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v t e Nazism
Organisation	Ahnenerbe Artaman League Geheime Staatspolizei Deutscher Fichte-Bund Deutsches Jungvolk Franz Eher Nachfolger Hitler Youth League of German Girls Organisation Todt NSDÄB NSDStB NSRL NSFK NSKK NSF Nazi media organizations Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte Neues Volk NS-Frauen-Warte Das Reich Das Schwarze Korps Nazi Party Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Sturmabteilung (SA) Schutzstaffel (SS) SS Gefolge Waffen-SS
History	Early timeline National Socialist Program Hitler's rise to power Machtergreifung Gleichschaltung German rearmament Nazi Germany Kirchenkampf Adolf Hitler's cult of personality Enabling Act of 1933 Night of the Long Knives Nuremberg rallies Nuremberg Laws Anti-Comintern Pact Kristallnacht Anschluss World War II The Holocaust 1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet Tripartite Pact Denazification Nuremberg trials Final solution Concentration camps Deportations Doctors' Trial Extermination camps Genocide Ghettos Human experimentation Labour camps Pogroms Racial segregation
Ideology	Aestheticization of politics Anti-communism Anti-intellectualism Anti-liberalism Anti-pacifism Blood and soil Chauvinism Class collaboration Conspiracism Dolchstoßlegende "International Jewry" Judeo-Bolshevism Corporatism Cult of personality Dictatorship Führerprinzip Direct action Economic interventionism Eugenics Geopolitik Heimat Imperialism Greater Germanic Reich Heim ins Reich Lebensraum Pan-Germanism Militarism Nationalism Ethno Racial Palingenetic Revolutionary Ultra New Man New Order One-party state Populism Propaganda Prussianism Racism Antisemitism Anti-Slavic sentiment Aryan race Aryanism Master race Nordicism Nordic Indo-Germanic people Renordification Rassenschande Untermenschen Völkisch equality Völkisch movement Reactionary modernism Romanticism Social Darwinism Social interventionism Social order State capitalism Syncretism Totalitarianism Volksgemeinschaft Volk ohne Raum Volkskörper
Politicians	Bierbaumer Bloem Bormann Daluege Dönitz Drexler Eichmann Esser Fischer Frank Frick Hess Heydrich Himmler Hitler Goebbels Göring Keller Lammers Lutze Mitford von Neurath Quisling von Ribbentrop Röhm Schacht von Schirach Scholtz-Klink Seldte Seyss-Inquart Speer Strasser (Gregor) Strasser (Otto) Streicher
Ideologues	Pre-Machtergreifung Arndt Burnouf Chamberlain Drumont Eckart Fritsch de Gobineau Grant von Liebenfels von List Löns Lueger Marr Nietzsche (Contentious) Ratzel Riehl Ruskin Wagner Post-Machtergreifung Anacker Baeumler Bergmann Berndt Darré Eggers Eichrodt Feder Ford Grimm Günther Hauer Haushofer Heidegger (Contentious) Hentschel Hoche al-Husseini Jung Krannhals Kriek Lindbergh Müller Plenge Rahn Rosenberg Saadeh Schäfer Schmalenbach Schmitt (Contentious) von Sebottendorf Schwarz Stapel Wirsing Zimmermann
Atrocities and war crimes	Action T4 Nazi concentration camps Extermination camp Final Solution Human experimentation Romani genocide
Outside Germany	Americas Brazil Chile Europe Greece Sweden Parties American Nazi Party Arrow Cross Party (Hungary) German American Bund German National Movement in Liechtenstein Nasjonal Samling (Norway) National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands National Socialist Movement of Chile National Socialist Movement (United States) National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark Nordic Resistance Movement Ossewabrandwag (South Africa) SUMKA (Iran) Syrian Social Nationalist Party Tsagaan Khas (Mongolia) World Union of National Socialists
Lists	Bibliography of Adolf Hitler Nazi ideologues NSDAP leaders and officials Nazi Party members Last surviving war crime suspects Party ideologues Speeches given by Adolf Hitler SS personnel
Role and impact in German society	The Wehrmacht Economy Nobility
Related topics	Anti-Bolshevist League Art Architecture Cinema Atsızism "Beefsteak Nazi" Economy Denordification Renordification Glossary Drang nach Osten Generalplan Ost German American Bund Horst-Wessel-Lied Political views of Adolf Hitler Nazi propaganda and the United Kingdom Racial theories Sorelianism Strasserism Women
Category

National Socialism, commonly shortened to Nazism or (less frequently) Naziism, originated as a fascist movement in Europe, and refers especially to the movement of the German Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler.

Introduction

Nazism refers to the ideology held by the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, commonly called the NSDAP or Nazi Party), and its so-called Weltanschauung when in power from 1933 to 1945, the time of the "Third Reich." In terms of ideology, the Nazis believed in the superiority of an Aryan master race, advocated the Führerprinzip—individual leadership]] in a strong, centralized government—and claimed to be defending Germany and the German people (including those of German ethnicity abroad) against communism and Jewish subversion and tried to form a new, cleansed world order. Since 1945, Nazism has been outlawed as a political ideology in Germany, as are forms of iconography and propaganda from the Nazi era. Still, remnants and revivalists, known as "Neo-Nazis," continue to operate in Germany and abroad.

