What impact did National Socialism have on the history of Mindelheim? How did the people who lived there between 1933 and 1945 experience Nazi rule? Who represented the Nazi regime and who implemented National Socialist policy? How present were racism, violence, and inflammatory speech in everyday life? And how did the National Socialist policy of persecution and extermination manifest itself within the community and town society, who were the victims of these crimes, and what responsibility did local decision-makers bear for this?

These and many other questions have long been the subject of intense discussion in the town and can only be answered on the basis of exact knowledge of the historical facts. The Mindelheim Town Council has thus unanimously decided to commission the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) with research into the history of National Socialism in the town. The IfZ research project will examine Mindelheim as a model case for a small, rural Catholic town that did not have a National Socialist majority before 1933, but which relatively seamlessly integrated into the Nazi regime after 1933. The presence of the Reichsnährstand (“Reich Food Department”), which established one of its ideological training centers, the Bauernführerschule (“Farmers’ Leader School”) at Mindelburg Castle in 1933/34, provided National Socialist ideology and the Nazi political practice with a prominent place in the town. The use of Mindelburg Castle by the Hitler Youth (HJ) at the end of the war also needs to be researched.

The project takes as its starting point current historical research on towns and cities and will focus primarily on three areas:

1. the history of municipal administration

2. the permeation of the town’s society by the NSDAP and its organizations, as well as civic associations and associations that followed Nazi ideology

3. Mindelburg Castle and its significance during the Nazi era.

Over the past two decades in particular, the research has strongly highlighted how deeply the Nazi movement and regime embedded themselves within German society. The reorganization of German society based on racist, biologistic, and political criteria lay at the core of Nazi ideology. A process of “purification”, “selection”, and “extermination” was meant to establish a “racially pure” National Socialist Volksgemeinschaft (“national community”) that was destined to rule over Europe as a “master race”. The National Socialist project arose from a totalitarian worldview and concept of rule that aimed to encompass everyone and everything. Nazi social policy mobilized those citizens deemed by the regime to be desirable and endowed them with privileges, while persecuting and murdering those labelled as “foreign”, “inferior”, or “unworthy”.

The National Socialist reorganization of society chiefly took place at the local level, in the cities and municipalities of the Reich, including Mindelheim. This placed particular responsibility on local National Socialist leaders, party organizations, and local and state administrations, as they were made responsible for the realization of the Volksgemeinschaft “utopia” within the local space of everyday life. This project explores the history of Mindelheim during the Nazi era from the perspective of research on the Volksgemeinschaft. Special attention is given here to the scope of action that was available to the actors involved. What decisions did individuals make and what matters did they and didn’t they support? How did they interact with other National Socialist leaders?

The project focuses on the years of Nazi rule between 1933 and 1945, while however also tracing historical developments back to the turn of the century, the First World War, and the Weimar Republic, when this proves important for the understanding of the phenomena being investigated. The post-war period and the first years of the Federal Republic will also be examined within the context of transformation into democratic society. Where can continuities be identified beyond 1945 and where did new beginnings occur instead? What traditions provided the basis for the establishment of democracy in the town?

The project, which began in January 2024, is being conducted by Manuela Rienks and Manuel Mork.