著者

田野 大輔

出版者

社会学研究会

雑誌

ソシオロジ (ISSN:05841380)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.40, no.2, pp.39-78,173, 1995-05-31 (Released:2017-02-15)

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The political culture of the Third Reich was mainly characterized by the body image of the masculine 'Arbeiter' (worker) , which was represented in many sculptures and paintings. This article examines the Nazi politics concerning this image, to show how it transformed the German working class into the modern workers. The policies of the regime were directed chiefly toward the working class, the social dynamics of National Socialism. The Nazis identified themselves with workers and created a self-image of the heroic and virile worker - the figure of the 'Arbeiter'.This figure had its origin in Socialist iconography and, in fact, there was a certain similarity between activities of the SA and the Communist. In other words, the Nazi seizure of power meant the rise of workers to the public. However, Hitler was not plotting to overthrow the bourgeois public in favor of the working class. The purge of SA leader Rohm and the following rise of SS rather suggest that the Nazi politics aimed at fusing the bodies of bourgeois and workers into a disciplined 'Arbeiter'. To be brief, National Socialism intended to equalize and control the entire nation, so as to make it 'Arbeiter'. The main agency of these policies was the 'DAF' (German Labor Front). This organization actually represented workers' demand and developed 'modern' social policies, which oriented to equality and performance. And these policies, such as the 'Kraft durch Freude' (Strength Through Joy) , the 'Schonheit der Arbeit' (Beauty of Labor) and the 'Reichsberufswettkampf' (Reich Vocational Contest) , would lead to the postwar welfare state. Finally, this article interprets the figure of the 'Arbeiter' in this context. The figure represented the body of great vitality and, at the same time, the power which domesticates it. There existed the Nazi intention of disciplining workers and transforming them into the productive capacity of the regime. In this sense, this figure meant the standard for selection of workers. I conclude that the masculine body of the 'Arbeiter' can be interpreted, in spite of the reactionary ideology, as a metaphor of the 'modern' workers that were coming into existence during the Nazi era, the workers of equality and performance.