History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

‘‘Loyalty’’ in National Socialism: A contribution to

the moral history of the National Socialist period

Raphael Gross

,1

Department of History, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9RG Brighton, UK

Available online 27 September 2007

Abstract

This article is based on the assumption that core concepts of National Socialism—different from

Marxism—turn not on economic, but on moral concepts, or categories heavily related to such
concepts as honour, loyalty, decency and comradeship. The article investigates National Socialism
from the standpoint of moral judgments, and turns this investigation into part of a moral history.
It further is concerned with the continuing impact of National Socialism beyond the military, political
and ideological defeat of 1945; the moral historical approach can show how this influence continues at
a level hitherto relatively unexamined. The moral history of National Socialism involves more than a
shift of perspective. It opens up a specific, barely explored, field of research. This draws upon a variety
of sources, especially films (Hotel Sacher—1939 and Downfall—2004 are discussed). The examination
is directed to the concept of loyalty within this framework; it is a concept of virtue, which is moreover
suited to illuminate some aspects of the functioning of Nazi morality, and its subsequent influence.
r

2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Moral history

Ever since the rise of the NSDAP to become the most powerful political party in

Germany during the final stages of the Weimar Republic, understanding the ideological

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1

The author wishes to thank Dr. Keith Tribe for translating the article into English. The German concept Treue

at issue here is rather stronger and more positive than the English ‘‘loyalty’’ since it directly implies fidelity,
faithfulness, accuracy and truth, not all of which would be strict synonyms in English usage. In particular,
‘‘loyalty’’ is a human attribute, while ‘‘fidelity’’ is not necessarily so—for instance, HiFi ¼ high fidelity; but when
both are applied to human contexts ‘‘fidelity’’ has a stronger and more direct sense than ‘‘loyalty’’. While I
generally use ‘‘loyalty’’ here to translate Treue, in some case I have used fidelity and truth to render the sense for
an English reader. [Trans.]

foundations of National Socialism has been sought. Following the end of the Second
World War interest focused on the ‘‘intellectual origins of the Third Reich’’ (George
Mosse) and ‘‘the origins of totalitarianism’’ (Hannah Arendt).

2

A particular motivation

for such research was to hinder the further development and diffusion of National Socialist
ideology. This also explains why such analyses themselves first became the object of
embittered debate; whenever the work of writers with an ambiguous relation to National
Socialism is reconsidered, or attention falls upon those with continuing influence on
particular ideological currents or theoretical approaches, these issues flare up once again.
Prominent instances are the philosopher Martin Heidegger, the writer Ernst Ju¨nger, and
the lawyer Carl Schmitt. Such discussion can involve a broad spectrum of opinion, for the
intellectual roots of National Socialism are both extensive and difficult to grasp, either
appealing, or by contrast giving offence, to such variant streams as Neoconservativism,
Liberalism, Marxism, and Social Democracy, as well as to deconstructivism, anti-
positivism, and those opposed to globalisation.

The core concepts of National Socialist ideology are very different from those of Marxist

ideology. In the forefront of Marxism are central concepts such as capital, surplus value,
history, class struggle, profit, dialectic; by contrast, the ideological constructs of National
Socialist theoreticians turn not on economic, but upon moral concepts, or categories
strongly related to such concepts as honour, loyalty, decency and comradeship.

3

It has

been widely noted that the ideology of National Socialism is heavily marked by a
biological transformation of the social. Few have commented on its possible connection
with moral categories, or how in particular it is combined with such categories and hence
derives its actual aggressive charge from this source. It is of course not ‘‘biology’’ that
makes judgments; this is done by people who connect alleged biological differences with
moral judgments, or by a National Socialist racial theory that discriminates between
supposedly ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘bad’’ human races. This highlights the particular necessity of
investigating National Socialism from the standpoint of such moral judgments, and
making this investigation part of a moral history.

For the past few years Werner Konitzer and I have studied the National Socialist period

from the perspective of moral history.

4

The moral history of National Socialism, or the

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2

George L. Mosse. The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich. (New York, 1964);

Hannah Arendt. The Origins of Totalitarianism. (New York, 1951). In Germany: Kurt Sontheimer.
Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik. (Mu¨nchen, 1962) and Stefan Breuer. Anatomie der
Konservativen Revolution. (Darmstadt, 1993). Mit apologetischer Tendenz: Armin Mohler. Die konservative
Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932. Ein Handbuch, 4. Aufl. (Darmstadt, 1994).

3

Werner Konitzer, who has worked with me on National Socialist morality over the past few years, drew my

attention to this connection. I would like to thank him for this and many other insights regarding our project.

4

The first move made in this new direction was to my knowledge our essay ‘‘Geschichte und Ethik. Zum

Fortwirken der nationalsozialistischen Moral.’’ Mittelweg 36, vol. 8, 4 (1999) 44–67. Two books are at present
being prepared, based in part on the following publications: Werner Konitzer. ‘‘Antisemitismus und Moral.
Einige U¨berlegungen.’’ Mittelweg 36, vol. 14, 2 (2005) 24–35; Werner Konitzer. ‘‘Kameradschaft und Intimita¨t.’’
Eds. Hartmut Schro¨der and Matthias Rothe. Ko¨rpertabus und sprachliche Umgehungsstrategien. (Berlin, 2005);
Werner Konitzer. ‘‘Die mosaische Unterscheidung. Zwei Erza¨hlungen zur Erkla¨rung antisemitischer Affekte.’’
Mittelweg 36, vol. 13, 5 (2004) 49–60; Raphael Gross and Werner Konitzer. ‘‘Geschichte und Gericht.
U¨berlegungen zur Institutionalisierung einer unabha¨ngigen Geschichtsbarkeit in der Schweiz.’’ Eds. Arbeitskreis
Armenien Vo¨lkermord und Verdra¨ngung. Der Genozid an den Armeniern-die Schweiz und die Shoah. (Zu¨rich,
1998) 157–163; Raphael Gross. ‘‘Der Fu¨hrer als Betru¨ger: Moral und Antipositivismus in Deutschland 1945/1946
am Beispiel Fritz von Hippels.’’ Eds. Anne Klein et al. NS-Unrecht vor Ko¨lner Gerichten nach 1945. (Ko¨ln, 2003)
23–35; Raphael Gross. ‘‘Zum Fortwirken der NS-Moral: Adolf Eichmann und die deutsche Gesellschaft.’’ Eds.

