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 volume consists of six parts. Part I, entitled "The Analysis of the Enemy", examines antisemitism, Reich politics, and the legacy of Prussian militarism. Part II, "Patterns of Collapse", consists of five chapters by Neumann and Marcuse (with one by Felix Gilbert), and examines Nazi morale, the possibility of a governmental collapse, the impact of Allied air raids, and attempts on Hitler's life. Part III deals with internal opposition in the Reich. Part IV analyzes a range of political, economic, legal and administrative problems facing the Nazis. Part V, authored primarily by Neumann, looks at the German economy. Part VI examines the crimes of the Nazi regime, the treatment of war criminals, and Nazi ideology. Part VII, by Marcuse, examines communism and German trade unions. [5]
Weimar culture was the emergence of the arts and sciences that happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic, the latter during that part of the interwar period between Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 and Hitler's rise to power in 1933. 1920s Berlin was at the hectic center of the Weimar culture. Although not part of the Weimar Republic, some authors also include the German-speaking Austria, and particularly Vienna, as part of Weimar culture.
Sicherheitsdienst, full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization and the Gestapo was considered its sister organization through the integration of SS members and operational procedures. The SD was administered as an independent SS office between 1933 and 1939. That year, the SD was transferred over to the Reich Security Main Office, as one of its seven departments. Its first director, Reinhard Heydrich, intended for the SD to bring every single individual within the Third Reich's reach under "continuous supervision".
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 contemporary socio-economic systems of the 1930s; namely, capitalism, fascism, and communism.
Jacob Otto Dietrich was a German SS officer during the Nazi era, who served as the Press Chief of the Nazi regime and was a confidant of Adolf Hitler.
The Austrian resistance 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.
Harold Marcuse is an American professor of modern and contemporary German history and public history. He teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the grandson of philosopher Herbert Marcuse.
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.
Leo Löwenthal was a German sociologist and philosopher usually associated with the Frankfurt School.
Heinrich Maier was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest, pedagogue, philosopher and a member of the Austrian resistance, who was executed as the last victim of Hitler's regime in Vienna.
Gerhard Krüger was a Nazi Party student leader and later a leading figure within the neo-Nazi movement.
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.
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 the Humboldt University of Berlin and then at Freiburg, where he received his PhD. He was a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based Institute for Social Research – what 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.
"Cultural Marxism" refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory that misrepresents the Frankfurt School as being responsible for modern progressive movements, identity politics, and political correctness. The conspiracy theory posits that there is an ongoing and intentional academic and intellectual effort to subvert Western society via a planned culture war that undermines the supposed "Christian values" of traditionalist conservatism and seeks to replace them with culturally liberal values.