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John Vincent Saulan California State University Northridge Professor Florian English 114B 9 March 2014 An Ambitious Vision of a Utopian Nazi Germany Sir Thomas More, a sixteenth century English author, introduced a magnificent and blissful fictitious paradise nation in his novel, Utopia. He brilliantly described a flawless society, called Utopia, where every citizen had equal rights, spoke a common native language and were educated. The majority of the population dressed in similar clothing that symbolized equal status throughout their region. Every Utopian was required to be a farmer since agriculture was their greatest asset and resource, while also being trained in another specific skill. There was still a distinct social class, a meager number of Utopians that were excluded from labor and were able to pursue higher education due to their professions. The nation of Utopia was absolutely peaceful with its public affairs where political and social disputes were rare. Everyone must follow a common law throughout their region, and those who have gone against it will be enslaved. Each citizen must not leave their specified district or city, have complete tolerance over other religions, and spare any enemies from conquered nations. Surely slavery is not a characteristic of an ideal utopian society but within the context explained by More, it was more of a social service for the beneficial growth of the country. The slaves were not treated inhumanely and there were even immigrant indentured servants who voluntarily joined the slave labor force as a gain of having better life opportunities. Thomas Mores philosophies depicted in his novel were certainly radical for his era as it goes against contemporary beliefs, societies, and government systems. His proposal of a

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balanced and equal society where everyone must sought to be educated, have an efficient labor force, and create equal status among all social classes can be drawn from modern ideologies such as socialism. There was no clear economic gains by the Utopians from their labor in agriculture or other occupations but instead worked for the wellbeing of their country. This utopian socialism is a perfect example and a foreshadowing of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi regime, had the fantasy of creating a thousand year global rule for German and Aryan peoples. Germany, a heavily ravaged country from the First World War was a dystopia. But during the reign of Hitler, he transformed the country into a prosperous nation by creating jobs for every citizen and educating all of its children. Although it was certain that Hitler was surely thriving to a utopian society, Nazi Germany and its Axis allies faced the troubles of the Second World War that proved a great obstacle for his vision of a German utopia. During the early 1930s, Germany was a dysfunctional nation that greatly suffered from the wreckage of World War I and the global economic depression. Famine, poverty and unemployment struck the region by the masses. Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers Party, or better known as the Nazi Party, took advantage of this dystopian society by seizing the power of the government in a militaristic fashion. Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, and strictly imposed Nazi ideals and control. He prioritized on improving the economy of the country by giving the citizens lower taxes and higher wages, and creating Germany as the nation with the highest standard of living. The excerpt from Institute for Historical Review clearly states the example in an interview of Hitler in 1934: In my opinion, the Americans are right in not wanting to make everyone the same but rather in upholding the principle of the ladder. However, every single person must be granted the opportunity to climb up the ladder.

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(1). His greatest objective though was to institute a worldwide order for Germans and Aryans, people of Germanic ethnic descent that contain strong Caucasian features, and exterminate those who are not up to status. It surely was a progression to a racist and socialistic utopia. There is a clear correlation between the society that Thomas More created in his novel and the ideologies of Adolf Hitler. Certainly the imposition of Hitler was vainly immoral, but the idea of a coercive equal nation for a certain population was definitely present. The society described in Utopia contains features that can be interpreted as early operations of social control. Every Utopian household contained thirty members who have elected officials and administrators ruled over them. Under this hierarchical-like rule, it was used to contain any disputes and disapprovals against the government and prevent it to spread throughout the region. This restriction of government criticism surely rests on the totalitarian approach of the Nazis. Censorship was a prominent action enacted by the Nazi party, especially during the inception of their rule in the 1930s. Any ideologies that posed as threats to the reign of the Nazis were censored from all forms of media. They carried and implemented strong images of propaganda throughout mainstream Germany. Such actions included a mass burning of books from intellectuals whose views were indifferent of the Nazis; and an excerpt from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website cites this example, more than 25,000 books were burned. Some were works of Jewish writers, including Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Most of the books were by non-Jewish writers, including such famous Americans as Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair Lewis (1). Hitler and his trusted high-ranking officials used numerous propaganda campaigns to gain influence and power over German citizens. In order for the nation to progress into an absolute utopian society, education became one of their main priorities. The Nazi-controlled

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German government surely provided schooling for all of its youth, but also enforced their own socialistic racist ideologies for supremacy. As they censored and banned books written by individuals who they thought were degenerates and threats to their culture, wrote their own textbooks that included worshiping Hitler as a supreme being, absolute loyalty to the Nazi regime, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and that the Aryans were only the righteous beings. National holidays that celebrated the glory of the Nazis and their leader were also created throughout the nation to further impose their influence. As Germany continued to prosper and regained its economic power, the desire of Hitler to expand his regime throughout Europe and eventually the world grew drastically. He greatly ambitioned to create a Nazi centralized global capital megacity called Welthauptstadt Germania, meaning World Capital Germania. He longed for magnificent infrastructures of Nazi symbolism and the largest capital buildings and monuments that would have put the empires of ancient Rome to shame. The ambitious fantasy of Adolf Hitler for a thousand year German global reign saw a bright gleam of reality during the beginnings of Nazi occupied Germany. Hitler sought absolute power by demonstrating dramatic, theatrical speeches and elegant parades of Nazism throughout Germany. But he desired for absolute global exposure of his power and he enacted on this through the 1936 Summer Olympics. With the help of brilliant and creative German architects, they created the Olympic Stadium in Berlin where the sporting events were held. The Nazis took full advantage to showcase their dominance with an extravagant opening ceremony with international competitors hailing Hitler and the lighting of the torch, which is still used today. They also showcased Aryan supremacy with their athletic prowess by winning the majority of the events.