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

489

moral-historical perspective on National Socialism and its subsequent history, is above all
central to two questions. The first concerns an understanding of the forces promoting the
internal solidarity of the National Socialist German Volksgemeinschaft. As has recently
become more typical in such work, I do not consider National Socialism to be totalitarian
in the sense of a society hierarchically organised from top to bottom, but seek instead an
understanding of the high degree of consent that the regime enjoyed. The moral-historical
perspective approaches this through analysis of shared moral feelings in National Socialist
society. How were moral feelings such as guilt, rancour and repugnance invoked and
diffused? How were Prussian, Christian or soldierly concepts of virtue deployed and
altered by National Socialism?

The second question concerns the continuing impact of National Socialism beyond the

military, political and ideological defeat of 1945. While the subsequent transformation of
political, ideological and social life easily gives the impression that after 1945 there was
little left of National Socialism, the moral historical approach can show how this influence
continues at a level hitherto relatively unexamined. There is a contemporary relevance in
demonstrating the continued influence of National Socialist moral evaluations. They still
mark the regular recurrence of conflicts about the National Socialist past. Moreover, they
determine the treatment of individual Jews and Jewishness in Germany after 1945, and
have at the same time great influence on the self-understanding of Germans after 1945. The
moral history of National Socialism involves more than a shift of perspective. It opens up a
specific, barely explored, field of research.

We can draw upon a variety of sources, some familiar, others still unknown. One

encounters moral arguments in almost all domains of human life. Moral history as an
independent avenue of research can involve very different fields of study: what ethical
principles have German philosophers created? How did theologians and sociologists write
about morality during the years of Nazism? In what manner and how did such statements
adapt and conform from 1933 to 1945? What did school teachers convey to their pupils in
the way of moral values and forms of judgment? What do we find in the Hitler Youth, the
League of German Girls, or Party members in the different National Socialist formations
such as the SA and the SS? How was morality employed politically by National Socialist
policy? What is the role played by moral argument in the preparation of crimes and their
retrospective justification? What role did it play for members of the armed forces? Doctors,
journalists, officials and numerous other occupational groups can be investigated in terms
of such questions. The period to which such a study is directed should extend beyond the
years from 1933 to 1945, and should not be confined to Germany alone. Only a
comparative European perspective will show how far developments in different areas were
specific to Germany. Postwar discussions of National Socialism, along with discussion of
German contemporary history, are sources of great interest.

Moral history does not simply involve working with the sources from these diverse

areas. It also requires a moral philosophical foundation, a moral philosophical perspective

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(footnote continued)
Raphael Gross and Yfaat Weiss. Ju¨dische Geschichte als Allgemeine Geschichte. Festschrift fu¨r Dan Diner zum
60. Geburtstag. (Go¨ttingen, 2006) 212–231; Raphael Gross. ‘‘Moral und Gott im NS.’’ Eds. Martin Tremel and
Daniel Weidner. Nachleben der Religionen. (Mu¨nchen/Paderborn, 2007). See also: Raimond Reiter.
Nationalsozialismus und Moral. Die ‘‘Pflichtenlehre’’ eines Verbrecherstaates. (Frankfurt am Main/Berlin/New
York/Wien, 1996); Claudia Koonz. The Nazi Conscience. (Cambridge, 2003); Harald Welzer. Ta¨ter. Wie aus ganz
normalen Menschen Massenmo¨rder werden. (Frankfurt am Main, 2005) 48–67.

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

490

from which one analyses the sources one finds. At the very least such an undertaking needs
moral philosophical conceptualisation. Failing this, it cannot avoid simply repeating the
moral evaluations encountered in the sources upon which it draws. The creation of such a
moral philosophical foundation is itself a difficult and extensive task for research and can
only be achieved in an inter-disciplinary manner. So far I have found Adam Smith’s
Theory of Moral Sentiments to be of great help, as well as the way that Strawson and
Tugendhat have developed Smith’s theory of moral feelings.

5

A complete moral history of

National Socialism and its influence will of course make use of and elaborate other
philosophical approaches. Ethics are written more for the present rather than history,
while historians themselves mostly fall back on what they think of as ‘‘common sense’’
when making moral judgments on historical processes. But if one reflects upon the possible
implications of this ‘‘common sense’’ one can see that there are problems when it comes to
examine the work of German historians. How does the historian’s ‘‘common sense’’ differ
from that in what one is investigating? Another objection against the analysis of moral
sentiments arises from the common view that moral sentiments are purely subjective, or
that they are beyond human reason: but in each case the opposite would be more correct.
Sentiments are ‘‘reasonable’’ and people can only make judgments and act to the extent as
they have feelings.

6

Without feelings human beings cannot become emotionally involved in

anything—the world loses all meaning and life no longer has any significance.

7

Moral history is not therefore restricted to the judgment of particular actions at one

particular time, but reveals a dense network of moral argumentation. It is not simply a
matter of arriving at a moral judgment about Nazi crimes. Of course, such crimes can be
judged from a moral standpoint—but we are here concerned with showing what kind of
shared ‘‘moral ideas’’ and ‘‘virtues’’ lie behind these crimes. How did such shared moral
sentiments function, how did they lend support to or render possible an ideology that did
not merely seek to legitimate these crimes retrospectively, but which made them possible in
the first place.

Because of the inherent interest moral history has in the historical semantics of its

central moral concepts, it has some affiliations with the history of concepts as practised in
Germany, and in particular to the work of Reinhart Koselleck.

8

But in essence it is directed

to moral, and not historical, basic concepts. Moral history does not seek to reconstitute a
socio-political language, but poses the question of shared moral norms and values, and the
nature of their effects on the actions of individuals.

Loyalty be mine honour

It would be premature, anticipating research that has yet to be done, if one sought too

close a definition of ‘‘morality in National Socialism’’. But it can be established that even
during the National Socialist era, moral arguments were made and moral feelings invoked.
In retrospect, and in view of the atrocities of the Nazis, National Socialism is often

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5

Ernst Tugendhat. Vorlesungen u¨ber Ethik. (Frankfurt am Main, 1993); Ernst Tugendhat. Dialog in Leticia.

(Frankfurt am Main, 1997); Peter Frederick Strawson. Freedom and Resentment and other Essays. (London
1974); Adam Smith. Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).

6

See Heiner Hastedt. Gefu¨hle. Philosophische Bemerkungen. (Stuttgart, 2005) 140–148.

7

Hastedt. Gefu¨hle. 141.

