Master of Science in Criminal Justice, Youngstown State University, 2024, Department of Criminal Justice and Consumer Sciences

Throughout Adolf Hitler's duration of power in Nazi Germany, he garnered unquestionable support from an entire nation while utilizing a variety of populist techniques to do so. While articulating many of the same general messages, Neo-Nazis have sparked their own movements within the United States, and many organizations perpetuating violent agendas have emerged. Subsequently, little currently exists that explains how populist rhetoric and communicative techniques have changed since Nazism's inception. This study aims to address this gap in the literature by comparing the populist techniques utilized by George Lincoln Rockwell and James Nolan Mason and their Neo-Nazi rhetoric to that of Adolf Hitler. By utilizing KH Coder, a qualitative analysis software, three separate analyses were conducted that determined each speaker's word frequency, placement, and links. This study asserts that Neo-Nazis have indeed altered their use of populism since the ideology's inception. Likewise, it also indicates that the speakers' use of pronouns not only differed, but played a significant role in the messages being presented to their audiences. While Hitler focused more on personal pronouns to create homogeneity and collective action, Rockwell and Mason prioritized pronouns that targeted outgroups and individual action.

Committee: Richard Rogers Ph.D. (Advisor); Ronald Slipski J.D. (Committee Member); Dorian Mermer M.A. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Comparative; Criminology; Political Science

MA, Kent State University, 2012, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This study explores the policies, ideals, and resistance tactics used by northeast Ohio's most active non-sectarian anti-Nazi organization from 1933 to 1946, The League for Human Rights Against Nazism. Led by famed Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and local activist Grace Mayette, the League conducted public boycotts, informational speeches, and rallies, as well as secretive investigation campaigns against domestic fascist organizations like the German American Bund and Silver Shirt Legion. As the nation entered World War Two, the League altered their activities by engaging more heavily with the local community through their weekly newspaper column, “The Rumor Roundup” and releasing "This is Cleveland," a magazine/study into Cleveland's legacy as the nation's leading liberal and multiracial city. Moreover, this thesis challenges two historiographical trends. First, it shows how clandestine vigilance tactics were often used against perceived enemies and was a response to the perception that the federal government was not aggressively pursuing domestic fascist groups. Second, it shows that Jewish and sympathetic Gentile anti-Nazi resistance in the United States was much stronger, targeted, and organized than previous historians have claimed. In all, this thesis reviews the various roles the League played in Cleveland and northeast Ohio as the region's leading anti-Nazi voice, vigilant spy network, public information organization, civil rights advocate, and leader in uniting the local Jewish population while simultaneously adding to and challenging old historiographical trends.

Committee: Kenneth Bindas PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Richard Steigmann-Gall PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Clarence Wunderlin PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2017, History

During the Weimar Republic of Germany (1919-1933), the NSDAP, or Nazi party, rose to prominence, eventually ending the Republic and giving way to the infamous Third Reich. Pursuing a policy of “National Socialism,” Nazi leaders sought to influence the German electorate by utilizing socialist rhetoric to gain support from a materially deprived nation. Gregor Strasser, leader of the so-called “Nazi-left,” was a key player in this endeavor. I argue that despite clashes with more mainstream Nazi leadership, Strasser and his ideas would heavily influence Nazi rhetoric throughout the Republic's existence. I also contend such rhetoric was vague by necessity because of its uncomfortable closeness to radical left-wing entities, most notably the KPD, or Communist Party of Germany. Several key years and decisions, notably the conflict between Strasser and mainstream party elements in the mid-1920's, the national election of 1930, and two additional elections in 1932, best demonstrated the power and effectiveness of these social ideas.

Committee: Erik Jensen (Advisor); Stephen Norris (Committee Member); Mila Ganeva (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2016, English/Literature

The Gothic has become a mode of transforming reality according to the writers' and the audiences' imagination through the reproduction of hellish landscapes and nightmarish characters and occurrences. It has also been used though to address concerns and criticize authoritarian and power relations between citizens and the State. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking Glass are stories written during the second part of the 19th century and use distinct Gothic elements to comment on the political situation in England as well as the power of language from a child's perspective. Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth on the other hand uses Gothic horror and escapism to demonstrate the monstrosities of fascism and underline the importance of revolt and resistance against State oppression. This thesis will be primarily concerned with Alice and Ofelia as Gothic protagonists that become agents of revolt against their respective states of oppression through the lens of Giorgio Agamben and Hannah Arendt. I will examine how language and escapism are used as tools by the literary creators to depict resistance against the Law and societal pressure; I also aim to demonstrate how the young protagonists themselves refuse to comply with the authoritarian methods used against them by the adult representatives of Power.

