Völkisch movement

The völkisch movement (original name: völkische Bewegung) is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic", i.e.: a "naturally grown community in unity" (as opposed to a refined and sophisticated society characterised by diverging interests), characterised by the one-body-metaphor (Volkskörper) for the entire population. The term völkisch (pronounced [ˈfœlkɪʃ]) derives from the German word Volk (cognate with the English "folk"), corresponding to "people", with connotations in German of "people-powered", "folksy" and "folkloric". According to the historian James Webb, the word also has "overtones of 'nation', 'race' and 'tribe'…" The term völkisch has no direct English equivalent, but it could be rendered as "ethnonationalistic", "racial-nationalistic" or "ethno-racialist", or referred by some today as folkish.

The defining idea that the völkisch movement revolved around was that of a Volkstum (literally "folkdom", with a meaning similar to a combination of the terms "folklore" and "ethnicity"), not to be confused with the Volkssturm. "Populist", or "popular", in this context would be volkstümlich.

The völkisch "movement" was not a unified movement but "a cauldron of beliefs, fears and hopes that found expression in various movements and were often articulated in an emotional tone," Petteri Pietikäinen observed in tracing völkisch influences on Carl Gustav Jung. The völkisch movement was "arguably the largest group" in the Conservative Revolutionary movement in Germany. However, like "conservative-revolutionary" or "fascist", völkisch is a complex term ("schillernder Begriff"). In a narrow definition it can be used to designate only groups that consider human beings essentially preformed by blood, i.e. by inherited characteristics.

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