8

Reinhart Koselleck. Begriffsgeschichten. Studien zur Semantik und Pragmatik der politischen und sozialen

Sprache. (Frankfurt am Main, 2006).

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

491

described as an amoral period. Such an assessment is quite understandable in the
immediate postwar period, a reaction to Nazi atrocities. But there are also sources during
the war—even when these are texts that seek to legitimate such crimes—marked by
frequent moral expression and argumentation: the infamous, three hour long speech by
Himmler on 4 October 1943 to 92 SS officers deals expansively with the supposed virtues of
the SS man. Even if we do not wish to ascribe any genuine ‘‘morality’’ to National
Socialism, we are still confronted with numerous moral judgments and alleged virtues of
National Socialism in various Nazi sources. We can in this sense talk of a National
Socialist morality without anticipating conceptual and substantive investigation of the
problem raised here of what we might call an extremely ‘‘immoral’’ morality. The
following examination will be directed to the concept of loyalty within this framework; it is
a concept of virtue, which is moreover suited to illuminate some aspects of the functioning
of Nazi morality, and its subsequent influence.

The concept of ‘‘loyalty’’ can express both a relative and an absolute relationship. It is

for instance relative in the sense of theology’s conception of faithfulness to God, of the
law’s conception of fidelity to a contract, of the conception of loyalty to an alliance in
politics, or in respect of a personal relationship.

9

In these spheres the concept is used in its

absolute sense when one talks of the reliability and credibility of a contractual partner in
the legal sense, or of his sincerity in relation to statements and the fulfillment of obligations
in the moral sense. There is in addition the idea of being true to oneself.

10

Loyalty is in moral philosophy mostly treated as a virtue that rests both upon trust and/

or fidelity. This mainly involves the reliability demonstrated by a person being treated as
loyalty to another person or to a collective.

11

Georg Simmel referred in his book Soziologie

to the function of ‘‘loyalty’’ as ‘‘sociologically oriented affect’’ that played a ‘‘unifying
role’’ in the dualism of individual and society: for him, loyalty is the ‘‘factor of sensibility’’
without which ‘‘society as a whole’’ would not exist.

12

Here there is a link to modern

discussion of the morality of ‘‘national’’ feelings—and also to the mechanisms of
containment associated with the concept of loyalty since the 1930s and 1940s.

13

It is of prime importance in this respect to note that, in terms of conceptual history, the

concept here combined in the terms ‘‘German loyalty’’ or ‘‘Germanic loyalty’’ is ‘closely
related to the beginnings of German national sentiment.

14

The concept of ‘‘loyalty’’ is

prominent in National Socialist texts, but very little work has been done on this issue in
relation to the Nazi period. Even the infamous motto of the SS—Loyalty be Mine Honour

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9

On the general history of the concept ‘‘Treue’’ (loyalty) see Tanja Gloyna. ‘‘‘Treue’: Zur Geschichte des

Begriffs.’’ Archiv fu¨r Begriffsgeschichte. Vol. XLI. (Bonn, 1999) 64–85.

10

See for the legal historical dimension Ekkehard Kaufmann. ‘‘Treue.’’ Handwo¨rterbuch zur deutschen

Rechtsgeschichte (HRG). Eds. Adalbert Erler, Ekkehard Kaufmann and Dieter Werkmu¨ller. (Berlin 1998). Cols.
320–338; and above all Karl Kroeschell. Studien zum fru¨hen und mittelalterlichen deutschen Recht. (Berlin, 1995)
(especially ‘‘Die Treue in der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte’’, 157–181 and ‘‘Fu¨hrer, Gefolgschaft und Treue’’,
183–207).

11

See for discussion of this George P. Fletcher. Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships. (Oxford,

1995).

12

Georg Simmel. ‘‘Soziologie, Untersuchungen u¨ber die Formen der Vergesellschaftung.’’ ders. Gesamtausgabe.

Ed. Otthein Rammstedt, vol. 11. (Frankfurt am Main, 1992) 652–670.

13

For a discussion of nationalism see Robert McKim and Jeff McMahan (Eds.). The Morality of Nationalism.

(Oxford, 1997). Tanja Gloyna draws attention to loyalty as a mechanism of containment in her essay ‘‘Treue’’, 84.

14

Kroeschell, ‘‘Die Treue in der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte’’, 158; On ‘‘Germanic’’ loyalty see Kaufmann.

‘‘Treue’’. Cols. 324–327.

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

492

(or our Honour, or thine Honour)—has never been systematically investigated, even
though in the German Federal Republic it is a forbidden watchword according to
Paragraph 86a of the Criminal Code.

15

The official party history of the NSDAP always

claimed that the motto originated with Hitler, but at the same time emphasised the
connection to Hindenburg’s election battle cry ‘‘Loyalty is the Badge of Honour’’ (Die
Treue ist das Mark der Ehre).

16

The party certainly had two aims: first, to emphasise the

closeness to Hindenburg’s slogan and hence the idea that the National Socialist movement
was the sole legitimate heir of Prussian and German history; secondly, the election slogan
should also draw attention to the special moral claim of the SS within the movement.

As regards the origins and early history of the motto, historians have by and large

repeated the official NSDAP version, in spite of the sources for this conclusion being very
sparse.

17

According to such accounts, the SS first introduced the expression ‘‘Loyalty be

Mine Honour’’ (Meine Ehre hei

X

t Treue) on 1 April 1931 and it was henceforth stamped

on the belt buckle of every member of the SS. The so-called Stennes revolt is given as
background for this. This concerned an internal revolt against Goebbels in the summer of
1930 led by one of Hitler’s party opponents, Walter Stennes, who was leader of the
Charlottenburg SA Section 31.

18

The conflict erupted over the question whether three SA

leaders should be placed on the list of candidates for the Reichstag. Stennes opposed
Hitler. Things escalated in early 1931; Stennes occupied the Berlin Party Headquarters
with his SA men. Hitler ordered his SS to intervene, who supported him against the SA. On
31 March 1931 Hitler formally removed Stennes from his post and then travelled to Berlin
to congratulate the SS, in the course of which he is supposed to have said, ‘‘SS man, thine
honour is loyalty.’’

19

Slightly modified, the saying became the motto of the SS. The

outcome of this conflict was later seen to be an important stage in the self-image the SS
constructed for itself.

20

In this context the motto can be understood to mean that loyalty to

the Fu¨hrer meant an elevated elite consciousness, and above all a very significant increase
in power. But it also implied a personal allegiance to the Fu¨hrer. It does not seem
exaggerated to regard it as a form of initiation for the SS. It foreshadowed the way that the
SS, hitherto an organisation subordinate to the SA, finally became the core military
organisation of the National Socialists, while the SA lost its previous status.