Committee: Piya Pal-Lapinski (Committee Chair); Kimberly Coates (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Cinematography; Comparative Literature; Film Studies; Gender Studies; Literature; Philosophy; Political Science

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2015, History (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis examines how local newspapers in the French Occupation Zone of Germany between 1945 and 1949 reflected social change. The words of the press show that, starting in 1945, the Christian narrative was the lens through which `average' Germans conceived of their past and present, understanding the Nazi era as well as war guilt in religious terms. These local newspapers indicate that their respective communities made an early attempt to `come to terms with the past.' This phenomenon is explained by the destruction of World War II, varying Allied approaches to German reconstruction, and unique social conditions in the French Zone. The decline of ardent religiosity in German society between 1945 and 1949 was due mostly to increasing Cold War tensions as well as the return of stability and normality. As Christian rhetoric began to diminish in the local press, so did it in German society as it transitioned to post-Nazism.

Committee: Mirna Zakic Ph.D. (Advisor); Ingo Trauschweizer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Timothy Curp Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: European History; History; Holocaust Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, History

Historians generally assume that the assimilative process was complete for German-Americans by 1930. This assumption, while generally valid, has precluded study of ethnic societies that operated in subsequent years, as Nazism created a new crisis in U.S.-German relations. The purpose of this dissertation is to fill that void by examining a range of German-American organizations and individuals who aspired to ethnic leadership in the interwar and post-World War II periods. It broadens our understanding of how ethnic institutions retained vitality and influence in a period when German-Americans as a whole were entering the mainstream of American society. This study shows that German-American organizations across a broad ideological spectrum saw the controversy over Nazism as a chance to reassert themselves in the public sphere and advance existing goals. At the same time, it shows that the political environment of the 1930s and 1940s necessitated a new understanding of ethnicity. The most successful institutions aligned themselves with the “conformist nationalism” of the era, as European ethnicities operated within state-sanctioned limits, celebrating both Americanism and whiteness. Finally, investigation reveals a considerable degree of negotiation in this process. The U.S. government, too, faced constraints as it promoted a celebration of American pluralism in wartime. It needed to display a loyal German America, a fact that many individuals and organizations used to their advantage. The dissertation comprises six cases. The first two deal with leaders who had espoused German ethnic nationalism during the First World War. The rise of Nazism created a divergence between them, as German-American Jews faced rejection by the Reich and began to distinguish between the German nation and the German state. Other nationalists, such as George Sylvester Viereck, stubbornly adhered to an existing model of German chauvinism through the 1930s. Viereck faced federal prosecution (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kevin Boyle (Advisor); Alan Beyerchen (Committee Member); Peter Hahn (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; European History; History

MA, Kent State University, 2012, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This study explores the tension between the better-known Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) and an often overlooked familial rival, the Deutschvolkische Freiheitspartei (DVFP) during the early years of the Weimar Republic. Following a decades-long radicalization of the German right wing, and exacerbated by Germany's defeat in the First World War the NSDAP and DVFP emerged as representatives of a volkisch worldview that rejected the new system of parliament and was underscored by a fascist nature. This thesis challenges the too-simple conception of the rise to power of the NSDAP as having been inevitable, and of the party as seemingly unchallenged during its formative years. The existence of a plurality of Nazisms, reflected by the existence of the Nazistic DVFP that espoused a worldview nominally similar to that of the NSDAP, shows us that the rise to power of the NSDAP was a much more contingent affair than previously thought. The worldviews of both the NSDAP and DVFP are comparatively examined in this study to illuminate the existence of a variety of strands of Nazism, an ideology that was not a unique conception but rather a widespread worldview which was advocated by a variety of parties on the German extreme right wing during the Weimar years. The cooperative turned rivalrous relationship between the two parties between 1922-1928 is examined in this thesis in functional and cultural terms to highlight the structural and contingent factors which led to the success of the NSDAP and the failure of the DVFP. This study proposes that historians of the NSDAP, and particularly those studying its formative years use a different methodological approach in their attempts to understand the party's rise to power. Borrowing from the field of comparative fascist studies, this work uses the DVFP and its relationship with the NSDAP to explore the functional and cultural factors which led to the NSDAP's rise to power at the expense of a variety of other, Naz (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Richard Steigmann-Gall PhD (Advisor); Shelley Baranowski PhD (Committee Member); Matthew Crawford PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: European History; History; Modern History