Encyclopedia
National Socialism, commonly shortened to
Nazism or
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 , 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 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 or
Drittes Reich . 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 .
Nazi was also meant to mirror the term
Sozi ; abbreviating words by taking the two first syllables was the usual way in the early 20th century . However, the Nazis from the era of the Third Reich rarely referred to themselves as "Nazis," preferring instead the official term,
Nazionalsocialisten . 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 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.
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 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 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 seperating 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 was never able to gain the absolute power the leader in Germany did, leading to Mussolini's fall. The academic challenge to seperate all fascist movements has since the 80's and early 90's been ground for a new attempt to see even more similarities.
Nazi thoughts
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 is the signature work of Adolf Hitler [i], combining elements of autobiography [i] with ...
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 . 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 is the signature work of Adolf Hitler [i], combining elements of autobiography [i] with ...
, symbolized by the motto
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer . The Nazi relationship between the Volk and the state was called the
Volksgemeinschaft , a neologism that defined a communal duty of citizens in service to the Reich . 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 . Many ethnic Germans were deeply committed to the goal of creating the
Greater Germany 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" , 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 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 , mainly Jews, but also Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and so called anti-socials, all of whom were considered
lebensunwertes Leben owing to their perceived deficiency and inferiority, as well as their wandering, nationless invasions . 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 , 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 , 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 . 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 . Hitler was an avid reader and received ideas that were later to influence Nazism from traceable publications, such as those of the Germanenorden 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 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 ,
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
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" 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 , their rejection of the liberalism of the
Weimar Republic and the decision to call the German state the Third Reich has led many to regard the Nazis as reactionary .
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 is the signature work of Adolf Hitler [i], combining elements of autobiography [i] with ...
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 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 . 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 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" .
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