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15

According to the Criminal Code (StGB): yy 86a, 86 para. 1, No. 2 and 4: ‘‘Sieg Heil’’, ‘‘Heil Hitler’’, ‘‘Mit

deutschem GruX’’ or ‘‘Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fu¨hrer’’ (the party slogan of the NSDAP) also belong among
forbidden watchwords. The most precise treatment of ‘‘Meine Ehre heiXt Treue’’ so far published is Michael
Kohlstruck And Daniel Kru¨ger, ‘‘Die Treue ist das Mark der Ehre’’ (2007):

http://www.tolerantes.brandenburg.

de/media_fast/3663/Treue_ist_das_Mark_der_Ehre_26-2-2007.pdf

.

16

Rudolf Olden. Hindenburg oder Der Geist der preussischen Armee. Reprint of the 1935 Paris edition.

(Hildesheim, 1982) 33—cited from Kohlstruck and Kru¨ger, 3.

17

See Joseph Wulf, Le´on Poliakov. Das Dritte Reich und seine Diener. (Berlin 1956) 506. The NSDAP version

of this can be found in Ernst Ro¨hm. Die Geschichte eines Hochverra¨ters. (Mu¨nchen, 1933) (3. edition) and Kurt
L. Walter-Schomburg (Ed.). Die Treue ist das Mark der Ehre. Von Mu¨nchen bis Tannenberg. (Berlin, 1934). See
also: Heinz Ho¨hne. Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf. Die Geschichte der SS. (Mu¨nchen, n.d.) 67.

18

For an account of the Stennes Revolt see Hans Buchheim. ‘‘Die SS—Das Herrschaftsinstrument.’’ Eds. H.

Buchheim et al. Anatomie des SS-Staates, vol. 1. (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1965) 33; Heinz Ho¨hne. Der Orden unter
dem Totenkopf, Die Geschichte der SS; Kershaw. Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris. (London, 1998) 347–350.

19

This alleged speech can not be traced in any published source.

20

Kohlstruck and Kru¨ger p. 3 assume that the official NSDAP party history is wrong; but this does not alter the

substantive meaning and interpretation of the motto.

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

493

The slogan is open to several interpretations. First of all, it refers to the connection

between honour and loyalty. Compared to Hindenburg’s, ‘‘Loyalty is the Badge of
Honour’’, which originates in a poem by Friedrich Schlegel,

21

it represents a radicalisation,

for it is no longer a matter of a connection between the two concepts, but of their supposed
identity. Loyalty was for Schlegel a central element of morality and was always understood
in terms of being true to oneself, not to a leader.

22

It was in the revision made by the

National Socialists that the concept was first equated with honour. In this understanding,
honour and loyalty were virtues, and thus not something that can be taken for granted.
Honour could be understood in the Aristotelian tradition as the reward received by
someone who has behaved virtuously. To make it a virtue in itself is unusual, and has more
to do with the way in which it is equated with loyalty.

23

In National Socialism, honour was treated as a form of supreme moral value, as can be

clearly seen in the writings of Alfred Rosenberg.

24

Very many definitions declared honour

to be a basic value of the Nordic race and of the German Volksgemeinschaft. The objective
of honour, the aim of this basic value, was in National Socialist ideology the maintenance
of the purity of blood.

25

In this sense ‘‘honour’’ in National Socialism came to be the central concept in the

legitimation of ‘‘racial’’ laws and procedures. The Nuremberg Laws had as their official
title the ‘‘Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour’’. In this respect
the motto ‘‘thine honour is loyalty’’ can be understood to mean that honour depends upon
an absence of racial violation.

26

This interpretation is also reflected in the definition given in Meyer’s Lexikon of 1937:

Honour, endurance and preservation of one’s own kind, support for and if necessary
sacrifice of oneself for one’s own kind and for its highest values. Antonyms:
dishonour, decadence, capitulation, betrayal, defilement of one’s own kind. Honour
can only exist if there is a consciousness of one’s own kind; whoever does not
recognise his own kind—even unconsciously, instinctively—cannot have honour.
Germanic, Nordic and German man acknowledges that blood and race are the
foundations of their own life order and kind, determining their existence both
generally and individually; their honour consists in maintaining purity of the blood,
preservation of the race in regard to its instinctive physical well-being, its soul,
mentality, spirit and world view; degeneration of the blood, racial decadence means
in all these respects dishonour.

27

The director of the NSDAP Office for Racial Policy, Walter GroX, devoted an entire

booklet to the connection between loyalty, morality and anti-Semitism. This was published

ARTICLE IN PRESS

21

‘‘Die Treue ist der Ehre Mark’’—Friedrich Schlegel. Kritische Ausgabe, vol. 5. Ed. Hans Eichner. (Mu¨nchen,

1962) 397f.

22

See Tanja Gloyna, ‘‘Treue.’’ 81.

23

Ernst Tugendhat. Vorlesungen u¨ber Ethik. 227.

24

A new and comprehensive treatment of the concept of honour can be found in Dagmar Burkhart. Eine

Geschichte der Ehre. (Darmstadt, 2006) with a short account of the National Socialist period 109–112.

25

Cornelia Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus. (Berlin, 1998) 163f.

26

On the Nuremberg Laws and the various legal interpretations of individual concepts during the National

Socialist period see Alexandra Przyrembel. ‘‘Rassenschande’’. Reinheitsmythos und Vernichtungslegitimation im
Nationalsozialismus. (Go¨ttingen, 2003).

27

Meyers Lexikon. Vol. 3 (1937) 450.

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

494

in 1943 under the title Thine Honour is Fidelity to the Blood of thy People, the Hitler Youth
series devoted to weekend training.

28

This pamphlet distinguished three concepts of loyalty: the first, ‘‘is loyalty to a person, in

political and historical life to the person of a Fu¨hrer’’.

29

The author considered that loyalty

to a Fu¨hrer went as far as ‘‘the unthinking sacrifice of one’s own person, one’s own
happiness and one’s own life.’’

30

Alongside this form of ‘‘loyalty unto death’’ he placed the

second form of loyalty, ‘‘which relates to an idea and aim, and not to a person’’.

