National Socialism in Mülheim an der Ruhr

In no area of contemporary regional and local historical works have obtained such meaning as in the exploration of National Socialism, and on no other area is the history of science so far met with broad public interest such as urban and regional history studies and publications. These two elements, the contemporary importance and wide public interest feature, the two objectives, which analyzes the history of the city of Mülheim on the Ruhr in the era of National Socialism, is indispensable.

The local historical limited space and with the aid of micro-analysis religious, socio-economic conditions, their own historical traditions, ideological influences and political constellations will be found, which in their interdependence insights into the question of the mass success of the Nazis and the reciprocal relationships between society and make policy. The focus is the question of the interplay between the structural peculiarities and political domination, or - in other terms - the question of the development and establishment of National Socialism inhibitory or favorable local factors.

In the case of Mülheim on the Ruhr have specifics make out their investigation to an expansion of knowledge, not only for the city's history, but also for the general Nazi research into the industrial area in the Ruhr and by historical research repeatedly sharpened image of the Nazi rule to hope a whole. Mülheim had developed around the turn of the century to a thriving industrial town, whose potential is not based solely on the mining industry, but in the field of textile and leather industry had another leg, which favored above all commerce and trade. For the 20s and 30s of the 20th Century can for Mülheim conditions are identified, that differ in their demographic structure of other Ruhr cities, in that the city had not only a different large, stable, long-established middle and upper classes, while dominance of the industrial working class, but by the predominantly Protestant population also a special feature of the strongly Catholic confessional western Ruhr region represented. Mülheim was through this combination of medium-sized industrial and commercial large-scale industry on the one hand and superior to the other "civil" in the industrial cities of the Ruhr.

In addition, let the election results of 1930 on the assumption that Mülheim in his political imprint a different position in the Ruhr comparison holds. While the NSDAP in the Reichstag elections in the Ruhr region, although significant gains to the detriment of the bourgeois parties, reported she has only been in Mülheim the largest party with 21.95% of the votes and was thus even higher than the national average.

The divergent environment and the constellation of features in the voting patterns of the city will have to be made using milieutheoretischer hypotheses in a causal relationship to pursue the question of regional, religious and schichtungsabhängigen imprinting and its constancy during the Nazi regime can. It is - the dual objective of the following - a review of milieutheoretischen research and its statements to resistant social groups and differentiation of the cognitive state of "seizure" and consolidate power in Mülheim sought.

For more information, please contact: Silvia Lagemann