Folklore and fascism

Hannjost Lixfeld

Folklore and Fascism explores the genesis of the Reich Institute for German Folklore during World War I and the time of the Weimar Republic. When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, they recognized that such an organization could serve their purposes of coordinating the political and social orders. When the Nazis gave their support to the formation of the Institute, respected folklorists were swept up in this movement, which promised a realization of their dreams of a pan-German Folklore Center. Lixfeld discusses numerous folklorists in this volume, but special attention is paid to scholars such as John Meier and Adolf Spamer, who had long nurtured and promoted the idea of a Reichsinstitut but assumed an ambiguous stance in their dealings with the fascists. Lixfeld shows that two of the most powerful Nazi ideologists seized on the idea of such an institute and detailed...

See on goodreads | librarything