Blue Blood in the SS: A Contribution Regarding the Attitude of the Nobility towards National Socialism
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F75112779%3A_____%2F26%3A00012377" target="_blank" >RIV/75112779:_____/26:00012377 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
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DOI - Digital Object Identifier
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Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Blue Blood in the SS: A Contribution Regarding the Attitude of the Nobility towards National Socialism
Original language description
The article examines the relationship between the German nobility and the SS under Heinrich Himmler during the Nazi era. Himmler aimed to mold the SS into a racial, ideological, and quasi-chivalric "new nobility" for the Third Reich, drawing inspiration from the Jesuits and Teutonic Knights, and actively recruited traditional nobles for prestige, financial support, and to bolster the organization's elitist image within the "Volksgemeinschaft." Shared ideological elements—völkisch nationalism, anti-Semitism, anti-modernism, rural "blood and soil" values, ancestral pride, and exclusivity in marriage—facilitated this alliance, despite some Nazi resistance to birth-based privilege. Nobles were overrepresented in higher SS ranks by late 1938, particularly in the unarmed Allgemeine SS, though less so in the Waffen-SS or under Reinhard Heydrich's Security Police/SD due to his indifference to aristocratic status. Catholic nobles were underrepresented owing to the SS's anti-Christian policies (favoring "gottgläubig" affiliation), although Himmler was willing to accept and promote nobles even if they did not leave the church. Ultimately, while nobles sought to reclaim lost elite status post-1918 and Himmler exploited them for legitimacy, their overall influence remained limited, with greater participation in the broader NSDAP or SA, and confessional/regional divides constraining fuller integration.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
V - Vyzkumna aktivita podporovana z jinych verejnych zdroju
Others
Publication year
2024
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Nobility in the pre-modern and modern period
ISBN
978-3-205-21962-0
Number of pages of the result
12
Pages from-to
147-158
Number of pages of the book
12
Publisher name
Böhlau Verlag
Place of publication
Wien
UT code for WoS chapter
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