Mosse analyzed the movement in pre-WWII Germany for a "third force": an alternative to both the greatly failed parliamentary capitalism of Weimar Germany and the heartless Marxism that already was showing a willingness to sacrifice means for ends. Those who considered themselves a "third force" included both left-wing intellectuals and adoptees of National Socialism. Both groups found appeal in the idea of a "Volk" - a metaphysical entity expressing the German national character, or, people who were "genuine" and "spiritual" instead of the alienated, rootless materialistic worker of the interwar period. They romanticized the past, when Germany, they believed, was rooted in the soil, family life was solid and enduring, and there was, therefore, an ethical basis to the community. Youth groups, or Bunds, with a somewhat similar orientation to American youths of the 1960's, captured the imagination of Jews as well as non-Jews in sentiments celebrating the love of nature and the idea that we are God and God is us. The Jews, however, were soon excluded: "Volkish thought moved in stereotypes," Mosse observed, noting that the image of the Jew provided a foil for the Volkish mythos: the Jew was said to be souless, materialistic, rootless, superficial, and immoral. Moreover, attacking the Jews provided governments with an escape valve from serious social and political problems.

Mosse posits a large pent-up store of violence in intrawar society: not only was there a blunting of the reaction to death from the incredible carnage of the first war, but also a vast number of "vertical invaders" (per Ortega y Gasset): (thousands of men and women who were injected into the political scene as a result of the industrial revolution) who longed for stability, traditions, and scapegoats to compensate for their own powerlessness. A heirarchy of race rather than economic success allowed the many losers in society to feel good again, even superior.

Mosse contends that the popular culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries does not get the attention it deserves for the promulgation and popularization of the image of Jew as the antithesis of the valorized Volk. Over and over in immensely popular novels, Jews were dastardly betrayers who invariably met with their much-deserved violent ends. The influx of Polish Jews from oppressed ghettos just over the border didn't help the image of the Jews. In fact, the Jews of Germany fell all over themselves to join the non-Jews in anathematizing "ghetto Jews." But soon the dualism between Judaism and the Jew lost tenability, especially as 19th century science claimed to find a correlation between external characteristics and inner quality of the soul. (And indeed, Christianity had already established that any Jew who rejected Jesus could have no ethics.)

The faith of intellectuals in "reason" to overcome the excesses of Nazism was, of course, misplaced. Mosse hoped that his discussion of the reasons for failure among the groups advocating a "third force" would help enlighten those in the present and future who also may harbor misguided faith in "human potential" to triumph without any accompanying concrete political plans.

(JAF)