31

Here he

took as his example ‘‘the idea of the Reich’’. To this ‘‘quite ancient’’ form of loyalty GroX
added what he considered to be a decisive new ‘‘fidelity to blood’’:

But today we have come to understand a third form of loyalty, little known in the
past and seldom mentioned, but which is nonetheless just as important as that which
can be found in our songs and fables. I mean fidelity to the blood of one’s own
people, that seems so important for us todayy

32

The concept of loyalty here clearly becomes a social mechanism of inclusion and, above

all, exclusion. Since there was under National Socialism practically no distinction drawn
between ‘‘conventional’’ and ‘‘moral’’ norms, it became possible to ‘‘moralise’’ almost all
areas of life. It is therefore no coincidence that a central concept like loyalty can be found
in the most diverse contexts. One of the founding ideological ideas of National Socialist
rule was that of the absolute ‘‘Leadership Principle’’ (Fu¨hrerprinzip), the rejection of
political pluralism in favour of the unitary party and racial thought.

33

We have already

seen how honour and loyalty diffused into racial thinking. But the Fu¨hrerprinzip is closely
related to loyalty; during the National Socialist period millions of soldiers made an oath of
personal loyalty to the Fu¨hrer. After Hindenburg’s death in 1934 the following wording
was introduced: ‘‘I swear before God this holy oath, that I will be unconditionally obedient
to the leader of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, the Supreme Commander of
the Wehrmacht. And that I will as a brave soldier be prepared at any time to stake my life
on this oath.’’

34

The nature of this oath played an important part in discussions among the officers

involved in the plot of 20 July 1944. The conspirators sought to clarify to themselves how
far they continued to be bound by this oath, despite clearly recognising the illegality of the
Hitler regime. They struggled less with feelings of allegiance typical for the National
Socialist period, but rather with the interpretation of loyalty and obligation in the
framework of ‘‘Prussian virtues’’.

35

Oaths by soldiers and also by public officials became

an everyday event through an ‘‘implied oath’’, namely. the ‘‘German greeting’’ that
replaced for instance ‘‘Gru¨ss Gott!’’ with ‘‘Heil Hitler!’’ This became a universally visible

ARTICLE IN PRESS

28

Walter GroX. Deine Ehre ist die Treue zum Blute deines Volkes. (Berlin, 1943) (Schriftenreihe fu¨r die

Wochenendschulungen der Hitlerjugend. Herausgegeben von der Reichsjugendfu¨hrung, Heft 3).

29

GroX. Ehre. 7.

30

loc. cit.

31

loc. cit.

32

GroX, Ehre. 8.

33

Diemut Majer. Grundlagen des nationalsozialistischen Rechtssystems. Fu¨hrerprinzip, Sonderrecht, Einheits-

partei. (Stuttgart, 1987) 23.

34

Sven Lange. Der Fahneneid. Die Geschichte der Schwurverpflichtung im deutschen Milita¨r. (Bremen, 2003).

35

See H. D. Kittsteiner. ‘‘Adel, Ehre und Gehorsam. Die ‘preuXischen Tugenden’ und ihre U¨berwindung im

Gewissen. Anmerkungen zum Silvesterbericht 1945 des Carl-Hans Graf von Hardenberg.’’ Ein Traum, was
sonst?‘‘—PreuXische Tugenden. Ein Lesebuch. Stiftung Schloss Neuhardenberg. (Go¨ttingen, 2002). 159–273.

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

495

mark of the National Socialist regime underwritten by decrees and memoranda.

36

The

permitted wording of the greeting as well as the gestures that were to accompany its
utterance were precisely specified. An Order of the Reich Interior Ministry of 22 August
1935 for instance stated that:

The Law on the Supreme Authority of the German Reich of 1 August 1934 and the
Law on the Swearing-in of Public Officials and Soldiers of the Wehrmacht of 20
August 1934 have rendered the solidarity between German officials and the Fu¨hrer
and Reich Chancellor a most personal and indissoluble relation of loyalty which will
be expressed in the special form of the German greeting and which, I am sure, the
officials and workers of public administration so wish. I therefore command that
henceforth all officials and workers in the course of their duties and within all
officials buildings and grounds perform the German greeting by raising the right
arm—in case of physical handicap the left arm—while at the same time clearly
articulating ‘‘Heil Hitler’’. I expect all officials and workers also to employ the
greeting when not at work on public business.

37

An early decree by Joseph Goebbels demonstrates just how much National Socialist

propaganda sought an aural extension of ‘‘loyalty’’ into the German everyday world: in
1933 it was ordered that programme intervals on the radio should be marked by a
recording of the Glockenspiel of the Potsdam Garnisonskirche playing ‘‘Be ever true and
honest’’.

38

Loyalty also quickly entered into the labour law of Nazi legislation. The ‘‘Law on the

Organisation of National Labour’’ of 20 January 1934 stated:

1. Within the enterprise the employer functions as leader, white and blue collar workers as

followers, a community for the promotion of the aims of the business and for the
common good of people and state (y).
2.1. The leader of the enterprise makes all decisions regarding the followers in all

business matters, so far as these are regulated by this law.

2.2. He is to care for the welfare of the followers. The latter owe to him the loyalty

founded by the enterprise community.

39

This is not only striking evidence of the manner in which the concept of loyalty was

diffused through legislation, but also a clear example of the manner in which an appeal was
made to alleged Germanic models. All the key concepts of the Germanic ideology of the
period are here: leader, followers,

40

and loyalty.

41

In this law, the elimination of trade

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36

Tilman Allert. Der deutsche GruX. Geschichte einer unheilvollen Geste. (Berlin, 2005). Allert refers to a

‘‘verkleideter Schwur.’’ A ‘‘veiled oath’’ [trans.].

37

Allert. Der deutsche GruX, 46.

38

‘‘U¨b immer Treu und Redlichkeit’’ see: Uta Freifrau von Aretin. PreuXische Tradition als Motiv fu¨r den

Widerstand gegen das NS-Regime. Aufsatnd des Gewissens. Milita¨rischer Widerstand gegen Hitler und das
NS-Regime 1933 bis 1945. (hamburg, Berlin, Bonn, 6. Aufl. 2001), 279–285, here 280. I would like to thank Karl
Borroma¨us Murr for pointing this out to me and for further sources he made me aware of.

39

RGBl. I. 45.

40

A more precise translation would be ‘‘retinue’’, although for English readers this is a quite unfamiliar way of

conceiving a workforce. [Trans.]

41

Kroeschell. ‘‘Fu¨hrer, Gefolgschaft und Treue.’’ 183.

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

496

unions is linked to the shifting of loyalty to one’s class to the newly-invented Aryan
people’s community.