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With the success of global exposure of Nazism through the Olympics, Hitler aspired for the games to be played under Nazi control for the next event and years after that. According to the blogspot, Secret Weapons of the III Reich, it mentions a grandeur newer stadium for Hitlers plans of permanently hosting the Olympics in Germany. A much larger stadium capable of holding 400,000 spectators was planned alongside the Nazi parade grounds in Nuremberg but only the foundations were dug before the project was abandoned due to the outbreak of war (1). If this stadium was completed it would still stand as the greatest coliseum in history. The grandeur of centralizing sporting events and other means of entertainment under Nazi control is certainly a quality of a perfect society. Furthermore, the plans for Hitlers new world capital, Germania, were under construction through the early years of Nazi rule. He planned on completely rebuilding Berlin, the capital of his nation, with the grandest monuments and capital halls symbolizing his socialistic dominance. Hitler gained influences from other European structures and implement those in his city but with greater emphasis. He planned on creating the worlds largest domed building structure based on the Pantheon in Greece that would become a great forum hall for the people. He also gained interest on planning to create his own arch of triumph based on the Arc de Triomphe in France but also in a grander scale. Although Hitler envisioned a Germanic unified metropolis, there were numerous flaws and obstacles that he overlooked that led to the downfall of his dreams on developing an absolute utopian society. First and foremost, Hitler requested for the highest quality of materials, such as expensive granite, to create his fanciful world capital city of Germania. Once Germany was succumbed to the Second World War, its focus on spending was rapidly switched to military efforts. Architectural projects, especially the monumental infrastructures and stadiums for

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Germania were completely abandoned. These structures only saw their foundations cultivated but nothing else as they became Germanys least concern. Berlin, the landsite for the new capital city could not also sustain the mass renovations as it stands on a marshland. Hitler was still persistent on pursuing his concept of implementing his ideals by first conquering Europe and then the world. But his militaristic approach to his aspirations led to his defeat. It surely was an unavoidable fact that he supported the needs of a ravaged German nation when he became their leader during the rise of the Nazi party. For slightly more than a decade, Hitler gave German citizens, specifically the ethnic Aryan race an absolute utopian society. They thrived under his rule and were blindly loyal to his actions of progressing into the most superior nation. These citizens coherently undertook the same Nazi ideals and beliefs, and discounted any ideologies posed as threat to theirs, all of which Hitler propagandized. The main concept of the novel, Utopia by Sir Thomas More, was to introduce this unbreakable and magnificent society where its citizens lived away from corruption and implement his example into his own society of sixteenth century Europe. The perspective of Adolf Hitler and his followers truly correlates to Mores novel as the Nazis believed that they were the outmost righteous civilization in the world during their time. But the Nazis totalitarian socialistic approach to their goals and their absolute belief in ethnic supremacy ironically became their demise. They underestimated the intelligence and diligence of the Allied powers, with Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union attacking Germany on all fronts. Quite surprisingly, the Nazis faced treason among their own officers who attempted on ending the war and preserving true German integrity by killing Adolf Hitler. It can be concluded that it is quite impossible to create an absolute perfect utopian society as it has never been done in history. Surely, the visions of Hitler had the blueprints of a direct

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utopia with some similarities to the fictional world created by Sir Thomas More. Hundreds of millions of people perished during the Second World War from a dream of one man with desires of global power for himself and his nation. Certainly there would be too many consequences and damages made to create such a society. As long as humans have the ability to reason, to question authority and have differences in ideologies, then it is undeniably unreachable for societies to progress in total equilibrium.

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Works Cited "The Secret Weapons and Facts of the III Reich: Welthauptstadt Germania ("World Capital Germania")." The Secret Weapons and Facts of the III Reich: Welthauptstadt Germania ("World Capital Germania"). N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2014. <http://secretweaponsoftheiiireich.blogspot.com/2011/08/welthauptstadt-germaniaworld-capital.html>. Longerich, Peter. "The Nazi Racial State." BBC News. BBC, 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 05 Mar. 2014. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/racial_state_01.shtml>. More, Thomas, and Dominic Baker-Smith. Utopia. London: Penguin, 2012. Print. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Nazi Propaganda and Censorship." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2014. <http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007677>. Weber, Mark. "INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW." How Hitler Tackled Unemployment. Institute For Historical Review, Feb. 2012. Web. 05 Mar. 2014 <http://www.ihr.org/other/economyhitler2011.html>.