damaged Offspring. Hitler himself imagined the sacrifice of his mother for the collective racial good. “At least three-quarters” of the questions, he noted, “would have defeated my own good mother. One I recall was: ‘Why does a ship made of steel float in the water?’ If this system had been introduced before my birth, I am pretty sure I would never have been born at all.”39

  If the consulting physician recommended sterilization, a three-person “sterilization court” issued a final, almost always concurring decision. Appeals could be made within a restricted period but were not usually granted. Almost one in ten candidates for sterilization had to be escorted to the clinics where the operation took place by police force. Faced with her own sterilization, the “schizophrenic” Emma P. objected, “Every person is also different like any other, and every case too.”40 There is no better antifascist statement.

  In rare cases, determined individuals obtained court orders that postponed the operation for years. The file of Flora S., a twenty-year-old shop girl who had been a patient in a state asylum in 1933, found its way to the district physician in the public health office of the Berlin district of Tempelhof, who diagnosed “manic depression” and recommended sterilization, particularly in light of the fact that Flora wanted to get married and her grandfather had committed suicide. Flora and her family responded with a long series of appeals, winning several deferrals of the operation, which was initially scheduled for August 1939, rescheduled for May 1944, and finally set for June 1945, by which time the Nazis had been defeated; “for Flora S. the thousand-year Reich was a twelve-year effort to avoid sterilization.”41 Flora was lucky, since most appeals were not granted and most operations not postponed. The thinking was, better one too many sterilizations than one too few.

  The idea that race was a fundamental way of being in history worked itself into daily life. The novelist Christa Wolf remembered the new “glitter words,” such as “normal,” “gene,” or “alien,” that lit up everyday vocabularies in the years after 1933.42 When the young high school student Lore Walb met her cousin Günther, they talked about “race,” which led to the topics of “blood” and “inheritance.” She admired his idealism and considered him a genuine comrade. In other situations, young people did not agree at all. Eberhard Gebensleben and his best friend, Carl-Heinz Zeitler, a medical student, went to the movies one Sunday morning. The feature was paired with “that ridiculous nationalist propaganda film that dealt with population issues.” Maybe it was the documentary featuring Goebbels’s children at the end or else any one of the other shorts advocating sterilization. On the way home, Eberhard and Carl-Heinz got into a “fierce argument” about race that destroyed their friendship. As adolescents in the 1920s, they had partnered up while handing out campaign literature for the German Nationalists, but the Third Reich divided them. By his own reckoning, Carl-Heinz remained true to ideas of “freedom” and “life,” and he could not bear to see Eberhard’s party pin or to think about “the German character” it stood for. Only much later would Eberhard reconsider race thinking after he fell in love with a Jewish Mischling during the war. “If only the 25% didn’t exist (the non-Aryan grandmother),” he sighed, for 25 percent was enough to put his entire career at risk. This was another sign of how central race was to daily life. (He was killed in action in Belgium in 1944; Zeitler emigrated to Switzerland, where he committed suicide after an unhappy homosexual love affair in 1956.43)

  In an age of genes, certificates of racial ancestry, and sterilization, Germans saw themselves in a new light. People made a hobby of tracking blood relatives all the way to 1800, as many as sixty-two lineal family members in all, just as prospective officers in the SS were required to do. They proudly unveiled their Sippe, or kin, for show and tell. Victor Klemperer tells the story of a friend, a schoolmaster who decided to retire early rather than join the Nazi Party. While boasting about the “youthful heroic feats” of his grandson, he mentioned the curious name Isbrand Wilderich, which Klemperer inquired about. “The answer was as follows, word for word: ‘In the seventeenth century it was the name of one of our kin [Sippe], who originally came from Holland.’” For Klemperer the “simple use of the word Sippe” indicated how National Socialism had infected even a pious, basically anti-Nazi Catholic. Enthusiasts went so far as to cultivate the genealogies of German dogs and to impose extra taxes on owners of mixed breeds.44

  Genealogy obsessed Franz Göll, the Berlin diarist. He had always been interested in degeneracy, which he saw in terms of his own darkened circumstances after his father’s death in 1915. He was familiar with the eugenic literature that sprouted around themes of love and sex after the turn of the century; he read naturalist novels about the material and biological influences of milieu such as Zola’s The Belly of Paris and Nana; and, after 1933, he expanded his reading list to include Göring, Hitler, and Karl Birnbaum’s 1935 study The World of the Mentally Ill. But the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Damaged Offspring, which was published on July 25, 1933, and headlined in the newspapers the next day, catapulted him into the busy work of genealogy. Just a few days later, Göll closely studied the “enfeebled mental constitution” of his mother’s family, the Liskows:

