In this book Brown argues that both the Nazis and Communists in Weimar Germany adopted the symbols of the other in order to gain new adherents from a conflicted middle ground between the two (Spannungsfeld). This act of performance from the parties was opposed by many rank and file members and activists who in response sought and displayed "Authenticity", that is, a true reflection of their anti-authoritarian desires. In the end the Nazis were better able than the communists to offer a form of self expression, and upon their victory, their radicalism was constrained and transformed into a state-sanctiomed ideology. The idea of Nazism and communism as two disparate poles which attempted to influence, but did not control, a larger swell of capitalist discontents seemed to me highly convincing, as did accounts of the mass' opposition to the two parties.

Quotes:

1.
"The real importance of [the] mimetic element is that it suggests the way that in quoting each other, extremist movements played with a set of ideas and terms "socialism", "nationalism", "revolution" among others- that whatever their differing valence from situation to situation, made up part of a discourse that extended across organizational boundaries and allowed radicals of differing stripes to talk to each other." (4)

2.
"The staging that movements attempted to enact for their own followers became entwined with the mimetic staging that they enacted for the purposes of prosyletization or subversion of their competitor." (5)

3.
"Communist and Nazi parties [spoke] not just for the masses but literally in the voice of the masses, playing a heavily mediated version of grassroots populism back to the grassroots in an attempt not only to gain political influence and win adherents but also to bring together seemingly irreconcilable opposites: The spirit of revolt against the increasing bureaucratization and regimentation of daily life with the wideread longing for mass, collective solutions to these problems." (9)

4.
"The space between the two movements is to be seen less as an area of overlap than a space in which the two movements played with the meaning of symbols in an effort to win over militants and the masses." (149)

5.
"On both sides of the spectrum, there was a powerful tension between the authentic activist impulses of the rank and file- the "from below"- and the version of rank-and-file activism created "from above"." (150)