In this paper, I analyze the Nazi representation of Widukind, the leader of the pagan Saxons during the eighth-century Frankish conquest, as it appears in the Hitler Youth leisure publication Die Blätter für die Heimabendgestaltung in der Hitler-Jugend. Published in 1934, the issue entitled “Karl [Charlemagne] und Widukind” touts Widukind as an exemplar of the fight against foreign culture, faith, and laws––a figure who embodies a “manly loyalty” to his people and his customs.[i] I argue that, in emphasizing the role of the male military leader in protecting traditional lifeways, the Hitler Youth publication constructs a model of a simultaneously stoic and emotional man who fights fiercely and shrewdly while also caring deeply for his people. Futhermore, I argue that while the narrative inscribes the importance of tradition as that which is related to ancestry, it de-emphasizes practice in favor of the abstract value of protection. The priority given to protection in the Hitler Youth narrative of the Saxons inscribes a particular valence of the broader Nazi discursive emphasis on struggle and existential threat into its production of its ideal masculinity. The primary material and my analysis illustrate the importance of putting Nazi masculinity and approaches to tradition in conversation.
In addition to analyzing novel source material, this paper brings together two scholarly conversations that each interrogate a tension in Nazism––that of masculinity and that of traditionalism. Regarding the former, this paper builds on Thomas Kühne’s terminology of a Nazi “protean masculinity.” Kühne argues that Nazi military norms encapsulated a range of performances of masculinity that brought together both the “martial, violent, and even genocidal” and the social aspects of comradeship.[ii] Indicative of the scholarly turn in the last two decades toward an approach to Nazi masculinity that accounts for dialogic gender construction between and producing multiple masculinities, Kühne points us toward a protean masculinity that is both violent and caring.[iii]
Likewise, an apparent paradox exists in the Nazi relationship to tradition. As Roger Griffin has pointed out, Nazi Germany was at once past- and future-oriented––relying on an Aryan past while planning a thousand-year Reich.[iv]Calling attention to this bi-directional pull, Mosse notes that the “so-called new man of National Socialism was deeply rooted in the past,” particularly regarding racialized notions of body and soul.[v] Indeed, the regime was concerned both with connecting to and reviving its supposed ancestry––for instance, through SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler’s “Ancestral Heritage” [Ahnenerbe] institution––and with technological innovations and sociopolitical revolutions meant to usher the German Volk into a new utopian era. While the appeal to the authority of the past was central to Nazi propaganda and education, the actual commitment to practicing traditional customs varied depending on the organization or leader in question.[vi] Given that there is no singular answer to the question of the Nazi relationship with tradition, it becomes especially important to interrogate what “tradition” meant in any given instance and to what use it was put.
While some work has been done on Nazi masculinities and Christian religious tradition––for instance, in Doris Bergen’s Twisted Cross––this paper draws together the scholarly conversations on masculinity and tradition to consider the Nazi production of “tradition” through allegedly “reclaimed” paganism.[vii] This paper suggests that the narration of the Widukind story for the Hitler Youth presents an opportunity to examine the ways in which the Nazi apparatus articulated the value and content of “tradition” and its relationship to idealized masculinity. As such, the paper analyzes the “Karl und Widukind” issue of the Hitler Youth publication Blätter für die Heimabendgestaltung in der Hitler-Jugend––a guide for the youth leaders to shape evening leisure time according to Nazi values and goals. The paper opens by discussing the framing of the conflict as a struggle against the imposition of “foreign” culture, law, and faith. Next, I examine Widukind’s reactions––portrayed as both effusive and intensely quiet––to news of Frankish laws and violence, as well as the interplay between his stoic, evaluative military leadership and his moments of wit and levity on the battlefield. Finally, I compare Widukind’s representation to that of Charlemagne, who acts as a foil for the Saxon leader but also requires ambivalent treatment as the head of a “superior” military force. While the narration occupies the majority of the issue––and my paper––I consider too the cover image of a crucified Widukind and the three songs that accompany the story. Ultimately, I argue that the Nazi narration of Widukind’s story illustrates the intertwined production of Nazi norms of masculinity and approaches to “tradition” that grounds a protean masculinity in the protection of an abstract traditionalism under existential threat.
[i] Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP: Amt für weltanschauliche Schulung, “Die Jungendschaft: Karl Und Widukind,” Die Blätter Für Die Heimabendgestaltung in Der Hitler-Jugend, no. 3 (1934): 17.
[ii] Thomas Kühne, “Introduction: Masculinity and the Third Reich,” Central European History 51, no. 3 (2018): 364. See also, Kühne’s “Protean Masculinity, Hegemonic Masculinity” article in the same issue and his monograph The Rise and Fall of Comradeship: Hitler’s Soldiers, Male Bonding and Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century (2017).
[iii] Edward B. Westermann, “Drinking Rituals, Masculinity, and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany,” Central European History 51, no. 3 (2018): 367–89; Jason Crouthamel, “Homosexuality and Comradeship: Destabilizing the Hegemonic Masculine Ideal in Nazi Germany,” Central European History 51, no. 3 (2018): 419–39. For seeds of this turn, see as well Christopher Browning’s work on the negotiation of masculine identity by Police Reservists-turned-shooting-squads in eastern occupied territories. Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).
[iv] Roger Griffin, “Fixing Solutions: Fascist Temporalities as Remedies for Liquid Modernity,” Journal of Modern European History 13, no. 1 (2015): 5–23.
[v] George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 163.
[vi] Richard Steigmann-Gall, “Rethinking Nazism and Religion: How Anti-Christian Were the ‘Pagans’?,” Central European History 36, no. 1 (2003): 82.
[vii] Doris L. Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).
Nazi discourse was rife with internal ambivalences concerning both masculinity and tradition. Scholars have identified a martial, violent yet caring comradeship (Kühne) and a simultaneous embrace of perceived ancestral past and orientation toward a novel future (Griffin, Mosse, Steigmann-Gall). Bringing together recent scholarship on Nazi masculinity and on Nazi relationships to tradition, this paper contends that Nazi ideals of masculinity and pursuit of tradition co-constituted and shaped each other. Drawing on published Hitler Youth primary material, I analyze the portrayal of the eighth-century pagan leader Widukind as a role model for his defense of the Saxons against the Frankish army. I argue that the Hitler Youth narrative inscribes a masculinity based on the protection of an abstract traditionalism in the face of existential struggle. This intervention illustrates the necessity of putting Nazi masculinities and traditionalisms in conversation in order to better understand both.