Secret Reports on Nazi Germany: The Frankfurt School Contribution to the War Effort is a book composed of the original Office of Strategic Services reports on Nazi Germany prepared primarily by Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer, who had all been part of the original Frankfurt School of critical theory. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Neumann, Marcuse, and Kirchheimer produced the intelligence reports that constitute the volume while working for the European Section of the Research and Analysis Branch of the OSS. The files were declassified between 1975 and 1976. The texts were originally written in English. [1]
Some of the materials produced for the OSS project were used by the scholars elsewhere—for instance, Marcuse's The Social Democratic Party of Germany, Dissolution of the Nazi Party and Its Affiliated Organizations, and Policy Towards the Revival of Old Parties and Establishment of New Parties in Germany appear to have been written for an academic position, and were separately published in Technology, War and Fascism. [1]
Scholars have described the volume as "a highly valuable source for anyone interested in intellectual history, the history of ideas, the history of the Second World War, Nazi Germany or wartime intelligence" that will remain "essential reading material for anyone dealing with the so-called Frankfurt School." [5]
The book consists of seven parts: [5]
This examines antisemitism, Reich politics, and the legacy of Prussian militarism.
This examines Nazi morale, the possibility of a governmental collapse, the impact of Allied air raids, and attempts on Hitler's life.
This deals with internal opposition in the Reich.
This analyzes a range of political, economic, legal and administrative problems facing the Nazis.
This focuses on the German economy.
This examines the crimes of the Nazi regime, the treatment of war criminals, and Nazi ideology.
This examines communism and German trade unions.
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Party or SS members from positions of power and influence, by disbanding or rendering impotent the organizations associated with Nazism, and by trying prominent Nazis for war crimes in the Nuremberg trials of 1946. The program of denazification was launched after the end of the war and was solidified by the Potsdam Agreement in August 1945. The term denazification was first coined as a legal term in 1943 by the Pentagon, intended to be applied in a narrow sense with reference to the post-war German legal system. However, it later took on a broader meaning.
The Frankfurt School is a school of thought in sociology and critical philosophy. It is associated with the Institute for Social Research founded at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1923. Formed during the Weimar Republic during the European interwar period, the first generation of the Frankfurt School was composed of intellectuals, academics, and political dissidents dissatisfied with the socio-economic systems of the 1930s: namely, capitalism, fascism, and communism. Significant figures associated with the school include Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Marcuse, and Jürgen Habermas.
The Frankfurter Zeitung was a German-language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt. In Nazi Germany, it was considered the only mass publication not completely controlled by the Propagandaministerium under Joseph Goebbels.
The Austrian resistance was launched in response to the rise of the fascists across Europe and, more specifically, to the Anschluss in 1938 and resulting occupation of Austria by Germany.
Sir Horace George Montagu Rumbold, 9th Baronet, was a British diplomat. A well-travelled man who learned Arabic, Japanese and German, he is largely remembered for his role as British Ambassador to Berlin from 1928 to 1933 in which he warned of the ambitions of Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Franz Leopold Neumann was a German political activist, Western Marxist theorist and labor lawyer, who became a political scientist in exile and is best known for his theoretical analyses of Nazism. He studied in Germany and the United Kingdom, and spent the last phase of his career in the United States, where he worked for the Office of Strategic Services from 1943 to 1945. During the Second World War, Neumann spied for the Soviet Union under the code-name "Ruff". Together with Ernst Fraenkel and Arnold Bergstraesser, Neumann is considered to be among the founders of modern political science in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Bertram Myron Gross was an American social scientist, federal bureaucrat and Professor of Political Science at Hunter College (CUNY). He is known from his book Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America from 1980, and as primary author of the Humphrey–Hawkins Full Employment Act.
Otto Kirchheimer was a German jurist of Jewish ancestry and political scientist of the Frankfurt School whose work essentially covered the state and its constitution.
Humbert Achamer-Pifrader was an Austrian jurist who was also a member of the SS. He was commander of Einsatzgruppe A from September 1942 to September 1943.
Franz Jacob was a German Resistance fighter against Nazism and a Communist politician.
Karl Rudolf Werner Braune was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era and a Holocaust perpetrator. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union of 1941, Braune was the commander of Einsatzkommando 11b, part of Einsatzgruppe D. Braune organized and conducted mass murders of Jews in the Army Group South Rear Area, the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. For his role in these crimes, Braune was tried before an American military court in 1948 in the Einsatzgruppen trial. He was convicted, sentenced to death and executed in 1951.
Herbert Marcuse was a German–American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelm University and then at Freiburg, where he received his Ph.D. He was a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based Institute for Social Research, which later became known as the Frankfurt School. In his written works, he criticized capitalism, modern technology, Soviet Communism, and popular culture, arguing that they represent new forms of social control.
Hilde Neumann was a German lawyer.
Giselher Wirsing was a right-wing German journalist, author, and foreign policy expert who was active during Nazi Germany and the Bonn republic. He was a member of the Nazi party and contributed heavily to the creation and propagation of Nazi propaganda outside Germany.
Arcadius Rudolph Lang Gurland was a German political scientist of Russian origin. Born in Moscow in 1904, he lived through the Russian Revolution as a teenager, developing political sympathies with the Mensheviks. He travelled into exile with his parents, settling in Germany where he completed his schooling at the Goethe-Gymnasium in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. He joined the Sozialistische Proletarierjugend, a youth movement close to the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). This party was formed by the left-wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, when it broke with Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany over their support for German participation in the First World War.