In the same way that German medievalists were carried away by the idea of loyalty in

the Nibelungenlied, there was projected into the history of law an analogous conception of
loyalty to a people. Even in the Weimar period historical legal commentary claimed to
have discovered a specifically German conception of loyalty. Claudius Freiherr von
Schwerin for example wrote in an essay in 1925:

Loyalty is owed first of all to relatives. Men, by swearing oaths y form a close
relationship of loyalty and self-protection. yFidelity to a contract is not exhausted
by mere adherence to its terms. Among relatives, and everywhere that it holds sway,
it not only demands restraint from anything which might harm another; it requires
that all effort be made to protect and support the other. It is altruism. y But not
only does the law require in particular cases that loyalty go to the extent of sacrifice
of oneself; it heavily punishes whenever this loyalty is not shown. He who lacks
loyalty is without honour. Law strips him of honour and expels him from the
community.

42

The legal historian Karl Kroeschell quite rightly writes that a sentimental bond of

loyalty, that can indeed be found in the literature, is here transformed into a ‘‘a mystique
of Germanic law’’.

43

He does not consider this exaggerated doctrine of ‘‘Germanic loyalty’’

to be simply the result of certain technical errors on the part of legal history. On the
contrary, legal commentary ran parallel to the evolution of this conception of German
loyalty. Hence this conception not only had consequences for legal history, but also for
legal doctrine and practice. Obligations of loyalty spread like wildfire throughout civil law,
criminal law, commercial law and labour law in the course of the 1930s. Increasing
numbers of legal theoreticians devoted attention to this problem, especially after the
bloody suppression of the alleged Ro¨hm putsch of 30 June 1934. The periodical Deutsches
Recht IV (1934) No. 22 of 25 November 1934 carried the following articles:

G. A. Waltz: ‘‘Der Treuegedanke im Vo¨lkerrecht’’ (International Law)
W. Merck: ‘‘Die Treue im a¨lteren deutschen Recht’’ (Ancient German Law)
K. Ziegert: ‘‘Der Treuegedanke im Strafrecht’’ (Criminal Law)
H. Lange: ‘‘Die Vertragstreue’’ (Contractual Fidelity)
Freiherr Heyl zu Herrnsheim: ‘‘Der Treuebegriff im Gesellschaftsrecht’’ (Social Law)
Ilse Eben-Servais: ‘‘Der Treuegedanke im Familienrecht’’ (Family Law)
B. Siebert: ‘‘Die Treue im Arbeitsrecht’’ (Labour Law)

Not until the 1970s did German legal historians begin to deal critically with this heritage.

And as Karl Kroeschell noted in 1995, this still reverberates in legal history.

44

The manner in which the concept of loyalty was taken up and elaborated by

philosophers and legal historians during the National Socialist era seems to us today quite
bizarre, and gives the impression that a deep chasm separates postwar history from this

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42

Claudius Frh. von Schwerin. ‘‘Der Geist des altgermanischen Rechts, das Eindringen fremden Rechts und die

neuerliche Wiedererstarkung germanischer Rechtsgrundsa¨tze.’’ Germanische Wiedererstehung. Ed. H. Nollau.
(1925) 216.

43

Kroeschell. ‘‘Fu¨hrer, Gefolgschaft und Treue.’’ 162.

44

Kroeschell, Fu¨hrer, Gefolgschaft und Treue, 207.

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497

conceptual and moral world. But this impression grows weaker when one turns to consider
moral judgments made in the culture of popular entertainment. Here the differences are
much less clear, and also makes it possible for popular National Socialist films of the 1930s
and 1940s to be shown on German television today. The third section of this essay will
therefore be devoted to closer examination of an example of this genre, the crime film
Hotel Sacher.

Hotel Sacher

The 1939 entertainment film Hotel Sacher is thought to be entirely unpolitical.

45

It is still

on sale today as a UFA classic, and even occasionally shown on TV. It is clearly thought to
be one of the many entertainment films of the National Socialist era that remained
uncontaminated by National Socialism. There are many such films, and they are a good
research source for our purposes since they deal with more or less all conceivable situations
in which morality can play a role. They also appear to do this in a manner that does not
directly propagate National Socialist ideology—and that was important to the film-makers
as well. They seem to be perfectly harmless films that document the moral, and not the
ideological, world of National Socialism.

The action is that of a spy film, and takes place on New Year’s Eve (1913/1914) in the

Hotel Sacher, Vienna. Dr. Stefan Schefczuk is a loyal Imperial civil servant of Russian
extraction who has come under suspicion of espionage through his involvement with the
beautiful Russian agent Nadja Woroneff, with whom he is in love. In a key scene he tries to
talk to her, because he does not want to believe that she has betrayed him.

Nadja Woroneff: There is nothing much to tell you. You have already guessed how
everything happened.
Stefan Schefczuk: But I had until now the faint hope that I was wrong. There is only
one thing that I do not understand. How could you do that, when you knew how
much was at stake for me?
NW: I didn’t know that they would arrest you. And even if I had known: I couldn’t
have done anything else. It could only suit me that you get into trouble with Austria.
SS: Why?
NW: So that you understand where you belong.
SS: Stop that!
NW: I won’t stop it. You need to see that your people has come of age and is asking
for liberty, and that you are obliged to do what you can to help.
SS: You dare to force that onto me? That only undermines my honour in the basest
way. And a woman who said she loved me—you did all that. Unbelievable!
NW: There is already war in Austria, even if not everyone can see it. Personal feelings
have nothing to do with it.
SS: And this is enough for you to deal with the fact that I will again be arrested early
tomorrow?
NW: That can all be sorted out. Your innocence can be proved. You will be restored
to your position in all honour. It is only a matter of your good will.

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45

Hotel Sacher—1939. Germany. Producer: Walter Tjaden; Director: Erich Engel; Script: Friedrich Forster-

Burggraf, Stefan von Kamare; Camera: Werner Bohne, Kurt Schulz; Music: Willy Schmidt-Gentner; Sound:
Herbert Janetzka; Set: Hans Ledersteger, Hans Richter.

