“These milieux, with their party newspapers, clubs and societies, were usually rigid and homogeneous. Already before 1914, this has resulted in politicization o

“These milieux, with their party newspapers, clubs and societies, were usually rigid and homogeneous. Already before 1914, this has resulted in politicization of whole areas of life that in other societies were much freer from ideological identifications. Thus, if a ordinary German wanted to join a male voice choir, for instance, he had to choose in some areas between a Catholic and a Protestant choir, in others between a socialist and a nationalist choir; the same went for gymnastics clubs, cycling clubs, football clubs and the rest. A member of the Social Democratic Party before the war could have virtually his entire life encompassed by the party and it’s organizations: he could read a social democratic newspaper, go to a social democratic pub or bar, belong to a social democratic trade union, borrow books from the social democratic library, go to social democratic women’s organization, enroll his children in the social democratic youth movement and be buried with the aid of a social democratic burial fund. Similar things could be said of the Centre Party but also to a certain extent of other parties too. ....... The older generation of political activists were too closely tied to their particular political ideology to find comprise and co-operation with other politicians and their parties very easily." - The Coming Of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, page 84.