Nazism

Nazism. Nazi Party. “The Nazis.” Formally National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus). The far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany.  During Hitler’s rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitler Fascism. The later related term “neo-Nazism” is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War when the Third Reich collapsed.

Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, anti-gay, anti-Romani white supremacy, social Darwinism, and the use of eugenics into its creed.

Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanic and the ethno-nationalist Völkisch movement which had been a prominent aspect of German ultranationalism since the late 19th century.

Nazism was strongly influenced by the Freikorps paramilitary groups that emerged after Germany’s defeat in World War I, from which came the party’s underlying “cult of violence.” It subscribed to pseudo-scientific theories of a racial hierarchy, identifying ethnic Germans as part of what the Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race.

Nazism sought to overcome social divisions and create a homogeneous German society based on racial purity which represented a people’s community (Volksgemeinschaft). The Nazis aimed to unite all Germans living in historically German territory, as well as gain additional lands for German expansion under the doctrine of Lebensraum and exclude those whom they deemed either Community Aliens or “inferior” races (Untermenschen).

The Nazi Party’s precursor, the pan-German nationalist, and antisemitic German Workers’ Party (DAP), was founded in January 1919. By the early 1920’s, the party was renamed the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in order to appeal to left-wing workers, a renaming that Hitler initially objected to.

In Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”), published in 1925–1926, Hitler outlined the antisemitism and anti-communism at the heart of his political philosophy as well as his disdain for representative democracy, over which he proposed the Führerprinzip (leader principle), and his belief in Germany’s right to territorial expansion through lebensraum. Hitler’s objectives involved the eastward expansion of German territories, German colonization of Eastern Europe, and the promotion of an alliance with Britain and Italy against the Soviet Union.

After the mid-1934 ‘Night of the Long Knives,’ and after the death of President Hindenburg in August 1934, political power was concentrated in Hitler’s hands and he became Germany’s head of state as well as the head of the government, with the title of Führer und Reichskanzler, meaning “leader and Chancellor of Germany.”

From that point, Hitler was effectively the dictator of Nazi Germany – also known as the Third Reich – under which Jews, political opponents and other “undesirable” elements (including those seen as LGBTQ+) were marginalized, imprisoned, or murdered.

During World War II, many millions of people – including around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe – were eventually exterminated in a genocide which became known as the Holocaust.

Following Germany’s defeat in World War II and the discovery of the full extent of the Holocaust, Nazi ideology became universally disgraced. It is widely regarded as evil, with only a few fringe racist groups, usually referred to as neo-Nazis, describing themselves as followers of National Socialism. The use of Nazi symbols is outlawed in many European countries, including Germany and Austria.