The Difference Between Two Powerful Ideologies

In Alice Hamilton's article, the difference between the Communists and Nazis is examined. Both Communists and Nazis were centered around this idea of everyone 'uniting' and forming one Germany. The Communist party's ideology focused on eliminating class barriers, no one person was superior to the next. But this left nothing for an individual to be proud of, especially because there was no sense of pride for Germany. Instead it was a pride for the Communist Party; however, the Communist Party was not solely a German political party--Communism was attempting to be the ruling party in many other countries as well. The National Socialist Party (Nazis) represented pride in the country of Germany; citizens of Germany, citizens of every class, were made to feel like they were contributing to the greatness of the new Germany. When previous years, workers had been viewed as the bottom of the classes in Germany, they were now being told they were the backbone of the new Germany. Normally as a child, your identity isn't established further than your first and last name--Hitler gave these children something to be, and something to look up to. They were being told how being German was superior to any other nationality; this allowed a sensation of camaraderie to prevail upon the Hitler Youth as together they despised all non-Germans, and Jews.

In Hitler Youth Quex, the appeal of the Nazi party, more specifically the Hitler Youth movement, is emphasized. We see the Communist Party is filled with a bunch of sloppy looking older men, fathers, who do nothing but sit in smokey bars and drink all of the time. This is in contrast to the handsome young man who talks to Heini Volker and his father when he is recruiting Heini to the youth movement, and to the happy young boys who are part of this club where they meet in a cool location and sing songs together, and laugh and have fun. Having this pride for Germany was 'the thing' to do in the eyes of the youth.