Free elections in 1932 under Germany's Weimar Republic made the NSDAP the largest parliamentary fraction; no similar party in any country at that time had achieved comparable electoral success. Adolf Hitler's 30 January 1933 appointment to the chancellorship and his subsequent consolidation of dictatorial power, marked the beginning of Nazi Germany. During its first year in power, the NSDAP announced the beginning of the Tausendjähriges Reich ("Thousand Years' Empire") or Drittes Reich ("Third Reich", a putative successor to the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire). The Nazi regime lasted until 1945, during which time Hitler and his party led Germany into World War II. At the end of that war, the party was declared a criminal organisation by the victorious Allied Powers and was effectively destroyed. Since 1945, Nazism has been outlawed as a political ideology in Germany, as are forms of iconography and propaganda from the Nazi era. Still, remnants and revivalists, known as "Neo-Nazis," continue to operate in Germany and abroad.

The term Nazi was coined as a quick way of referring to the Party or ideology that would later be—and, to this day, remains—closely associated with Adolf Hitler (the phrase is derived from the first four letters in the first word of the official name, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, German for "National Socialist," and often abbreviated with NS). Nazi was also meant to mirror the term Sozi (a common and slightly derogatory term for the Nazis' main opponents, the German socialists); abbreviating words by taking the two first syllables was the usual way in the early 20th century (and today). However, the Nazis from the era of the Third Reich rarely referred to themselves as "Nazis," preferring instead the official term, Nazionalsozialisten ("National Socialists"). Since then, Nazi has been most commonly used as a pejorative term, but its use became so widespread that, currently, some Neo-Nazis also use it to describe themselves.

Hitler played a major role in the development of the Nazi Party from its early stages and rose to become the movement's indisputable ideographic figurehead. Consequently, much of what is thought to be "Nazism" is in line with Hitler's own political beliefs, and the ideology and the man continue to remain largely interchangeable in the public eye. This strong influence of one man's views on the entire movement is one of the reasons why scholars often disagree on whether Nazism can be considered a coherent ideology. The problem is furthered by the inability of various modern Nazi groups to decide what their ideologies are. The original National Socialists in the different German-speaking and those in non-German parts of Europe claimed that there would be no program that would bind them, and that they wanted to reject any established world view.

Following World War II and the Holocaust, the term "Nazi" and most other words and symbols associated with Nazism (such as the swastika) acquired extremely negative connotations in Europe and North America. Calling someone a "Nazi" or even suggesting that one has something in common with Nazism is considered an insult. People of all political persuasions at times attempt to draw parallels between their opponents and the Nazis in order to put their opponents in a negative light. This is a fallacy called reductio ad Hitlerum. (See also Godwin's law and fascist (epithet).)

Nazism and Fascism

In both popular thought and academic scholarship, Nazism is generally considered a form of fascism - with "fascism" defined so as to include any of the authoritarian, nationalist, totalitarian movements that developed in Europe around the same time. The debate focuses mainly on comparisons of fascists movements in general with the Italian prototype, including the fascists in Germany. The idea mentioned above to reject all former ideas and ideologies like democracy, liberalism, and especially marxism (as in Nolte) make it difficult to track down a perfect definition of these two terms. However, Italian Fascists tended to believe that all elements in society should be unified through corporatism to form an "Organic State"; this meant that these Fascists often had no strong opinion on the question of race, as it was only the State and nation that mattered. German Nazism, on the other hand, emphasized the Aryan race or "Volk" principle to the point where the state simply seemed a means through which the Aryan race could realize its "true destiny." Since a debate among historians (especially Zeev Steinhell) to see each movement, or at least the German, as unique, the issue has been settled in most parts showing that there is a stronger family resemblance between the Italian and the German fascist movement than there is between democracies in Europe or the communist states of the Cold War; additionally, the crimes of the fascist movement can of course be compared, not only in numbers of casualties but also in common developments: the March on Rome of Mussolini to Hilter's response shortly after to attempt a coup d'etat himself in Munich. Also, Aryanism was not an attractive idea for Italians that had neither blond hair nor blue eyes, but still there was a strong racism and also genocide in concentration camps long before either was in place in Germany. The philosophy that had seemed to be separating both fascisms was shown to be a result of happening in two different countries: since the king of Italy never died, unlike the Reichspräsident, the leader in Italy (Duce) was never able to gain the absolute power the leader in Germany (Führer) did, leading to Mussolini's fall. The academic challenge to separate all fascist movements has since the 80's and early 90's been ground for a new attempt to see even more similarities.

