An insight into how practices of coercion and exclusion functioned as components of normal life in Nazi Germany can be gained from an analysis of everyday rituals that became ubiquitous in the country after 1933. Through their participation, or refusal to participate, in these rituals, Germans signaled their feelings toward National Socialism and the national leadership. The complex ways in which Germans engaged in these rituals on a daily basis served as gestures of approval, deference, acquiescence, fear, or disapproval toward the regime. We will briefly look at three such rituals: use of the Hitler salute, the display of flags, and charitable contributions to the Winter Relief.

The “Hitler Greeting,” consisting of a salute with an outstretched right arm accompanied by the acclamation Heil Hitler, had been required practice inside the Nazi movement before 1933. After the seizure of power, it was adopted as the standard greeting throughout all of German society, replacing more traditional greetings such as guten Tag (good day) or, in southern Germany, grüß Gott (may God greet you). Millions of Germans recited the phrase multiple times daily in their routine interpersonal interactions in public, for example entering a shop or meeting an acquaintance on the street. Among Nazi Party members of long standing, doing so simply continued an established practice of expressing loyalty to their Führer. To explain why millions of other Germans began to employ the Hitler salute after January 1933 it is not sufficient to point to political and social pressure from above, which was certainly considerable. Many adopted the practice as an autonomous personal decision to conform to the new order, whether they believed in it or not. By virtue of its ubiquity in everyday life, the greeting colonized and politicized the sphere of routine interpersonal communication with a Nazi principle, underscoring the Nazi claim to power over ordinary people in their private lives.

Precisely because the use of the Hitler salute became normative, Germans could voice criticism of the regime by using a more traditional greeting, exclaiming “Heil Hitler” with demonstratively little enthusiasm, or crossing the street to avoid acquaintances expecting to hear it. Friedrich Kellner, an anti-Nazi civil servant in the small town of Laubach in north-central Germany, wrote in his diary about being scolded by the town’s former mayor for greeting him with “good day.” “You say ‘Heil Hitler,’ young man!” Kellner vented in his diary: “When this tyranny by Nazi big shots has broken down, and I am asked which Nazi requirement gave me the biggest headache, I will say without hesitation it was the greeting ‘Heil Hitler.’ This criminal of all criminals forces even those he has suppressed to worship him daily in greeting.”

The practice of displaying flags (Beflaggung) also, for a time, offered opportunities to express a range of opinions toward the regime. On Nazi holidays, such as Hitler’s birthday, and on other politically significant days, the regime rallied the population to fly flags from their balconies, in front gardens, and on building entrances. The flags would create a colorful visual accompaniment to parades and other forms of public celebration. They would give an impression of national unity, or, in the words of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, that the German people formed “a single giant living organism.” The preferred flag, of course, was the red, white, and black Nazi banner with a swastika at its center, while the red, black, and gold flag of the Weimar Republic (which had been based on the flag of the liberal revolution of 1848) was no longer tolerated.

During the early phase of the regime, many Germans who desired to distance themselves from Nazism did not display flags. Some, as a means for avoiding the swastika, hoisted the red, white, and black flag of the old German Empire. Some raised the flags of their states or municipalities. This method of signaling dissent continued even after 1935, when the government issued the Reich Flag Law, which declared the Nazi flag as the sole valid flag for the Reich. To bring people into line, local Nazi officials, who kept close tabs on who flew which flag, would issue threats,sometimes veiled, sometimes explicit. Over time, as it became clear that failure to display the Nazi flag could result in negative consequences, people began to display the Nazi flag defensively, to pre-empt stigmatization by the authorities. Citizens found imaginative ways to satisfy the party while continuing to distance themselves from Nazism. One could, for example, display a large flag of the German Empire while appending a much smaller swastika flag to its side. Such practices ended in 1937, when a new decree expressly banned the flying of flags other than the Nazi one. Meanwhile, Jews were prohibited from hoisting the Nazi flag under any circumstances.

Our third example of ritualized obeisance to Nazism in everyday life is found in the charity drives of the Winter Relief Organization (Winterhilfswerk). This project was launched in 1933 by the Nazi Party’s official social relief organ, the National Socialist People’s Welfare Organization (NS-Volkswohlfahrt), which would, by the beginning of World War II, develop into a mass organization with 14 million members. The Winter Relief drive ran annually from October 1 through March 31, soliciting donations of both money and goods to support needy cases. The collection drives were elaborately orchestrated campaigns, organized in cooperation with the Propaganda Ministry, which dubbed the Winter Relief “the greatest charity of all time.” During the first couple of years of Nazi rule, when unemployment in Germany remained high, and the number of needy cases was, in fact, high, even anti-Nazis could give to the Winter Relief with a clear conscience. But for the regime, encouraging personal charity was not enough. It framed the Winter Relief politically, as an opportunity to demonstrate one’s readiness to sacrifice for the Volk.

Collecting for the Winter Relief (ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images).

Collectors stationed themselves with their donation boxes on streets and in front of shops. Such practices were, and are, common in many countries, but the Nazi Winter Relief employed additional methods that were quite coercive. Collectors armed with lists of donors appeared at people’s homes soliciting contributions. They often wore uniforms of the party or the SA, presenting themselves not as representatives of a private charity but as agents of the regime. Donors were rewarded with a certificate posted on their door, in the process stigmatizing neighbors whose doors remained unmarked. The Nazi Party maintained records of who contributed and how much, and this information was included in evaluations of political reliability provided by the party to Germans applying for jobs or educational opportunities. Not uncommonly newspapers published lists of citizens who had not contributed, which sometimes resulted in angry demonstrations of Nazi activists in front of homes. Even as it brought such pressures to bear on its citizens, the regime maintained the fiction that giving to the Winter Relief was a voluntary act. From the very beginning, the Winter Relief served as a demonstration of the power of the Nazi order to infringe on the private lives of its citizens.