Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state that controlled nearly all aspects of life via the Gleichschaltung legal process; the official name of the state was Deutsches Reich until 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany is known as the Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", the first two being the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire; the Nazi regime ended. Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, on 30 January 1933; the NSDAP began to eliminate all political opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934 and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the offices and powers of the Chancellery and Presidency. A national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany.
All power was centralised in Hitler's person and his word became the highest law. The government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitler's favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen; the return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity. Racism antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime; the Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the master race, the purest branch of the Aryan race. Discrimination and persecution against Jews and Romani people began in earnest after the seizure of power; the first concentration camps were established in March 1933. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, liberals and communists were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. Christian churches and citizens that opposed Hitler's rule were oppressed, many leaders imprisoned.
Education focused on racial biology, population policy, fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed. Recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased Germany on the international stage. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, Hitler's hypnotic oratory to influence public opinion; the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. The Nazi regime dominated neighbours through military threats in the years leading up to war. Nazi Germany made aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if these were not met, it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR, invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe. By early 1941, Germany controlled much of Europe. Reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas and a German administration was established in the remainder of Poland.
Germany exploited labour of both its occupied territories and its allies. In the Holocaust, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, or shot. While the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was successful, the Soviet resurgence and entry of the US into the war meant the Wehrmacht lost the initiative on the Eastern Front in 1943 and by late 1944 had been pushed back to the pre-1939 border. Large-scale aerial bombing of Germany escalated in 1944 and the Axis powers were driven back in Eastern and Southern Europe. After the Allied invasion of France, Germany was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allies from the west, capitulated in May 1945. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat led to massive destruction of German infrastructure and additional war-related deaths in the closing months of the war; the victorious Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.
The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich from 1943 to 1945, while common English terms are "Nazi Germany" and "Third Reich". The latter, adopted by Nazi propaganda as Drittes Reich, was first used in Das Dritte Reich, a 1923 book by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck; the book counted the Holy Roman Empire as the German Empire as the second. Germany was known as the Weimar Republic during the years 1919 to 1933, it was a republic with a semi-presidential system. The Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism, contentious relationships with the Allied victors of World War I, a series of failed attempts at coalition government by divided political parties. Severe setbacks to the German economy began after World War I ended because of reparations payments required under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles; the government printed money to make the payments and to repay the country's war debt, but the resulting hyperinflation led to inflated prices for consumer goods, economic chaos, food riots.
When the government defaulted on their reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along the Ruhr and widespread civil unrest followed. The National Socialist German Workers' Party (National
Propaganda
Propaganda is information, not objective and is used to influence an audience and further an agenda by presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information, presented. Propaganda is associated with material prepared by governments, but activist groups, religious organizations and the media can produce propaganda. In the twentieth century, the term propaganda has been associated with a manipulative approach, but propaganda was a neutral descriptive term. A wide range of materials and media are used for conveying propaganda messages, which changed as new technologies were invented, including paintings, posters, films, radio shows, TV shows, websites. More the digital age has given rise to new ways of disseminating propaganda, for example, through the use of bots and algorithms to create computational propaganda and spread fake or biased news using social media. In a 1929 literary debate with Edward Bernays, Everett Dean Martin argues that, "Propaganda is making puppets of us.
We are moved by hidden strings which the propagandist manipulates." Propaganda is a modern Latin word, the gerundive form of propagare, meaning to spread or to propagate, thus propaganda means that, to be propagated. This word derived from a new administrative body of the Catholic church created in 1622 as part of the Counter-Reformation, called the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, or informally Propaganda, its activity was aimed at "propagating" the Catholic faith in non-Catholic countries. From the 1790s, the term began being used to refer to propaganda in secular activities; the term began taking a pejorative or negative connotation in the mid-19th century, when it was used in the political sphere. Primitive forms of propaganda have been a human activity as far back as reliable recorded evidence exists; the Behistun Inscription detailing the rise of Darius I to the Persian throne is viewed by most historians as an early example of propaganda. Another striking example of propaganda during Ancient History is the last Roman civil wars during which Octavian and Mark Antony blame each other for obscure and degrading origins, cowardice and literary incompetence, luxury and other slanders.