Nazi theory

Again, there was intentionally no official complete theory of fascism anywhere. Among the comments on the Nazi movement, its leader Adolf Hitler is thought to be very influential. He claimed in his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle) that he first began to develop his views through observations he made while living in Vienna. He concluded that there was a racial, religious, and cultural hierarchy, and he placed "Aryans" at the top as the ultimate superior race, while Jews and "Gypsies" were people at the bottom. He vaguely examined and questioned the policies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where as a citizen by birth, Hitler lived during the Empire's last throes of life. He believed that its ethnic and linguistic diversity had weakened the Empire and helped to create dissension. Further, he saw democracy as a destabilizing force because it placed power in the hands of ethnic minorities who, he claimed, "weakened and destabilized" the Empire by dividing it against itself.

Nazi opinions, in an extension of various philosophies, came together at a critical time for Germany; the nation had just not only lost World War I, but was also forced to sign an intentionally devastating capitulation, and was in the midst of a period of great economic depression and instability. The Dolchstosslegende, or "stab in the back" legend, held that the war effort was sabotaged internally, suggesting that supposed "lack of patriotism" had led to Germany's defeat (for once, the front line never had to retreat to German territory). In the realm of politics, these charges were directed towards the Social Democrats and the Weimar government, as the latter had been accused of "selling out" the country. Additionally, the Dolchstosslegende encouraged many to look at "non-German" Germans critically, especially those with potential "extra-national loyalties", such as the Jews. Such an appeal capitalized on anti-Semitic sentiments.

Nationalism

The Nazi state was founded upon a racially defined "German Volk" and principally rejected the idea of being bound by the limits of nationalism; that was only a means for attempting unlimited supremacy. In that sense, its nationalism and hyper-nationalism was tolerated to reach a world-dominating Germanic-Aryan Volksgemeinschaft. This is a central concept of Mein Kampf, symbolized by the motto Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer (one people, one empire, one leader). The Nazi relationship between the Volk and the state was called the Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community"), a neologism that defined a communal duty of citizens in service to the Reich (opposed to a simple "society"). The term "National Socialism", derives from this citizen-nation relationship, whereby the term socialism is invoked and is meant to be realized through the common duty of the individuals to the German people; all actions are to be in service of the Reich. In practice, the Nazis argued, their goal was to bring forth a nation-state as the locus and embodiment of the people's collective will, bound by the Volksgemeinschaft as both an ideal and an operating instrument. In comparison, non-national socialist ideologies oppose the idea of nations, which they see as artificial divisions that support the status quo and oppression by the capital owners. For further information on national socialism and socialism, and Nazism and fascism, see Fascism and ideology.

Militarism

Nazi rationale also invested heavily in the militarist belief that great nations grow from military power and maintained order, which in turn grow "naturally" from "rational, civilized cultures". The Nazi Party appealed to German nationalists and national pride, capitalizing on irredentist and revanchist sentiments as well as aversions to various aspects of modernist thinking (though at the same time embracing other modernist ideas, e.g. admiration for engine power). Many ethnic Germans were deeply committed to the goal of creating the Greater Germany (the old dream to include German-speaking Austria) and some felt that the use of military force was necessary to achieve it.

Racism

The Nazi racial philosophy wholly embraced Alfred Rosenberg's Aryan Invasion Theory, which traced Aryan peoples in ancient Iran invading the Indus Valley Civilization, and carrying with them great knowledge and science that had been preserved from the antediluvian world. This "antediluvian world" referred to Thule, the speculative pre-Flood/Ice Age origin of the Aryan race, and is often tied to ideas of Atlantis. Most of the leadership and the founders of the Nazi Party were made up of members of the "Thule Gesellschaft" (the Thule Society), which romanticized the Aryan race through theology and ritual.

Hitler also claimed that a nation was the highest creation of a race, and great nations (literally large nations) were the creation of homogeneous populations of great races, working together. These nations developed cultures that naturally grew from races with "natural good health, and aggressive, intelligent, courageous traits". The weakest nations, Hitler said, were those of impure or mongrel races, because they had divided, quarrelling, and therefore weak cultures. Worst of all were seen to be the parasitic Untermensch (Subhumans), mainly Jews, but also Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and so called anti-socials, all of whom were considered lebensunwertes Leben ("Life-unworthy life") owing to their perceived deficiency and inferiority, as well as their wandering, nationless invasions ("the International Jew"). The persecution of homosexuals as part of the Holocaust has seen increasing scholarly attention since the 1990s.

According to Nazism, it is an obvious mistake to permit or encourage multiculturalism within a nation. Fundamental to the Nazi goal was the unification of all German-speaking peoples, "unjustly" divided into different Nation States. Hitler claimed that nations that could not defend their territory did not deserve it. Slave races like the Slavic peoples he thought of as less worthy to exist than "leader races". In particular, if a master race should require room to live (Lebensraum), he thought such a race should have the right to displace the inferior indigenous races.