  Mother’s father was a mental weakling, someone who was not able to get what he wanted. As long as life flows uninterruptedly, there are no problems for such mental asthenics. But as soon as someone with asthenic mental constitution butts in, the trouble starts. My grandfather’s undoing came in the form of his son-in-law, the husband of his younger daughter, my uncle Carl Amboss. This person knew how to run around my grandfather, to string him along in order to achieve what was to his advantage. Too lazy to support himself and his family, my uncle let my grandfather support him. After failing, despite support, in all manner of professions (cook, dentist, barber, meat inspector), he threw in his lot and was able to get my grandfather to sign over his business to him. In this way, without putting in a penny, my uncle received a house with a grocery store and garden.… Thereafter, my grandfather, who was already a widower, lived in his own house as a barely tolerated tenant.… My grandfather let himself be robbed of his rights instead of taking his son-in-law and his family on as tenants in order to keep some sort of leverage. This shortsighted course of action, combined with his asthenic paralysis of will, this giving in to the encroachments of the outside world without any struggle, is typical of my grandfather’s family.45

  In July 1934, Franz prepared an even more detailed “hereditary biological study” of his uncle’s family, the Ambosses:

  The family produced 7 children, of whom one, a girl, died in infancy. In their physical and mental constitution, three of the remaining children (Martin, Gertrud, Kurt) show the influence of the Amboss, two (Helmut and Margarete †) have a streak of Liskow in them, and one child (Rudolf) is a mixed type (physically = Liskow, mentally = Amboss).

  The asthenic effect of the Ambosses is evident in the fact that Martin and Rudolf have made themselves economically independent (each renting or owning a tavern); Gertrud has made a magnificent match considering (Mrs. Captain Matthes), and Kurt is trying hard to make something of himself professionally. The other two children clearly show that they have inherited the weak mental streak of the Liskows. Helmut, who as a child suffered in silence, trained as a baker but is still only an assistant, that is, a wage earner without the prospects to make himself independent anytime soon. Mentally too weak to effectively resist the reality of the ongoing demands of life, Margarete committed suicide. Her motive: a broken heart.46

  Göll focused on weakness rather than strength; he did not see himself as a mighty Nazi. But by tracking down the particular pathologies of his own family, he worked with the same genetic propositions that enforced the National Socialist laws mandating sterilization. Indeed, he wondered whether he and his elderly mother were “unworthy.”

  With his reading program and copious scientific notes, Göll illustrated the sheer amount of paperwork that came with thinking about social life in biological terms. Officials published pages and pages comparing, contrasting, measuring, and calculating aspects of racial worthiness—the only thing they could not do was administer a test verifying who was “Aryan” and who was not, as the category had no scientific basis. People believed in or acted on something that did not exist. Germans filled out forms certifying “Aryan” ancestry as the price of employment, to maintain good standing in clubs and associations, to procure a marriage loan, to join the Hitler Youth or other party organizations, to enlist as a “soldier of labor” in the Reich Labor Service, and to serve in the Wehrmacht. (The racial vetting to secure a marriage loan, along with the prohibitions on redeeming the vouchers that came with the loan in department stores or Jewish shops, is a good example of how collective aims regarding race regulated new opportunities for personal prosperity.) The pieces of paper tacked up in the apartment building hallway in Berlin attested to the new ways they had to conduct their lives in accordance with the needs of the Volk. The paper trail made the material connection that Franz Göll had: “Germany must live, so that we don’t go under.” Paper created the case for blood and, with it, an understanding of the dangers the community faced and what was necessary to protect it.

  THE DEFENSE of the nation and the security of the Volk were increasingly regarded as the necessary means to achieve individual happiness—that the restoration of “normality” came with the racialized administration of life seemed to make sense to more and more Germans. Gradually, the unemployed returned to work. Business turnover increased; more beers were consumed. But, in many ways, Nazi Germany remained an impoverished country. The idea that German teenagers in the 1930s could afford a used car, be it for $50 or $100, as did Mickey Rooney in the 1940 film Andy Hardy’s Dilemma, was outlandish—only about 350,000 Germans took a driving test in each of the years of the mid-1930s; most people settled for a bicycle (there were 20 million bicycles in Germany in 1933, one for every three inhabitants).47 Germans earned about half of what their counterparts did in the United States. They spread more margarine on bread than butter. Today, the Third Reich, with a per capita income of around $4,500, would rank alongside Tunisia or Iran in economic development.48 But most Germans did not feel that they were confined to that reality; the year 1933 finally pointed the way forward. They cherished the promise of consumption, and the production and purchase of what were standard consumer items in the United States, such as cameras, vacuum cleaners, radios, telephones, and refrigerators, increased in the late 1930s. Nazi Germany was a society of “One Pot Sundays and perms,” concludes one historian; there was “coffee substitute and cinema.”49 The Third Reich advertised itself as the place where Germans could fulfill their personal dreams; the radio noise became less shrill and more fun, the collective marching died down, and May Day ceremonies soon revolved around the theme “Let yourselves enjoy life!”50

  In keeping with the idea of insiders and outsiders, there was the promise but also the prohibition. Not everyone in Germany was permitted to “enjoy life,” and small luxuries became big indicators of who was worthy in the Third Reich and who was not. The prerogatives of consumption were made completely clear in the expropriation of the things Jews in Germany owned in the years before they were deported. “With every car, every radio, every typewriter, every telephone, every camera, every iron” that Jews were required to hand over, the Nazis indicated what they believed “Germans” deserved and Jews did not.51 Such expropriation was also essential to other forms of exclusion. At the beginning of the war, decrees ordered Jews to turn over their radios to local authorities by September 23, 1939, so that the sets could be “secured” in a safe place (sicherstellen), and “excluded” Jews from listening to the radio altogether (Empfang, as in the prohibited Rundfunkempfang, means “reception” as well as “welcome,” and Jews were not welcomed).