This defamation took the form of uituperatio, decisive for shaping the Roman public opinion at this time. Propaganda during the Reformation, helped by the spread of the printing press throughout Europe, in particular within Germany, caused new ideas and doctrine to be made available to the public in ways that had never been seen before the 16th century. During the era of the American Revolution, the American colonies had a flourishing network of newspapers and printers who specialized in the topic on behalf of the Patriots; the first large-scale and organised propagation of government propaganda was occasioned by the outbreak of war in 1914. After the defeat of Germany in the First World War, military officials such as Erich Ludendorff suggested that British propaganda had been instrumental in their defeat. Adolf Hitler came to echo this view, believing that it had been a primary cause of the collapse of morale and the revolts in the German home front and Navy in 1918. In Mein Kampf Hitler expounded his theory of propaganda, which provided a powerful base for his rise to power in 1933.
Historian Robert Ensor explains. Most propaganda in Nazi Germany was produced by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels. World War II saw continued use of propaganda as a weapon of war, building on the experience of WWI, by Goebbels and the British Political Warfare Executive, as well as the United States Office of War Information. In the early 20th century, the invention of motion pictures gave propaganda-creators a powerful tool for advancing political and military interests when it came to reaching a broad segment of the population and creating consent or encouraging rejection of the real or imagined enemy. In the years following the October Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government sponsored the Russian film industry with the purpose of making propaganda films In WWII, Nazi filmmakers produced emotional films to create popular support for occupying the Sudetenland and attacking Poland; the 1930s and 1940s, which saw the rise of totalitarian states and the Second World War, are arguably the "Golden Age of Propaganda".
Leni Riefenstahl, a filmmaker working in Nazi Germany, created one of the best-known propaganda movies, Triumph of the Will. In the US, animation became popular for winning over youthful audiences and aiding the U. S. war effort, e.g. Der Fuehrer's Face, which ridicules Hitler and advocates the value of freedom. US war films in the early 1940s were designed to create a patriotic mindset and convince viewers that sacrifices needed to be made to defeat the Axis Powers. Polish filmmakers in Great Britain created anti-nazi color film Calling mr. Smith about current nazi crimes in occupied Europe and about lies of nazi propaganda; the West and the Soviet Union both used propaganda extensively during the Cold War. Both sides used film, and
Political views of Adolf Hitler
The political views of Adolf Hitler have presented historians and biographers with some difficulty. His writings and methods were adapted to need and circumstance, although there were some steady themes, including anti-semitism, anti-communism, anti-parliamentarianism, German Lebensraum, belief in the superiority of an "Aryan race" and an extreme form of German nationalism. Hitler claimed he was fighting against Jewish Marxism. Hitler's political views were formed during three periods: His years as a poverty-stricken young man in Vienna and Munich prior to World War I, during which he turned to nationalist-oriented political pamphlets and antisemitic newspapers out of distrust for mainstream newspapers and political parties. Hitler formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925, but did not acquire German citizenship until seven years later. Hitler was influenced by Benito Mussolini, appointed Prime Minister of Italy in October 1922 after his "March on Rome". In many ways, Adolf Hitler epitomizes "the force of personality in political life" as mentioned by Friedrich Meinecke.
He was essential to the framework of Nazism's political appeal and its manifestation in Germany. So important were Hitler's views that they affected the political policies of Nazi Germany, he asserted the Führerprinzip. The principle relied on absolute obedience of all subordinates to their superiors. Hitler viewed the party structure and the government structure as a pyramid, with himself—the infallible leader—at the apex. Hitler believed that the force of "will" was decisive in determining the political course for a nation and rationalized his actions accordingly. Given that Hitler was appointed "leader of the German Reich for life", he "embodied the supreme power of the state and, as the delegate of the German people", it was his role to determine the "outward form and structure of the Reich". To that end, Hitler's political motivation consisted of an ideology that combined traditional German and Austrian anti-Semitism with an intellectualized racial doctrine resting on an admixture of bits and pieces of social Darwinism and the ideas – obtained second-hand and only understood – of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Arthur de Gobineau and Alfred Rosenberg, as well as Paul de Lagarde, Georges Sorel, Alfred Ploetz and others.