"Races without homelands", Hitler proclaimed, were "parasitic races", and the richer the members of a "parasitic race" were, the more "virulent" the parasitism was thought to be. A "master race" could therefore, according to the Nazi doctrine, easily strengthen itself by eliminating "parasitic races" from its homeland. This was the given rationalization for the Nazis' later oppression and elimination of Jews, Gypsies, Czechs, Poles, the mentally and physically handicapped, homosexuals and others not belonging to these groups or categories that were part of the Holocaust. Hitler and his living space doctrine found immense popularity among the largely condensed German population of over sixty million. The Waffen-SS and other German soldiers (including parts of the Wehrmacht), as well as civilian paramilitary groups in occupied territories, were responsible for the deaths of an estimated eleven million men, women, and children in concentration camps, prisoner-of-war camps, labor camps, and death camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka.

The belief in the need to purify the German race lead them to eugenics; this culminated in the involuntary euthanasia of disabled people and the compulsory sterilization of people with mental deficiencies or illnesses perceived as hereditary.

Religion

Hitler extended his rationalizations into a religious doctrine, underpinned by his criticism of traditional Catholicism. In particular, and closely related to Positive Christianity, Hitler objected to Catholicism's ungrounded and international character - that is, it did not pertain to an exclusive race and national culture. At the same time, and somewhat contradictorily, the Nazis combined elements of Germany's Lutheran community tradition with its Northern European, organic pagan past. Elements of militarism found their way into Hitler's own theology, as he preached that his was a "true" or "master" religion, because it would "create mastery" and avoid comforting lies. Those who preached love and tolerance, "in contravention to the facts", were said to be "slave" or "false" religions. The man who recognized these "truths", Hitler continued, was said to be a "natural leader", and those who denied it were said to be "natural slaves". "Slaves" – especially intelligent ones, he claimed – were always attempting to hinder their masters by promoting false religious and political doctrines.

Anti-clericalism can also be interpreted as part of Nazi ideology, simply because the new Nazi hierarchy was not about to let itself be overode by the power that the Church traditionally held. In Austria, clerics had a powerful role in politics and ultimately responded to the Vatican. Although a few exceptions exist, Christian persecution was primarily limited to those who refused to accommodate the new regime and yield to its power. The Nazis often used the church to justify their stance and included many Christian symbols in the Third Reich (Steigmann–Gall). A particularly poignant exemplar is the seen in the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Other Roots

The ideological roots that became German National Socialism were based on numerous sources in European history, drawing especially from Romantic 19th century idealism, and from a biological reading of Friedrich Nietzsche's thoughts on "breeding upwards" toward the goal of an Übermensch (Superhuman). Hitler was an avid reader and received ideas that were later to influence Nazism from traceable publications, such as those of the Germanenorden (Germanic Order) or the Thule society. He also adopted many populist ideas such as limiting profits, abolishing rents and generously increasing social benefits - but only for Germans.

Variants of Nazism and Hitlerism abroad

Nazism as a doctrine is far from being homogeneous and can indeed be divided into various sub-ideologies. During the 20s and 30s, there were two dominant NSDAP factions. There were the followers of Otto Strasser, the so-called Strasserites and the followers of Adolf Hitler or what could be termed Hitlerites. The Strasserite faction eventually fell afoul of Hitler, when Otto Strasser was expelled from the party in 1930, and his attempt to create an oppositional 'left-block' in the form of the Black Front failed. The remainder of the faction, which was to be found mainly in the ranks of the SA, was purged in the Night of the Long Knives, which also saw the murder of Gregor Strasser, Otto's brother. After this point, the Hitlerite faction became dominant. In the post war era, Strasserism has enjoyed something of a revival with many neo-Nazi groups openly proclaiming themselves to be 'Strasserite'. Whether they genuinely eschew Hitlerism in favour of Strasserism, or whether they simply think that by distancing Nazism from Hitler they can somehow make the ideology more acceptable is a matter of intense debate however.

Hitler's theories were not only attractive to Germans: people in positions of wealth and power in other nations are said to have seen them as beneficial. Examples are Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and Eugene Schueller, founder of L'Oréal. Nevertheless, the support for these theories was highest among the general population of Germany.

Homosexuals

The significance of homosexuals in the Nazi Party is acknowledged by most recent historians' work. For example authors like Scott Lively and Kevin E. Abrams in The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party argue that many homosexuals were involved in the inner circles of the Nazi party: Ernst Röhm of the SA (whose execution was thinly rationalized as being based on his homosexuality), Horst Wessel, Max Bielas, and others. Their homosexuality was well known at the time and basis for satire and jokes. Although Hitler abhorred homosexuality, the SA and SS had not a significant, but still a surprisingly representative number of gay members, which was generally ignored. But together with his ambitions, Röhm's sexuality became intolerable and he was killed, disguised as a prevention of a coup d'etat.