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

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SS: I have to say that you are good at your job. And what do you want?
NW: The assurance that you will not again use your position to harm our people.
SS: You want me to work for you while in office? Play into your hands?
NW: Yes. That is a condition.
SS: Nadja, have you ever known me, that you dare to make such a proposal? A
demand to betray my country?
NW: Betray your country? Exactly whom do you betray? An obsolete, meaningless
state, that forcibly oppresses other people, and is hated in return.
SS: Because they cannot see how well they live under our rule.
NW: And if they would prefer to be free?
SS: I know these slogans, and I know where they come from.
NW: How long you think that state has got?
SS: Nobody knows what the future holds. But whoever wants to make history must
behave in such a way that he might hope to have given his best.
NW: No, history is only made by those who understand the voice of the future.
Stefan, I came here in the hope to persuade you to join our side, to fight together with
me for our Russian fatherland.
SS: That is a lost cause, Nadja. You will never persuade me to commit what I
consider treason.
NW: Stefan! I am warning you. If you do not agree no effort will be spared to destroy
you. Give in, or you will be destroyed.
SS: I am an Austrian! And I will do my utmost duty as an Austrian.
NW: What does that mean?
SS: I will get you arrested. Within the hour.
NW: Good. Then we both get into serious trouble. You more than me.

This key scene is followed by a last conversation between Stefan Schefczuk and Kurt, his

Austrian friend. Stefan, having restored his honour as an officer by the impending arrest of
Nadja Woroneff, begins to have doubts about his action, as is shown by his subsequent
suicide:

Kurt: Why are you so depressed? You have achieved what you wanted.
SS: Yes, but you don’t know what is has cost me.
K: I guessed that you are still very close to this woman.
SS: She is the only woman that I have loved. And I still love her.
K: But you do know why you have made this sacrifice. You have stayed true to your
duty.
SS: We do the strangest things. When things happen you only see one side. Only
when they are over do you see the other.
K: What do you mean?
SS: Nadja Woroneff was not acting on her own initiative. From her point of view it
was no betrayal.
K: I don’t understand you. You have yourself called any person a criminal who, out
of sheer short-sightedness, opposes a state that has taken centuries to build.
SS: Centuries. That is why I feel tempted to ask whether such a state cannot become
outdated.
K: That would be the end of Austria.
SS: Yes, that would be the end.

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499

K: That is what you think?

SS: Forget it, perhaps it is my mood that makes everything seem so gloomy. I don’t
want to discourage you, Kurt.

But I have just remembered, I left my briefcase downstairs with the porter with some

papers in it that I need. Would you be so good as to fetch it for me?

K: Of course.

SS: Kurt, stay just as you are.

K: I’ll get your briefcase.

SS: I’ll telephone the porter to give it to you.

In the first scene Stefan Schefczuk and the beautiful spy Nadja Woroneff declare mutual

love for each other. Nadja (in the blurb for the film she is described as the ‘‘vivacious
Nadja Woroneff with restless and nervously flickering eyes’’) tries to detach her former
lover from his allegiance to Austria and recruit him as a spy. He rejects this and reports her
to the police. In a subsequent scene he admits his doubts to an Austrian friend and then
shoots himself in his hotel room. For her part, Nadja is prepared to testify to his innocence
to the police and place herself in danger—although Stefan never knows this.

At first glance loyalty plays a role in this film much like in any nineteenth century

‘‘Prussian’’ novella. The senior official Stefan Schefczuk is not prepared to betray his
country and struggles to reassert the honour that the intrigues of his lover has damaged.
But quite a different interpretation of the film is possible, another mode of reading the
dialogue—1939 is the year of the Hitler–Stalin pact—that lends a dimension beyond
Prussian concepts of loyalty and honour. The real drama in this film is not the supposed
betrayal of Austria–Hungary. Every member of the audience knew that the days of
Austria–Hungary were numbered and this was made quite explicit by Nadja Woroneff in
the scene cited above. The drama of the film is instead created out of the conflict of loyalty
between the fulfillment of military obligation and the love for a woman of the same racial
background. On the one hand Stefan loves Nadja, the Russian spy; and from the
perspective of National Socialist ideology he is therefore true to his Russian blood. On the
other hand, her political intrigues make him a traitor in Austrian eyes. His central concern
is to discover whether she truly loves him, or whether she has merely misused him as a
simple instrument. He himself loves her, although she is a Russian spy. The film in fact
ends as a tragedy, a National Socialist tragedy, since both in the end make a decision in
favour of love (of their own blood)—Nadja is prepared to go to prison for Stefan, who in
turn begins to doubt whether, as an Austrian of Russian extraction, he is fighting on the
right side. As a result he shoots himself. Both, more true in their love for each other and for
their people than love for a diverse Austria–Hungary, sacrifice themselves. It also seems
that unconsciousness plays an important part in the process: superficially Stefan defines
himself as Austrian, although he is ethnically Russian—and so he is not properly conscious
of his ‘‘racial’’ background. This surfaces in his love for Nadja the Russian, and it
ultimately prompts his doubts about his allegiance to a diverse Austria–Hungary, rather
than to his own people.

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500

Der Untergang

The fact that Hotel Sacher can still be bought as a DVD and is sometimes shown on TV

permits us to consider the extent to which specifically National Socialist moral arguments
are recognised as such, or even have a continuing force. A different way in which such
arguments persist is evident in a film made long after the end of the war. In September 2004
the film Der Untergang had its premiere in Munich. It deals with the final days of Adolf
Hitler and his retinue in the Berlin bunker. The principal sources for the film were the
personal memories of Traudl Junge, a former secretary of Hitler, and the work of Joachim
Fest.

46

But here we are interested in a film, and not in memoir literature. Moral judgements

are continually made in this film, explicitly or in any case implicitly. This arises though an
identification of sensibility—whether the feelings be of disgust or of sympathy. The
characters in Untergang can be roughly divided into two groups: those who remain ardent
National Socialists to the end; and those who ultimately put the sufferings of the German
people before the will of the Fu¨hrer and the world view of National Socialism. In the
former group belong Adolf Hitler, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler; on
the other Albert Speer and the good doctor, Professor Ernst Gu¨nter Schenk. In the film
one is not told that this member of the SS had during 1943 and 1944 conducted gruesome
nutritional experiments on inmates of Mauthausen concentration camp, and was later
sentenced for this crime.

47

The filmmakers place at the beginning of the film what they consider to be the essence of

moral malevolence:

If the war is lost,
It is of no account
If the people go down.

I could not shed any tears,
For the people
Deserve nothing else.
Adolf Hitler 1945.

48

Against this betrayal of the German people there stand on the ‘‘plus’’ side Albert Speer,

who secretly undermines Hitler’s instructions for destruction, and the self-sacrificing
Doctor Schenk, who in the midst of the downfall saves wounded Germans.