After World War I, Hitler stayed in the army, engaged in suppressing socialist uprisings across Germany, including in Munich, where Hitler returned in 1919. He took part in "national thinking" courses organised by the Education and Propaganda Department of the Bavarian Reichswehr, Headquarters 4 under Captain Karl Mayr. Mayr recruited Hitler to help re-educate soldiers in the wake of the social revolution occurring across Germany; the aforementioned specialized courses took place at the University of Munich in June 1919, where Hitler heard lectures on Germany's economic situation, the political history of the war and other matters, all delivered in an anti-Bolshevik disposition, inciting him to proselytize nationalist messages to his comrades. These helped popularize the notion that there was a scapegoat responsible for the outbreak of war and Germany's defeat. Hitler's own bitterness over the collapse of the war effort began to shape his ideology. Like other German nationalists, he believed the Dolchstoßlegende, which claimed that the German Army, "undefeated in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" on the home front by civilian leaders and Marxists dubbed the "November criminals".
"International Jewry" was described as a scourge composed of communists relentlessly destroying Germany. Such scapegoating was essential to Hitler's political career, it seems that he genuinely believed that Jews were responsible for Germany's post-war troubles. In July 1919 Hitler was appointed Verbindungsmann of an Aufklärungskommando of the Reichswehr, both to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party. Much like the political activists in the DAP, Hitler blamed the loss of the First World War on Jewish intrigue at home and abroad, espousing völkisch-nationalist political beliefs with the intention of resurrecting Germany’s greatness by smashing the Versailles Treaty. Along those lines, Hitler proclaimed that the "German yoke must be broken by German iron". In September 1919 Hitler wrote what is deemed his first antisemitic text, requested by Mayr as a reply to an inquiry by Adolf Gemlich, who had participated in the same "educational courses" as Hitler. In this report Hitler argued for a "rational anti-Semitism" which would not resort to pogroms, but instead "legally fight and remove the privileges enjoyed by the Jews as opposed to other foreigners living among us.
Its final goal, must be the irrevocable removal of the Jews themselves." Most people at the time understood this as a call for forced expulsion. Europe has the auto-da-fé of the Inquisition. While he studied the activities of the German Workers' Party, Hitler became impressed with founder Anton Drexler's antisemitic, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas. Drexler was impressed with Hitler's oratory skills, invited him t
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was one of Adolf Hitler's closest and most devoted associates, was known for his skills in public speaking and his virulent antisemitism, evident in his publicly voiced views, he advocated progressively harsher discrimination, including the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust. Goebbels, who aspired to be an author, obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1921, he joined the Nazi Party in 1924, worked with Gregor Strasser in their northern branch. He was appointed Gauleiter for Berlin in 1926, where he began to take an interest in the use of propaganda to promote the party and its programme. After the Nazi's seizure of power in 1933, Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry gained and exerted control over the news media and information in Germany, he was adept at using the new media of radio and film for propaganda purposes. Topics for party propaganda included antisemitism, attacks on the Christian churches, attempting to shape morale.
In 1943, Goebbels began to pressure Hitler to introduce measures that would produce total war, including closing businesses not essential to the war effort, conscripting women into the labour force, enlisting men in exempt occupations into the Wehrmacht. Hitler appointed him as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War on 23 July 1944, whereby Goebbels undertook unsuccessful measures to increase the number of people available for armaments manufacure and the Wehrmacht; as the war drew to a close and Nazi Germany faced defeat, Magda Goebbels and the Goebbels children joined him in Berlin. They moved into the underground Vorbunker, part of Hitler's underground bunker complex, on 22 April 1945. Hitler committed suicide on 30 April. In accordance with Hitler's will, Goebbels succeeded him as Chancellor of Germany; the following day and his wife committed suicide, after poisoning their six children with cyanide. Paul Joseph Goebbels was born on 29 October 1897 in Rheydt, an industrial town south of Mönchengladbach near Düsseldorf.
Both of his parents were Roman Catholics with modest family backgrounds. His father Fritz was a factory clerk. Goebbels had five siblings: Konrad, Maria and Maria, who married the German filmmaker Max W. Kimmich in 1938. In 1932, Goebbels published a pamphlet of his family tree to refute the rumours that his grandmother was of Jewish ancestry. During childhood, Goebbels suffered from ill health, which included a long bout of inflammation of the lungs, he had a deformed right foot. It was shorter than his left foot, he underwent a failed operation to correct it just prior to starting grammar school. Goebbels wore a metal brace and special shoe because of his shortened leg, walked with a limp, he was rejected for military service in World War I due to this deformity. Goebbels was educated at a Christian Gymnasium, where he completed his Abitur in 1917, he was the top student of his class and was given the traditional honour to speak at the awards ceremony. His parents hoped that he would become a Catholic priest, Goebbels considered it.
