5, 6, 7 July 37
I. The role of the superstructure.
You learn nothing if you only listen to the ideology of the leaders. But you also learn nothing if do not pay attention to it at all and turn your back on things altogether. (Petit bourgeois paradise (…) see Horkheimer)*
In the long run it is about what happens in the sphere of the superstructure.
II. Core leadership of National Socialism and Fascism only seen sociologically. On the concept of the adventurer. His mentality. (Power:)1
III. The situation, seen sociologically: (democratic character has not been able to establish itself).
Post war:
Class struggle: the semblance of democracy, capitalism stronger than denatured socialism. Most important situational factor: the rigidity {Fixiertheit}, the mass-mobilizing idea in heterogeneous parties.† Nothing in-between. Socialism as the mass-mobilizing idea kat exochen {par excellence} in the possession of the SPD and KPD.
IV. Objectives of Fascism and National Socialism:
Not socialism, not capitalism, but class peace, i.e. taking the status quo in hand as it is. (Trustees!) For the purpose of national power (= imperialist monopoly capitalism). Therefore: not classlessness but the appearance of classlessness.
Hitler says: Only when the nation is in power can the worker thrive. The following overarching motif {Motivik} is true: Only when the working people are satisfied, will National Socialist power succeed.
V. The necessity to mobilize, to convince the masses, does not yet follow from this. One could. In Italy force sits first on the bayonet. But, on the other hand, war experience and experience with people shows the objectives of socialist propaganda. Therefore, one must already use the mass-mobilizing ideas.
Task: Go to the masses! i.e. prise the mass-mobilizing ideas away from their foundation: “Nation,” “Socialism.” These ideas accepted like images {Bilder}, not analyzed. Thus: entrenched mass-mobilizing ideas are set in motion and become more fluid: this is propaganda in the sense of counterreformation. Task of Fascist propaganda, which corresponds to a particular historical situation.
VI. Given the image-like manner {Bildhaftigkeit} with which “Socialism” is understood, and given the necessity of propaganda, it follows for the character of the latter that:
1) it means the same as its regressus, i.e., anti-liberal, anti-Marxist (Roman Orion for regressus of course dialectical)2
2) it must lay claim to totality (in every sense: uniformity, not a single impulse left to itself)
3) its criterion is not coherence, but only success, for this reason it seeks to adapt successfully to every situation. (Controlling the basis: people or state) Therefore Fascism defined as a “movement.” Actualism {Aktualismus} (…) with ambivalence fixed or resolutions: ruling class, property (…) therefore, in addition: deceit and cynicism (removes also the regressus).* Propaganda as art (National Socialist propaganda = the influence of opinion as such)
VII. How can Fascist propaganda be implemented? Begin here by studying (in the period of the conquest of power) the pre-existing susceptibility for it in the social body. Schema of propaganda: nation—socialism—promise of happiness. Crisis creates work in many places.
Distinguish especially middle classes / unemployed / youth.
Conclusion: of this section: the inclusion of individual social strata {Schichten} is not decisive—what we are dealing with here is also a petit-bourgeois movement. But the most essential task of this propaganda is precisely the dissolution of social strata, the total influence of opinion itself. So, again: How can Fascist propaganda be implemented?
VIII. The use of force {Gewalt}, more precisely: of terror. For Mussolini’s Arditi, very characteristic that Hitler views the SPD as terror.3
1) Force as regression
2) Force strengthens the semblance, makes it real;
Here: Terror is always exercised by the superior power: not out of cowardice, but because otherwise there would be no successful ignition.
Terror is denied, because taboo.
Terror integrates into the regime: its function: to create fear. The constant pressure of fear—decisive condition of the liquidation of all concepts and their largely arbitrary implementation. [Preceded by:] Fear = hysteria.
IX. The means of changing human beings to increase their receptivity. The artificial production of the mass, in which individuals find themselves in a hypnotic state.
Hitler on this: a classic of mass technique
The art of mass images {Massenbildkunst}
[Preceded by:] Stupefication {Betäubung}! The speech! Radio
(The lack of culture proves that it is not about the people. Nothing blossoms here)
[Preceded by:] Here also: aesthetic effect.
“Mass” in the socialist sense.
Concluding formulation: In the space staked out by terror, concepts are set in motion on the debris of concepts. In order to be injected into the masses in the appropriate manner …
X. The functioning of propaganda: propaganda is not an incidental aspect of the regime but intrinsic to it.4 After the seizure of power, it really takes hold, since the antagonistic play of social forces is by no means eliminated; {this antagonism} must therefore be continuously concealed lest it run riot and explode “classlessness.”
Fact: that the Fascism of the ruling class is different.
That it—pro gress*—realizes the neutral economy.
Contradictions:
Autocracy—export necessity
Family—state youth
Church—Volk/leader
Worker—Entrepreneur
[Like] a motorized troop, the propaganda wave is sent everywhere, where cracks are to be plastered over. Main motif of propaganda: never leave the people alone!
Important! Contradictions in the propaganda itself, but these generate shocks and fear—are therefore useful.
Chaos ensues, since no one knows what is propaganda and what action. Who serves whom? [Line added here to refer to:] Meyrowitz†
a) National Socialism used to oppose the relativism of science. Today science opposes the relativization of National Socialism. (But a bourgeois consciousness is forming)
b) Class is released from caste
c) Capital must make sacrifices in order to preserve itself [preceded by:] 9th July.
d) Against everything that the world contains: thus, against churches, against monisms.
e) Crimes against morality {Sittlichkeitsverbrechen}. Discontinued after a series of trials, since eroticism was not effective, and continued with new series of criminal trials for treason.
Translated by Bernadette Boyle, Graeme Gilloch, and Jaeho Kang
NOTES
1. [There follow after “Power” {Macht} a number of symbols that cannot be deciphered with certainty.]
2. [Römischer Orion für Regressus natürlich dialektisch: uncertain reading.]
3. [ansieht: uncertain reading.]
4. [abgewandtes {incidental}: uncertain reading.]
* {Kracauer’s reference to Horkheimer here demonstrates that his interest in Horkheimer’s analysis of the sociohistorical roots and social psychological mechanisms of authoritarianism in modern capitalist societies was genuine, not merely perfunctory.}
† {Kracauer is describing a shift in party affiliation in the latter half of the Weimar Republic, which has been documented by more recent historians of the period. In the early and especially the middle phase of the Weimar Republic, the party system became very fragmented and based on narrow self-interest. The Nazis succeeded in getting many people to abandon these parties and to join a populist “Volkspartei” that overcome this fragmentation and rigidity. See, for example, Peter Fritzsche, Germans Into Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 172–214.}
* {The meaning of some of these fragments is unclear in the original German. In such cases we provide a literal translation.}
* {Space in “pro gress” here is present in the original text.}
† {Kracauer is probably referring here to Henri Meyrowitz, who was born in Darmstadt in 1909, studied law at the University of Frankfurt, and moved to Paris in 1933. He was the author of numerous books and articles on the law of armed conflicts.}