Clothing In Nazi Germany

The German Nazi Party of the 1930s and 1940s is renowned for its ability to dominate and control millions. It combined strategy, propaganda and brute force to obtain power in Germany and drive its campaign to spread across the world. One of the instruments used by the organisation to both unite its people and denigrate its enemies was clothing. This paper will discuss ways that the Nazi regime used attire to strengthen its image and power.

Clothing has been essential to the human race since the beginning of humanity. It provides protection from harsh climates and environments, preventing rain, snow strong winds and the sun from making direct contact with skin.

However, the use of clothing transcends functionality. It is only human nature

A uniform is designed to advertise the authority of whoever may be wearing it, and assign a specific identity. In the case of the Nazi Party, their uniforms were used as a weapon, and to impose extreme fear on everyone. A man in uniform is much more recognizable than a man in street clothes, so if an officer were to go out in public wearing a Nazi uniform, people would instantly know to show their utmost respect. What made the Nazi uniform so distinguishable from rivals and any other military uniform was the symbol known as the ‘swastika’, prominently displayed on Nazi uniforms, designed by Adolf Hitler himself. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that the emblem needed to be a “symbol expressing our own struggle… it should prove effective as a large poster.” (Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925) . The Swastika was recognised by the masses, and civilians associated the symbol with “the idea of a racially ‘pure’ state.” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, History of the Swastika, n.d.). The Swastika manifested the concepts and beliefs of the Third Reich, and portrayed the messages Hitler was conveying with the Party’s movement. “The Nazis now had a symbol which no other Party could match.” wrote American Journalist, William Shirer, “The hooked cross seemed to possess some mystic power of its own, to beckon to action… the insecure lower middle classes which had been floundering in the uncertainty… began to flock under its banner.” (William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,