He studied literature and history at the universities of Bonn, Würzburg and Munich, aided by a scholarship from the Albertus Magnus Society. By this time Goebbels had begun to distance himself from the church. Historians, including Richard J. Evans and Roger Manvell, speculate that Goebbels' lifelong pursuit of women may have been in compensation for his physical disability. At Freiburg, he met and fell in love with Anka Stalherm, three years his senior, she went on to Würzburg to continue school. In 1921 he wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Michael, a three-part work of which only Parts I and III have survived. Goebbels felt he was writing his "own story". Antisemitic content and material about a charismatic leader may have been added by Goebbels shortly before the book was published in 1929 by Eher-Verlag, the publishing house of the Nazi Party. By 1920, the relationship with Anka was over; the break-up filled Goebbels with thoughts of suicide. At the University of Heidelberg, Goebbels wrote his doctoral thesis on Wilhelm von Schütz, a minor 19th century romantic dramatist.
He had hoped to write his thesis under the supervision of a literary historian. It did not seem to bother Goebbels. Gundolf was no longer teaching, so directed Goebbels to associate professor Max Freiherr von Waldberg. Waldberg Jewish, recommended Goebbels write his thesis on Wilhelm von Schütz. After submitting the thesis and passing his oral examination, Goebbels earned his PhD in 1921. By 1940 he had written 14 books. Goebbels worked as a private tutor, he found work as a journalist and was published in the local newspaper. His writing during that time dislike for modern culture. In the summer of 1922, he began a love affair with Else Janke, a schoolteacher. After she revealed to him that she was half-Jewish, Goebbels stated the "enchantment ruined." He continued to see her on and off until 1927. He continued for several years to try to become a published author, his diaries, which he began in 1923 and continued for the rest of his life, p
Führer
Führer is a German word meaning "leader" or "guide". As a political title it is associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Nazi Germany cultivated the Führerprinzip, Hitler was known as just der Führer; the word Führer in the sense of "guide" remains common in German, it is used in numerous compound words such as Oppositionsführer. However, because of its strong association with Hitler, the isolated word has negative connotations when used with the meaning of "leader" in political contexts; the word Führer has cognates in the Scandinavian languages, spelled fører in Danish and Norwegian which have the same meaning and use as the German word, but without having political connotations. Führer was the title demanded by Adolf Hitler to denote his function as the head of the Nazi Party. Drexler and the party's Executive Committee acquiesced to Hitler's demand to be made the chairman of the party with "dictatorial powers" as the condition for his return, it was common at the time to refer to leaders of all sorts, including those of political parties, as Führer.
Hitler's adoption of the title was inspired by its earlier use by the Austrian Georg von Schönerer, a major exponent of pan-Germanism and German nationalism in Austria, whose followers referred to him as the Führer, who used the Roman salute – where the right arm and hand are held rigidly outstretched – which they called the "German greeting". According to historian Richard J. Evans, this use of "Führer" by Schönerer's Pan-German Association introduced the term to the German far right, but its specific adoption by the Nazis may have been influenced by the use in Italy of "Duce" meaning "leader", as an informal title for Benito Mussolini, the Fascist Prime Minister, dictator, of that country. After Hitler's appointment as Reichskanzler the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act which allowed Hitler's cabinet to promulgate laws by decree. One day before the death of Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg and his cabinet decreed a law that merged the office of the president with that of Chancellor, so that Hitler became Führer and Reichskanzler – although Reichskanzler was dropped.
Hitler therefore assumed the President's powers without assuming the office itself – ostensibly out of respect for Hindenburg's achievements as a heroic figure in World War I. Though this law was in breach of the Enabling Act, which precluded any laws concerning the Presidential office, it was approved by a referendum on 19 August. Hitler saw himself as the sole source of power in Germany, similar to the Roman emperors and German medieval leaders, he used the title Führer und Reichskanzler, highlighting the positions he held in party and government, though in popular reception, the element Führer was understood not just in reference to the Nazi Party, but in reference to the German people and the German state. Soldiers had to swear allegiance to Hitler as "Führer des deutschen Reiches und Volkes"; the title was changed on 28 July 1942 to "Führer des Großdeutschen Reiches". In his political testament, Hitler referred to himself as Führer der Nation. One of the Nazis' most-repeated political slogans was Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer – "One People, One Empire, One Leader".
