Understanding Nationalism in Nazi-Germany

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Sociology - General and Theoretical Directions grade: 13 University of Southern Denmark language: English abstract: Theoretical understanding using Elias' The Germans to construe a picture of Nationalism in Germany.Elias demonstrates a profound working knowledge of the mentality behind the atrocities of the National Socialist movement in Nazi Germany. His book The Germans (1996) mainly focuses on the historical foundation and social psychological processes of cause and effect to illustrate sociological reasoning behind as well as after the rise of Hitler. The main theme throughout this paper will be the concept of Nationalism; in this sense a social as well as political ideology including the connotations associated with the term and how they have changed. This paper will attempt to explain the extremism behind Germany's nationalist mentality as well as create a neutral platform for the concept by observing different points of approach. For example at the other end of the spectrum there exists Anderson's positive conception of nationalism through media and capitalism. In Imagined Communities (2001) he asserts that nationalism is a mental and cultural phenomenon necessary for functioning democracies as well as political integration. The standards of national identity and what it means to develop and cultivate a believing population have changed over the years by market economies globalization and capitalist enterprise today. Nationalism still takes the forefront of critique since the Holocaust even if in its simplest form is a naturally occurring phenomenon.