Key elements of the Nazi ideology

• The National Socialist Program
• The rejection of democracy, and consequently abolishing political parties, labour unions, and free press.
  • Führerprinzip (Leader Principle) as a total belief in the leader (responsibility up the ranks, and authority down the ranks)
• Extreme Nationalism
  • Anti-Bolshevism
  • Strong show of local culture
  • Social Darwinism (struggle of the nation)
  • Defense of Blood and Soil (German: "Blut und Boden" - represented by the red and black colors in the Nazi flag)
  • The Lebensraum policy of creation of more living space for Germans in the east
• Racism and Eugenics:
  • Anti-Slavism
  • Anti-Semitism
  • The creation of a Herrenrasse (or Herrenvolk) (Master Race = by the Lebensborn (Fountain of Life; A department in the Third Reich)).
  • White Supremacism; more specifically, ranking of individuals according to their race and racial purity, with the Nordic race favoured the most
• Limited religious freedom (Point #24 in the 25 point plan).
• Rejection of the modern art movement and an embrace of classical art
• Association with Fascism

Nazism and romanticism

According to Bertrand Russell, Nazism would come from a different tradition than that of either Liberalism or Marxism. Thus, to understand values of Nazism, it would be necessary to explore this connection, without trivializing the movement as it was in its peak years in the 1930s and dismissing it as little more than racism.

Some historians say that the anti-Semitic element, which did not exist in the sister fascism movements in Italy and Spain, was adopted by Hitler to gain popularity for the movement. On the other hand, anti-Semitism was shown to be a handy tool for Nazis to gain support, mainly due to the popular Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Personal accounts by August Kubizek, Hitler's childhood friend, have varied, offering ambiguous claims that anti-Semitism did and did not date back to Hitler's youth. One reason is the higher Jewish community in Austria and Germany because Germany had been a haven for many Jews over the years, including influential families such as the Rothschilds, although World War I and the Dolchstosslegende helped to end that legacy. Likewise, anti-Judaism was transformed into anti-Semitism due to the new Europe-wide post-Darwin theory of racism. Historians universally accept that Nazism's mass acceptance depended upon nationalistic appeals and fear against "unnormal people" (which also could include xenophobia and anti-Semitism) and a patriotic flattery toward the wounded collective pride of defeated World War I veterans. Early support for the Nazis, displayed in various parades, came from the old conservative order that was the military.

Many see strong connections to the values of Nazism and the anti-rationalist tradition of the romantic movement of the early 19th century in response to the Enlightenment. Strength, passion, frank declarations of feelings, and deep devotion to family and community were valued by the Nazis though first expressed by many Romantic artists, musicians, and writers. German romanticism in particular expressed these values. For instance, Hitler identified closely with the music of Richard Wagner, who harbored anti-Semitic views as the author of Das Judenthum in der Musik. Some claim that he was one of Hitler's role models, a comment of Kubizek's that is also disputed. Nevertheless, Wagner's most important operas of the Ring cycle express Aryanist ideals, and contain what some people interpret as anti-Semitic caricatures. Hitler admired Wagner's widow and visited Bayreuth Festival regularly.

The idealization of tradition, folklore, classical thought, leadership (as exemplified by Frederick the Great), their rejection of the liberalism of the Weimar Republic and the decision to call the German state the Third Reich (which traces back to the medieval First Reich and the pre-Weimar Second Reich) has led many to regard the Nazis as reactionary (though this again is not to be answered unreasoned by a yes or no).

Nazism and mysticism

Nazi mysticism is a term used to describe a philosophical undercurrent of Nazism that denotes the combination of Nazism with occultism, esotericism, cryptohistory, and/or the paranormal. The esoteric Thule Society and Germanenorden were secret societies that, while only a small part of the Völkisch movement, led into the Nazi party.

Dietrich Eckart, a member of Thule, actually coached Hitler on his public speaking skills, and while Hitler has not been shown to have been a member of Thule, he received support from the group. Hitler later dedicated Mein Kampf to Eckart.

Heinrich Himmler showed a strong interest in such matters, although as Steigmann–Gall points out, Hitler and many of his key associates attended Christian services.

Ideological competition

Nazism and Communism emerged as two serious contenders for power in Germany after the First World War, particularly as the Weimar Republic became increasingly unstable. What became the Nazi movement arose out of resistance to the Bolshevik-inspired insurgencies that occurred in Germany in the aftermath of the First World War. The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused a great deal of excitement and interest in the Leninist version of Marxism and caused many socialists to adopt revolutionary principles. The 1918-1919 Munich Soviet and the 1919 Spartacist uprising in Berlin were both manifestations of this. The Freikorps, a loosely organized paramilitary group (essentially a militia of former World War I soldiers) was used to crush both these uprisings and many leaders of the Freikorps, including Ernst Röhm, later became leaders in the Nazi party.

Capitalists and conservatives in Germany feared that a takeover by the Communists might be inevitable and did not trust the democratic parties of the Weimar Republic to be able to resist a communist revolution. Increasing numbers of capitalists began looking to the nationalist movements as a bulwark against Bolshevism. After Mussolini's Fascists took power in Italy in 1922, fascism presented itself as a realistic option for opposing "Communism", particularly given Mussolini's success in crushing the Communist and anarchist movements that had destabilized Italy with a wave of strikes and factory occupations after the First World War. Fascist parties formed in numerous European countries.

