Local and Regional Studies on Notional Socialism: A Review

Abstract

local and regional studies on National Socialism was Franz-Josef Heyen in an article published in 1960. He noted that most histories of German communities seemed to end with the first world war, or, at best, did little more than list the names of inhabitants who perished in Hitler's war. Indeed, judging from local histories, Heyen concluded that it would appear that National Socialism did not exist in German villages, cities, or districts, and even more astonishing, had no apparent impact on the daily lives of people. This appraisal of the available scholarship on National Socialism was generally shared by most specialists in the field and remained substantially the same during the 1960s, and, in some instances, the early 1970s.2 For almost two decades after the collapse of Hitler's Reich, scholars who attempted to study National Socialism on the local level faced several problems. Most of the local party records were destroyed by the nazis at the end of the war, and the remaining Central Party and police records were confiscated by the Allies. Among these captured German documents were numerous local and regional party histories which had been commissioned by nazi leaders during the 1930s, usually to commemorate 'ten-year' anniversaries of various local and district party organizations. Although these nazi publications were obviously designed to praise the 'accomplishments' of party leaders, they did include considerable factual information about local nazi personalities and activities.3 Finally, for obvious reasons, after 1945 many former nazis attempted to keep quiet about their previous political activities. The few scholarly local studies of National Socialism which appeared in the 1940s and 1950s dealt either with election results or specifically with the birthplace of nazism in Munich and Bavaria. The danger, of course, of focusing on Bavaria was to forget that National Socialism was