Bendersky says the slogan "left an indelible mark on the minds of most Germans who lived through the Nazi years. It appeared in publications; the slogan emphasized the absolute control of the party over every sector of German society and culture – with the churches being the most notable exception. Hitler's word was absolute, but he had a narrow range of interest – involving diplomacy and the military – and so his subordinates interpreted his will to fit their own interests. According to the Constitution of Weimar, the President was Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Unlike "President", Hitler did take this title for himself; when conscription was reintroduced in 1935, Hitler created the title of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, a post held by the Minister for War. He retained the title of Supreme Commander for himself. Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg the Minister of War and one of those who created the Hitler oath, or the personal oath of loyalty of the military to Hitler, became the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces while Hitler remained Supreme Commander.
Following the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair in 1938, Hitler assumed the commander-in-chief's post as well and took personal command of the armed forces. However, he continued using the older formally higher title of Supreme Commander, thus filled with a somewhat new meaning. Combining it with "Führer", he used the style Führer und Oberster Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht, yet a simple "Führer" since May 1942. An additional title was adopted by Hitler on 23 June 1941 when he declared himself the "Germanic Führer", in addition to his duties as Führer of the German state and people; this was done to emphasize Hitler's professed leadership of what the Nazis described as the "Nordic-Germanic master race", considered to include peoples such as the Norwegians, Swedes and others i
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the south bank of the Yamuna river in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, it houses the tomb of Shah Jahan, the builder. The tomb is the centerpiece of a 17-hectare complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall. Construction of the mausoleum was completed in 1643 but work continued on other phases of the project for another 10 years; the Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at the time to be around 32 million rupees, which in 2015 would be 52.8 billion rupees. The construction project employed some 20,000 artisans under the guidance of a board of architects led by the court architect to the emperor, Ustad Ahmad Lahauri; the Taj Mahal was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 for being "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".
It is regarded by many as the best example of Mughal architecture and a symbol of India's rich history. The Taj Mahal attracts 7–8 million visitors a year and in 2007, it was declared a winner of the New7Wonders of the World initiative; the Taj Mahal was commissioned by Shah Jahan in 1631, to be built in the memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, a Persian princess who died giving birth to their 14th child, Gauhara Begum. Construction started in 1632, the mausoleum was completed in 1643, while the surrounding buildings and garden were finished five years later; the imperial court documenting Shah Jahan's grief after the death of Mumtaz Mahal illustrates the love story held as the inspiration for the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal incorporates and expands on design traditions of Persian and earlier Mughal architecture. Specific inspiration came from successful Timurid and Mughal buildings including the Gur-e Amir, Humayun's Tomb, Itmad-Ud-Daulah's Tomb, Shah Jahan's own Jama Masjid in Delhi. While earlier Mughal buildings were constructed of red sandstone, Shah Jahan promoted the use of white marble inlaid with semi-precious stones.
Buildings under his patronage reached new levels of refinement. The tomb is the central focus of the entire complex of the Taj Mahal, it is a large, white marble structure standing on a square plinth and consists of a symmetrical building with an iwan topped by a large dome and finial. Like most Mughal tombs, the basic elements are Persian in origin; the base structure is a large multi-chambered cube with chamfered corners forming an unequal eight-sided structure, 55 metres on each of the four long sides. Each side of the iwan is framed with a huge pishtaq or vaulted archway with two shaped arched balconies stacked on either side; this motif of stacked pishtaqs is replicated on the chamfered corner areas, making the design symmetrical on all sides of the building. Four minarets frame one at each corner of the plinth facing the chamfered corners; the main chamber houses the false sarcophagi of Shah Jahan. The most spectacular feature is the marble dome; the dome is nearly 35 metres high, close in measurement to the length of the base, accentuated by the cylindrical "drum" it sits on, 7 metres high.
Because of its shape, the dome is called an onion dome or amrud. The top is decorated with a lotus design which serves to accentuate its height; the shape of the dome is emphasised by four smaller domed chattris placed at its corners, which replicate the onion shape of the main dome. The dome is asymmetrical, their columned bases provide light to the interior. Tall decorative spires extend from edges of base walls, provide visual emphasis to the height of the dome; the lotus motif is repeated on guldastas. The dome and chattris are topped by a gilded finial which mixes traditional Persian and Hindustani decorative elements; the main finial was made of gold but was replaced by a copy made of gilded bronze in the early 19th century. This feature provides a clear example of integration of traditional Persian and Hindu decorative elements; the finial is topped by a typical Islamic motif whose horns point heavenward. The minarets, which are each more than 40 metres tall, display the designer's penchant for symmetry.