  One of the most beloved consumer items was the radio—by transmitting public sounds into private spaces, radio gave people the feeling that they were participating in life. “Radioing,” you could switch stations, listen to music, hear foreign broadcasts, and follow live events. Although manufacturers sold battery-powered devices, electrification brought radios into German homes. Only 24 percent of Berlin households had been electrified in 1925; seven years later, in 1932, it was 72 percent.52

  Nazis and radios, which provided much of the noise accompanying the national revolution, came of age together. The notorious French fascist Robert Brasillach explained the ways in which radio collaborated with Hitler in 1933. The radio, the young writer observed, “had virtually waited for this year in order to spread itself everywhere.” In the preceding years, he recalled, “it was squeaky and temperamental.” With their unreliable sets, only the most patient listeners found themselves “engrossed in searching for a concert amid frightening gurgling noises.” But after 1933, “all was ready for us to tune into German stations in the evenings to hear that extraordinary National-Socialist election campaign, with its torrent of bells, drums and violins.” The elections set “the demons of music” loose.53

  The Nazis moved radio to the very center of the election campaign. The airwaves were completely dominated by speeches by Hitler, Göring, and other leading Nazis. The gigantic festivals that the National Socialists organized—the Day of the Awakening Nation on March 4, the Day of Potsdam on March 21, and the Day of National Labor on May 1—hit a dramatic high note with live radio broadcasts of big speeches. Through the radio, people came to feel that they were participating in events. The techniques Nazi broadcasters perfected enhanced the eventfulness of the broadcasts: introductions set the scene, as had those by Goebbels during Hitler’s election campaign in February and March 1933 (in the people’s vernacular, the radio was known as “Goebbels’s snout”), but otherwise the thinking was that “the sounds and speeches of the event should speak for themselves.” Microphones picked up the background noise of rallies, the singing and chanting in order to build up the sense of restless expectation, and the cheers that interrupted Hitler’s speeches to convey the mood of national acclamation. Reporters bent down low so that the radio broadcast only the rhythmic scuff of boots marching in the streets.54 Live broadcasts had a much greater impact on listeners than newspaper reports published the next day, and people tended to believe the radio more than the newspaper because it seemed more immediate and unedited—the “real thing.” Since events seemed to “speak for themselves,” broadcasts gained in authority. Radio broadcasts in a room also invited listening in a way that newspapers on a table did not invite reading. Goebbels himself credited the “much more intensive public management,” or Volksführung, that radio had made possible with the “vehemence and speed” with which the National Socialist revolution had established itself.55

  Even those who hated the Nazis often gained their strongest impressions from broadcasts. Listening to Hitler on the radio, writer René Schickele felt “the same fear I had as a child when I would encounter the big dog.” “Anschluss! Heil Hitler. Anschluss”—thirteen-year-old Jacques Lusseyran turned the dial and stumbled upon Radio Vienna in March 1938: he heard the “music and voices aimed at you point-bank like loaded pistols.” Although blind, Lusseyran believed he could make out “the face of the murderers.”56

  To facilitate participation in the people’s community, the Nazis put extraordinary effort into making affordable radios available to the public. In what it touted as the triumph of “socialism of the deed” over “private capitalism” and “economic liberalism,” Goebbels’s newly established Propaganda Ministry—there were people who simply called it the “Advertising” Ministry—pressured a consortium of radio manufacturers to design and produce a “people’s radio,” or Volksempfänger, for the mass market. Launched in September 1933, the VE 301—the 301 stood for the red-letter date January 30—was an instant success at seventy-six marks; 1.5 million sets were sold, many of them on installment plans, in the first two years, 1933 and 1934. This was the case because a radio was an entertaining thing to have, but also because many Germans wanted to hear Hitler and the sounds of the Third Reich. Statistics indicate that one-half of the new radio subscribers in 1933 and fully two-thirds in 1934 could be attributed to the availability of the inexpensive people’s radio. If one in four households owned radios in 1933, more than one in two did in 1939. Radios moved into living rooms and kitchens, sometimes paired with a framed photograph of Hitler, as depicted in Paul Mathias Padua’s iconic 1940 painting, The Führer Speaks, in which three generations of a family assemble around a plain wooden table under a radio and Hitler’s portrait. Both the price of the sets and the monthly fee kept poorer Germans, especially in rural areas, from making the big-ticket purchase, but in cities almost everyone had a radio.57

 

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