Many historians, such as Ian Kershaw and Joachim Fest, argue that Hitler's Nazis were one of numerous nationalist and increasingly fascistic groups that existed in Germany and contended for leadership of the anti-Communist movement and, eventually, of the German state. Further, they assert that fascism and its German variant, National Socialism, became the successful challengers to Communism because they were able to both appeal to the establishment as a bulwark against Bolshevism and appeal to the working class base, particularly the growing underclass of unemployed and unemployable and growingly impoverished middle class elements who were becoming declassed (denounced as the lumpenproletariat). The Nazis' use of pro-labor rhetoric appealed to those disaffected with capitalism by promoting the limiting of profits, the abolishing of rents and the increasing of social benefits (only for Germans) while simultaneously presenting a political and economic model that divested "Soviet socialism" of elements that were dangerous to capitalism, such as the concept of class struggle, "the dictatorship of the proletariat" or worker control of the means of production. Thus, Nazism's populist anti-Communism and anti-capitalism helped it become more powerful and popular than traditional conservative parties, like the DNVP. The simplicity of Nazi rhetoric, campaigns, and ideology also made its conservative allies underestimate its strength, and its ability to govern or even to last as a political party. Michael Mann defined fascism as a "transcendent and cleansing nation statism through paramilitarism", with "transcendent" meaning that the all classes were to be abolished in order for a new, organic and pure people: all classes are abolished by transition, all "others" (an estimated two-thirds of the German population alone).

Support of anti-Communists for Fascism and Nazism

Various far right-wing politicians and political parties in Europe welcomed the rise of fascism and the Nazis out of an intense aversion towards Communism. According to them, Hitler was the savior of Western civilization and of capitalism against Bolshevism. During the later 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis were supported by the Falange movement in Spain, and by political and military figures who would form the government of Vichy France. A Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism (LVF) and other anti-Soviet fighting formations were formed.

Post-1933 development

The British Conservative party and the right-wing parties in France appeased the Nazi regime in the mid- and late-1930s, even though they had begun to criticise its totalitarianism and in Britain especially, Nazi Germany's policies towards the Jews. However, Britain under both Conservative and Labour had appeased pre-Nazi Germany. Left-wing contemporary commentators suggested that these parties did in fact support the Nazis. Important reasons behind this appeasement included, first, the erroneous assumption that Hitler had no desire to precipitate another world war, and second, when the rebirth of the German military could no longer be ignored, a well-founded concern that neither Britain nor France was yet ready to fight an all-out war against Germany. In addition, some have argued that Nazi Germany was assisted in its development to create a front to counter early Bolshevik ambitions.

In 1936, Nazi Germany and Japan entered into the Anti-Comintern Pact, aimed directly at countering Soviet foreign policy. This later became the basis for the Tripartite Pact with Italy, the foundation of the Axis Powers. The three nations were united in their rabid opposition to Communism, as well as their militaristic, racist regimes, but they failed to coordinate their military efforts effectively.

In his early years Hitler also greatly admired the United States of America. In Mein Kampf, he praised the United States for its race-based anti-immigration laws and for the subordination of the "inferior" black population. According to Hitler, America was a successful nation because it kept itself "pure" of "lesser races". However, his view of the United States became more negative as time passed. In his later estimations, the United States was becoming a mongrel nation, calling it "half Judaised, half Negrified".

Economic practice

See also: Economics of fascism

Nazi economic practice concerned itself with immediate domestic issues and separately with ideological conceptions of international economics.

Domestic economic policy was narrowly concerned with three major goals to eliminate Germany's issues:

• Elimination of unemployment.
• Elimination of hyperinflation with a military-oriented and national reserve-depleting economy program.
• Expansion of production of consumer goods to improve middle and lower-class living standards.

All of these policy goals were intended to address the perceived shortcomings of the Weimar Republic and to solidify domestic support for the party. In this, the party was very successful. Between 1933 and 1936 the German GNP increased by an average annual rate of 9.5 percent, and the rate for industry alone rose by 17.2 percent.

This expansion propelled the German economy out of a deep depression and into full employment in less than four years. Public consumption during the same period increased by 18.7%, while private consumption increased by 3.6% annually. However, as this production was primarily consumptive rather than productive (make-work projects, expansion of the war-fighting machine, initiation of conscription to remove working age males from the labor force and thus lower unemployment), inflationary pressures began to rear their head again, although not to the highs of the Weimar Republic. These economic pressures, combined with the war-fighting machine created in the expansion (and concomitant pressures for its use), has led some to conclude that a European war was inevitable. (See ''Causes of Second World War'').

Some economists argue that the expansion of the German economy between 1933 and 1936 was not the result of measures adopted by the Nazi Party, but rather the consequence of economic policies of the prior Weimar Republic, which had begun to have an effect on factors such as unemployment. However, it was the policies of Nazi Germany that restored national confidence, arguably the key ingredient to any successful economic policy.