They were designed as working minarets— a traditional element of mosques, used by the muezzin to call the Islamic faithful to prayer. Each minaret is divided into three equal parts by two working balconies that ring the tower. At the top of the tower is a final balcony surmounted by a chattri that mirrors the design of those on the tomb; the chattris all share the same decorative elements of a lotus design topped by a gilded finial. The minarets were constructed outside of the plinth so that in the event of collapse, a typical occurrence with many tall constructions of the period, the material from the towers would tend to fall away from the tomb; the exterior decorations of the Taj Mahal are among the finest in Mughal architecture. As the surface area changes, the decorations are refined proportionally; the decorative elements were created by applying paint, stone inlays or carvings. In line with the Islamic proh
Roud Folk Song Index
The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by a former librarian in the London Borough of Croydon. Roud's Index is a "field-recording index" compiled by Roud, it subsumes all the previous printed sources known to Francis James Child and includes recordings from 1900 to 1975. Until early 2006 the index was available by a CD subscription. A partial list is available at List of folk songs by Roud number; the primary function of the Roud Folk Song Index is as a research aid correlating versions of traditional English-language folk song lyrics independently documented over past centuries by many different collectors across the UK and North America. It is possible by searching the database, for example by title, by first line, or subject matter to locate each of the numerous variants of a particular song. Comprehensive details of those songs are available, including details of the original collected source, a reference to where to find the text of the song within a published volume in the EFDSS archive.
A related index, the Roud Broadside Index, includes references to songs which appeared on broadsides and other cheap print publications, up to about 1920. In addition, there are many entries for music hall songs, pre-World War II radio performers' song folios, sheet music, etc; the index may be searched by title, first line etc. and the result includes details of the original imprint and where a copy may be located. The Roud number – "Roud num" – field may be used as a cross-reference to the Roud Folk Song Index itself in order to establish the traditional origin of the work; the database is recognised as a "significant index" by the EFDSS and was one of the first items to be published on its web site after the launch of the online version of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library in 2006. The purpose of the index is to give each song a unique identifier; the numbers were assigned on a more or less arbitrary basis, are not intended to carry any significance in themselves. However, because of the practicalities of compiling the index it is true as a general rule that older and better-known songs tend to occupy low numbers, while songs which are obscure have higher numbers.
Related songs are grouped under the same Roud number. If a trusted authority gives the name of a song but not the words it is assigned Roud number 000; the Index cross references to the Child Ballad number, if one is available for the particular song in question. It includes, where appropriate, the Laws number, a reference to a system of classification of folk songs, using one letter of the alphabet and up to two numeric digits, developed by George Malcolm Laws in the 1950s; the Index was compiled and is maintained by Steve Roud the Local Studies Librarian in the London Borough of Croydon. He was Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society, he began it in around 1970 as a personal project, listing the source singer, their locality, the date of noting the song, the publisher, plus other fields, crucially assigning a number to each song, including all variants to overcome the problem of songs in which the titles were not consistent across versions. The system used 3x5-inch filing cards in shoeboxes.
In 1993, Roud implemented his record system on a computer database, which he continues to expand and maintain and, now hosted on the website of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. In the past few years the numbers have been accepted in academic circles; the Traditional Ballad Index at the California State University at Fresno includes Roud numbers up to number 5000 with comments on the songs, but draws on fewer sources. The Folk Song Index is a collaborative project between the Oberlin College Library and the folk music journal Sing Out!. It is an index to traditional folk songs of the world, with an emphasis on English-language songs, containing over 62,000 entries and including over 2,400 anthologies. Max Hunter's collection lists 1,600 songs. James Madison Carpenter's collection has 6,200 transcriptions and 1000 recorded cylinders made between 1927 and 1955; the index gives first line and the name of the source singer. When appropriate, the Child number is given, it is still a unexploited resource, with none of the recordings available.
The Essen folk song database is another collection that includes songs from non English-speaking countries Germany and China. A similar index of Latvian folk songs and chants, the "Dainu skapis", was created by Latvian scholar Krišjānis Barons at the beginning of the 20th century. List of folk songs by Roud number Iona and Peter Opie Official website
