Editing Gleichschaltung (section)

==Implications==
Historian [[Claudia Koonz]] explains that the word {{lang|de|Gleichschaltung}} stems from the arena of [[electricity]], where it refers to converting power from [[alternating current]] to [[direct current]], which is called "[[rectifier|rectification]]" in English; the word {{lang|de|Gleichschaltung}} translates literally as "phasing". Used in its sociopolitical sense, {{lang|de|Gleichschaltung}} has no equivalent in any other language. The Nazis also used other similar terms, such as {{lang|de|Ausschaltung}}, which constituted the removal or "switching off" of anyone who stained or soiled the German nation.{{sfn|Koonz|2003|p=72}} This seemingly clinical terminology captured both the mechanical and biological meaning for members of German society; as one German citizen visiting London explained, "It means the same stream will flow through the ethnic body politic [{{lang|de|Volkskörper}}]."{{sfn|Koonz|2003|pp=72–73}}

Former University of [[Dresden]] professor of romance languages [[Viktor Klemperer]]—dismissed from his post for being Jewish in 1935—collected a list of terms Nazis employed in everyday speech, which he discussed in his book, ''[[LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii]]'', published in English as ''The Language of the Third Reich''. In this work, Klemperer contends that the Nazis made the German language itself a servant to their ideology through its repetitive use, eventually permeating its people's very "flesh and blood".{{sfn|Klemperer|2000|p=14}} For instance, if it was sunny and pleasant, it was "Hitler weather", or if you failed to comply with Nazi ideals of racial and social [[conformity]], you were "switched off."{{sfn|Koonz|2003|p=73}} While the state imposed top-down coordination, many Germans simultaneously engaged in bottom-up alignment of the individual type, known as ''Selbstgleichschaltung''.{{sfn|USHMM, "Gleichschaltung"}} 

When the blatant emphasis on racial hatred of others seemed to reach an impasse in the school system, through radio broadcasts, or on film reels, the overseers of Nazi {{lang|de|Gleichschaltung}} propaganda switched to strategies that focused more on togetherness and the "we-consciousness" of the collective Volk, but the mandates of Nazi "coordination" remained: pay homage to the Führer, expel all foreigners, sacrifice for the German people, and welcome future challenges.{{sfn|Koonz|2003|pp=161–162}} While greater German social and economic unity was produced through the regime's ''Gleichschaltung'' initiatives, it was at the expense of individuality and to the social detriment of any nonconformist;{{sfn|Taylor|Shaw|1997|p=109}} worse, it contributed to and reinforced the social and racial exclusion of anyone National Socialist doctrine deemed an enemy.{{sfn|Laqueur|Baumel|2001|p=241}} The Nazi {{lang|de|Gleichschaltung}} or "synchronization" of German society—along with a series of Nazi legislation{{sfn|Taylor|Shaw|1997|p=110}}—was part and parcel to Jewish economic disenfranchisement, the violence against political opposition, the creation of concentration camps, the Nuremberg Laws, the establishment of a racial {{lang|de|Volksgemeinschaft}}, the seeking of {{lang|de|[[Lebensraum]]}}, and the violent [[Holocaust|mass destruction of human life]] deemed somehow less valuable by the National Socialist government of Germany.{{sfn|Wildt|2012|pp=9, 109, 125–128}}{{sfn|Laqueur|Baumel|2001|pp=241–251}}