Internationally, the Nazi Party believed that an international banking cabal was behind the global depression of the 1930s. Control of this cabal, which had grown to a position where it controlled both Europe and the United States, was identified with an elite and powerful group of Jews. However, a number of people believed that this was part of an ongoing plot by the Jewish people, as a whole, to achieve global domination. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which began its circulation in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, were said to have confirmed this, already showing "evidence" that the Bolshevik takeover in Russia was in accordance with one of the protocols. Broadly speaking, the existence of large international banking or merchant banking organizations was well known at this time. Many of these banking organizations were able to exert influence upon nation states by extension or withholding of credit. This influence is not limited to the small states that preceded the creation of the German Empire as a nation state in the 1870s, but is noted in most major histories of all European powers from the 16th century onward. Nevertheless, after the Great Depression, this libelous and unverified manuscript took on an important role in Nazi Germany, thus providing another link in the Nazis ideological motivation for the destruction of that group in the Holocaust.

Additionally, many companies blindly dealt with the Third Reich. Many know that the Volkswagen was Nazi project. Opel employed Jewish slave labour to run their industrial plants. Additionally, Daimler-Benz used POWs as slaves to run their industrial plants. Other companies that dealt with the Third Reich—many of which claim not know have known the truth of what the Nazis were doing; some had lost control of their German branches when Hitler was in power) were: BMW, Krupp (made gas chambers), Bayer (as a small part of the enormous IG Farben chemistry monopoly), and Hugo Boss (designed the SS uniforms, admitted to this in 1997). There has also been some controversy whether IBM had dealt with the Nazis to create a cataloguing system, which the Nazis were to use to file information on those who they killed.

Backlash and Societal Effects

Perhaps the primary intellectual effect has been that Nazi doctrines discredited the attempt to use biology to explain or influence social issues, for at least two generations after Nazi Germany's brief existence. However, in the 21st century there has been a renewed interest in the debate of nature versus nurture as well as ethnic and racial genetics.

The Nazi descendants have been mute in the post-war democracies, with some exceptions, when interviewed by psychologists and historians. In Norway, a group of descendants have taken the official stigmatizing appellation "War children" in order to break the silence and to protest against the continuous demonization of their families. Some historical revisionists disseminate propaganda that minimizes the Holocaust and other Nazi acts in order to remove the stigma attached to National Socialism. Often, attempts are also made to put a positive spin on the policies of the Nazi regime. Under these circumstances, research on the topic can raise high emotions when it fails to be precise in the analysis and to present proof of emotionalized themes.

People

The most prominent Nazi was Adolf Hitler, who ruled Nazi Germany from January 30, 1933, until his suicide on April 30, 1945, and led the German Reich into World War II. After the war, many prominent Nazis were convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials, where 21 were executed.

A few scattered people, mostly not from Germany, converted to Nazism during or after World War II and contributed to further development of the ideology, especially in a spiritual or esoteric direction: Savitri Devi of France, Julius Evola of Italy, Miguel Serrano of Chile and Francis Parker Yockey, as well as George Lincoln Rockwell, within the United States.

Factors that promoted the success of Nazism

An important question about Nazism is the factors that promoted its success in Germany. These factors may have included:

• A widespread acceptance of violence in politics (not only, but most significantly Rotfront versus SA).
• Economic devastation all over Europe after World War I.
• Humiliation of Germany at the Treaty of Versailles, and the widespread belief that the German military were not defeated on the battlefield but "stabbed in the back" by politicians and Jews.
• A perception that there were a disproportionate number of rich Jewish bankers controlling Germany's finances.
• Perceived Jewish involvement in war profiteering during WWI.
• Appeal of nationalist rhetoric.
• Rejection of Communism and the perception that Communism was a Jewish-inspired and Jewish-led movement; hence the Nazi use of the term Judeo-Bolshevik.
• The split in the working class between Social Democrats (SPD) and Communists, exacerbated by the Communists' policy of treating the SPD as "Social Fascists"
• The Great Depression.
• Hitler's choice of taking power through legal political means rather than a violent coup after the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch.

Nazi/Third Reich terminology in popular culture

The multiple atrocities and racist ideology that the Nazis followed have made them notorious in popular discourse as well as history. The term "Nazi" has become a genericised term of abuse. So have other Third Reich terms like "Führer" (often spelled "fuhrer" or less often, but more correctly, "fuehrer" in English-speaking countries), "Fascist", "Gestapo" (short for Geheime Staatspolizei, or Secret State Police in English) or "Hitler". The terms are used to describe any people or behaviours that are viewed as thuggish, overly authoritarian, or extremist.

The terms are also used to describe anyone or anything seen as strict or doctrinaire. Phrases like "grammar nazi", "Feminazi", and "Open Source Nazi" are examples of those in use in the USA. These uses are offensive to some, as the controversy in the popular press over the Seinfeld "Soup Nazi" episode indicates, but still the terms are used so frequently as to inspire "Godwin's Law".

More innocent terms, like "fashion police", also bear some resemblance to Nazi terminology (Gestapo, Secret State Police) as well as references to Police states in general.