Speer and Schenck remain true to the German people’s community, while Hitler,

Goebbels and Himmler leave it in the lurch, Hitler and Goebbels through suicide and
Himmler through attempted flight and subsequent suicide. Fidelity to, or betrayal of, the
German people’s community constitutes in the film a boundary between good and evil.
Even the Fu¨hrer can be faithless to the German people’s community—and this alters
nothing about the value of fidelity to a people, to the National Socialist people’s

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46

I have elsewhere given a detailed account of Traudl Junge’s memoirs of 1945 with especial attention to the

concept of ‘‘guilt’’: Raphael Gross, ‘‘Immoral Times: The Assessment of National Socialism in Discourses on
Shame and Guilt in the Immediate Postwar Period’’, German History, vol. 25, (spring 2007).

47

Ernst Klee. Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945?. (Frankfurt am Main,

2003) 530f.

48

Adolf Hitler 1945. Epigraph to Bernd Eichinger’s film Der Untergang, (2004).

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

501

community. In the film Hotel Sacher we find a construction of loyalty that functions via a
love story. The concept of loyalty is only indirectly ‘‘ideological’’ and racist. In the film Der
Untergang, however, true loyalty is directly characterised as loyalty to the German people.
The ideological context is airbrushed out, so that one no longer so specifically sees what
kind of construct of loyalty is being furthered—an aspect of which the film-makers were
certainly unaware.

Conclusion

There are two principal fields to the semantics of the concept of loyalty. Firstly, the legal

field, fidelity to the law, to a contract or to a command. Alongside this domain we find a
level of meaning that relates more to the social: loyalty to family, to children, to a loved
one and to those friends and acquaintances in general to whom we feel close.

Examples from both fields can be found in Nazism as well as in many post-war

expressions. The question is which examples especially signify National Socialism. The
Nuremberg Laws have been cited, in which fidelity to Aryan blood was legally
transformed. The foundation of the Law for the Protection of German Honour is fidelity
to Aryan blood. In the case of the SS the legal aspect—loyalty to a command—is linked to
a loyalty to blood. For the SS fulfillment of obligations is the same as fidelity to Aryan
blood. The example from Hotel Sacher is rather more complicated. Here we seem to have
an irresolvable conflict between two concepts. Stefan Schefczuk either conforms to the
classical soldierly concept of loyalty or follows his love, a course, which coincides with his
blood. But finally it becomes clear that there is a clear hierarchy for the two forms of
loyalty: fidelity to one’s own origin is the deciding factor. In Der Untergang we can see the
continuing influence of a particular concept of loyalty in the ‘‘good Nazis’’. In the course
of the downfall they remain true to their people, while the evil Nazis betray their people’s
community. Loyalty here is neither connected directly to blood, nor to newer
constitutional principles, but instead to a German Volksgemeinschaft whose values are
left unexamined.

49

And so we can make a provisional attempt to place the concept of loyalty more precisely

within the moral history of National Socialism noted at the beginning of this essay,
defining at the same time the tasks and specificity of such a moral history: in almost every
moral system ‘‘loyalty’’ is a property with positive connotations.

50

It makes it possible for

people to involve themselves in long-term social connections and renders behaviour within
this context calculable. The concept of loyalty that we encounter in National Socialist
sources deviates from this in several respects. One instance is that loyalty is treated as a
specifically German or ‘‘Aryan’’ virtue, as if moral values were the property of particular
given communities. Moral properties are thus treated as if they were specific to certain
national groups. This quite particular version of ‘‘loyalty’’ is reinforced by its connection

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49

Neither in the case of Hotel Sacher nor in that of the film Downfall have we considered the extent to which this

construction was consciously or unconsciously selected by the film-makers, that is, whether the moral construction
was in fact the outcome of an ideological choice. Whatever the answer to this question might be, it plays no role in
our understanding of the impact upon an audience.

50

There are of course many other sources defining the concept of loyalty in National Socialism that could be

cited. Practically every sphere of human life contains instances that we could use; this is especially true of
entertainment films. These have the advantage of generating moral feelings in great density and are therefore a
very rich source.

R. Gross / History of European Ideas 33 (2007) 488–503

502

to the racist conception of ‘‘blood loyalty’’, established for example in the legally
formulated ‘‘betrayal’’ of German blood that can be found in the Nuremberg Laws.

In itself, detached from National Socialist usage, the concept of loyalty remains a

positive one, a virtue. In this it is very much like many of the ‘‘moral’’ concepts propagated
under National Socialism. The problem that National Socialist ideology reorganised value
concepts that generally, even today, can have in themselves a positive sense, is an
important one for many German moral concepts. This is even true of those that, after the
National Socialist era, became very suspect, such as the idea of ‘‘comradeship’’. A similar
thing happened to the concept of loyalty.

If one solely approached the specificity of concepts from the perspective of historical

semantics one would examine the manner in which the concept of loyalty developed in the
course of the nineteenth century, how in Germany it assumed a particular meaning, and
how—quite possibly—this changed once more after the Second World War, some elements
however remaining fixed.

51

Such an approach is of course interesting and important. But it

fails to illuminate the specific meaning of the National Socialist concept of loyalty and
similar concepts; and likewise the way that they have, up to the present, continued to
influence the debate on National Socialism. If we today, involved in a discussion of the film
Downfall, wish to establish whether National Socialist conceptions of loyalty continue to
play a role, then this is not motivated by a purely historical interest in the transformation
of concepts. This is to do with the fact that crimes can hardly ever be committed without
some form of communal justification. A shift in morality, the inculcation of a particular
morality is an essential condition for the commitment of crimes. In this respect morality is
part of the deed. Questioning the specific concept of loyalty touches upon this form of
participation. This is especially true of discussions over moral categories after the war. To
ask whether the concept of loyalty that plays a part in Downfall is a particularly National
Socialist concept is not simply a question concerning historical continuity. For it is not a
matter of when this concept arose and how long it has remained in circulation. It is rather a
question of the degree to which the concept can contribute to the retrospective legitimation
of National Socialist crimes, or even endow them with some kind of positive value. In each
case it is not a question of when, and in what context, these questions first arose, but rather
a moral question of how far, after the experience of National Socialism, their impact can
persist. And this is especially true of the concept of ‘‘loyalty’’, especially for the idea of
loyalty to one’s ‘‘nation’’.

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51

This has been done in a volume edited by Nikolaus Buschmann/Karl Borroma¨us on ‘‘Treue–Loyalita¨t’’ that is

due to be published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in 2007.

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