Volksgemeinschaft outcompeted classlessness by promising upward mobility and immediate realization

Evidence

To a certain extent, the Volksgemeinschaft was the Nazis’ attempt to counter the Communist promise of a classless society. The propaganda appeal of the one over the other seems obvious if we disregard all ideological implications. While both promised to level all social and property differences, the classless society had the obvious connotation that everybody would be leveled to the status of a factory worker, while the Volksgemeinschaft, with its connotation of conspiracy for world conquest, held out a reasonable hope that every German could eventually become a factory owner. The even greater advantage of the Volksgemeinschaft, however, was that its establishment did not have to wait for some future time and did not depend upon objective conditions: it could be realized immediately in the fictitious world of the movement. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 844

Categorization

• XREF: Explains mechanism of how fictitious communal belonging can beat material promises — relevant to how imagined community outcompetes class-based appeals.