Another similar effect can be observed in the usage of typefaces. Some people strongly associate the blackletter typefaces (e.g. fraktur or schwabacher) with Nazi propaganda (although the typeface is much older, and its usage, ironically, was banned by government order in 1941). A less strong association can be observed with the Futura typeface, which today is sometimes described as "germanic" and "muscular".

In popular culture such as films like the Indiana Jones series, Nazis are often considered to be ideal villains whom the heroes can battle without mercy.

Dr. Cube from Kaiju Big Battel is depicted as a Nazi plastic surgeon gone mad.

Video game website IGN declared Nazis to be the most memorable video game villains ever .

Nazi locations

Nazism, both before and after World War II, was a quasi-religion to its followers, and like many world religions it had its own venerated locations or sites. Savitri Devi visited many of them during a tour of the sites in 1953.

• Berchtesgaden, home of the Berghof.
• Braunau am Inn, birthplace of Adolf Hitler.
• Feldherrnhalle, site of, the failed Munich Putsch
• Leonding, where the parents of Adolf Hitler were buried.
• Linz, where Hitler went to school.
• Landsberg am Lech, where Hitler was imprisoned.
• Nuremberg, site of the enormous Nazi rallies.
• Wewelsburg, headquarters of the SS.
• Wunsiedel, burial site of Rudolf Hess.

Devi also visited some sites, not directly connected to Nazism, but perceived to be of spiritual or German-national significance:

• Externsteine, pre-christian formation
• Hermannsdenkmal, statue of Germany's national hero Arminius the Cheruscan

Source:

Notes

1. Peter Levenda, Unholy Alliance: A History of the Nazi Involvement With the Occult, 2002 2nd edition ISBN 0-8264-1409-5

1. For an account of Hitler's apparent lack of early anti-Semitism, read August Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew, Greenhill Books, 2006 ed. ISBN 1-85367-694-2. Bear in mind, however, this post-war claim is rumored to be contradicted by the pre-war claim made in Kubizek's largely out of print, mid-war Reminiscences.

References

Richard Steigmann–Gall, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

David Redles, Hitler's Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic Belief and the Search for Salvation, New York: University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8147-7524-1

Further reading

• List of Adolf Hitler books
• Victor Klemperer, LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii (1947)
• Robert O. Paxton (2005). The Anatomy of Fascism. London, Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN 0-14-101432-6.
• Alfred Sohn-Rethel (1978). Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism. London, CSE Bks. ISBN 0-906336-00-7.
• Fritzsche, Peter (1990). Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505780-5.
• Allen, W.S (1965). The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-023968-5.

See also

• Fascism, Fascism and Ideology
• Glossary of the Third Reich
• Ex-Nazis, List of former Nazis influential after 1945, List of living Nazis
• Pursuit of Nazi collaborators
• Neo-Nazism
• Songs of the Third Reich
• Nazi mysticism
• Jingoism
• Nationalism
• The Holocaust

External links

• English online version READ, PRINT, DOWNLOAD, text and pdf version
• Hitler's National Socialist Party platform
• Nazi Beliefs
• Blind Obedience: Fuhrerprinzip and Befehlnotstand
• German Propaganda Archive
• Lithuanian National Socialist Party
• Estonian SS men
• NS-Archiv - Large collection of original scanned Nazi documents
• AxisHistory - contains a lot of information on the Axis countries
• National Socialism - Modern day National Socialists
• Profits über Alles! American Corporations and Hitler by Jacques R. Pauwels
• Over 2,000 original German WWII soldier photographs from the Eastern Front Another excellent set of war photos.

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1. that includes nationalism, see there
2. cf. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.
3. Ernst Nolte, Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche, München 1963, ISBN 3492024483
4. cf. Roger Griffin, The Blackwell Dictionary of Social Thought, in Griffin, International Fascism, 35f., and Anthony Paxton, Anatomy of Fascism, London 2004, p.218, and Stanley Payne, A History of Fascism 1914-1945, University of Wisconsin Press 1995, p. 14
5. Enzo Collotti, Race Law in Italy, in: Christoph Dipper et.al., Faschismus und Faschismen im Vergleich, Vierow 1998. ISBN 3894980451
6. called "transnational" Michael Mann, see references
7. A very complex topic due to a Sternhell-Wippermann disagreement about rejecting comparisons of 1930s totalitarian movements.cf. Bernd Weisbrod, Gewalt in der Politik. Zur politischen Kultur Deutschlands zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen, in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (GWU) 43 (1992), p.113-124
8. Stanley Payne, A History of Fascism,, Madison:UP Wisconsin, 1995, p.14f.
9. Hannah Arendt, Elemente der Ursprünge totalitärer Herrschaft = The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York 1952, Bern 1955
10. Michael Mann, Fascists, CUP 2004, p.13.
11. http://www.theawfultruth.com/salbmw/
12. http://news.com.com/Probing+IBMs+Nazi+connection/2009-1082_3-269157.html

• Nazism
• Political ideologies
• Nazi Germany
• Ethnocentrism
• Eugenics
• Anti-Semitism
• Politics and race