{{Short description|German fascist ideology}} {{Redirect-multi|2|National Socialism|Nazi|the party for whom the ideology is named|Nazi Party|other uses|National Socialism (disambiguation)|and|Nazi (disambiguation)}} {{for|Nazism after WWII|Neo-Nazism}} {{Redirect|Hitlerism|the political positions held by Hitler personally|Political views of Adolf Hitler}} {{pp-semi-indef}} {{pp-move}} {{Use British English|date=January 2021}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}} {{very long|date=February 2026|words=15,094}} [[File:Hitler portrait crop.jpg|thumb|The Nazi dictator [[Adolf Hitler]] (here pictured in 1938) titled himself ''[[Führer]]'' and ruled [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] from 1933 to 1945.]] {{Nazism sidebar}}
'''Nazism''',{{efn|{{IPAc-en|ˈ|n|ɑː|t|s|i|ɪ|z|əm|,_|ˈ|n|æ|t|-|,_|-|s|ɪ|z|əm|audio=LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Nazism.wav}}{{respell|NA(H)TS(-ee)|iz|əm}}}} formally named '''National Socialism''' ('''NS'''),{{efn|{{langx|de|Nationalsozialismus}}, {{IPA|de|natsi̯oˈnaːlzotsi̯aˌlɪsmʊs|lang|De-at-Nationalsozialismus.ogg}})}} is the [[far-right]], [[ultranationalist]], [[totalitarian]] ideology associated with [[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazi Party]] (NSDAP) in Germany.<ref name="Fritzsche_Eatwell_Griffin" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=The political parties in the Weimar Republic |url=https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/189776/01b7ea57531a60126da86e2d5c5dbb78/parties_weimar_republic-data.pdf |website=[[Bundestag]] |access-date=27 March 2023 |archive-date=19 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230319203146/https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/189776/01b7ea57531a60126da86e2d5c5dbb78/parties_weimar_republic-data.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="britannica">{{Cite web |title=Nazism |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Nazism |access-date=15 October 2022 |website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |language=en |quote=Nazism attempted to reconcile conservative, nationalist ideology with a socially radical doctrine. |archive-date=16 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230516150339/https://www.britannica.com/event/Nazism |url-status=live }}</ref> During [[Hitler's rise to power]], it was frequently called ''Hitlerism''. Nazism is a form of [[fascism]]<ref>[[Jackson J. Spielvogel|Spielvogel, Jackson J.]] (2010) [1996] ''Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History'' New York: Routledge. p. 1 {{isbn|978-0-13-192469-7}} Quote: "Nazism was only one, although the most important, of a number of similar-looking fascist movements in Europe between World War I and World War II."</ref><ref>Orlow, Dietrick (2009) ''The Lure of Fascism in Western Europe: German Nazis, Dutch and French Fascists, 1933–1939'' London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 6–9. {{isbn|978-0-230-60865-8}}.</ref><ref>[[Geoff Eley|Eley, Geoff]] (2013) ''Nazism as Fascism: Violence, Ideology, and the Ground of Consent in Germany 1930–1945''. New York: Routledge. {{isbn|978-0-415-81263-4}}</ref><ref>[[Steffen Kailitz|Kailitz, Steffen]] and [[Andreas Umland|Umland, Andreas]] (2017). [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andreas_Umland/publication/311784498_Why_fascists_took_over_the_Reichstag_but_have_not_captured_the_Kremlin_a_comparison_of_Weimar_Germany_and_post-Soviet_Russia/links/5b5a2f62aca272a2d66cc57b/Why-fascists-took-over-the-Reichstag-but-have-not-captured-the-Kremlin-a-comparison-of-Weimar-Germany-and-post-Soviet-Russia.pdf "Why Fascists Took Over the Reichstag but Have Not captured the Kremlin: A Comparison of Weimar Germany and Post-Soviet Russia"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230305221654/https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andreas_Umland/publication/311784498_Why_fascists_took_over_the_Reichstag_but_have_not_captured_the_Kremlin_a_comparison_of_Weimar_Germany_and_post-Soviet_Russia/links/5b5a2f62aca272a2d66cc57b/Why-fascists-took-over-the-Reichstag-but-have-not-captured-the-Kremlin-a-comparison-of-Weimar-Germany-and-post-Soviet-Russia.pdf |date=5 March 2023 }}. ''[[Nationalities Papers]]''. '''45''' (2): 206–221.</ref> that emphasizes [[pseudo-scientific]] theories of [[racial hierarchy]] which identify [[Volksdeutsche|ethnic Germans]] and Nordic [[Aryan race|Aryans]] as a [[master race]].<ref name="Baum2006_156"/><ref name="Smithsonian">{{cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/disturbing-resilience-scientific-racism-180972243/|title=The Disturbing Resilience of Scientific Racism|author=Ramin Skibba|work=Smithsonian.com|date=20 May 2019|access-date=12 December 2019|archive-date=11 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011071349/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/disturbing-resilience-scientific-racism-180972243/|url-status=live}}</ref> The term "[[neo-Nazism]]" is applied to far-right groups formed after World War II with a similar ideology.
Nazism opposes [[liberal democracy]] and the [[parliamentary system]]. It advocates [[dictatorship]],<ref name="britannica" /> fervent [[antisemitism]], [[anti-communism]], [[anti-Slavism]],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kiernan |first1=Ben |last2=Lower |first2=Wendy |last3=Naimark |first3=Norman |last4=Straus |first4=Scott |editor-first1=Ben |editor-first2=Wendy |editor-first3=Norman |editor-first4=Scott |editor-last1=Kiernan |editor-last2=Lower |editor-last3=Naimark |editor-last4=Straus |title=The Cambridge World History of Genocide |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-108-48707-8 |volume=3: Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020 |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom |pages=358, 359 |chapter=15: The Nazis and the Slavs – Poles and Soviet Prisoners of War |doi=10.1017/9781108767118}}</ref> [[anti-Romani sentiment]], [[scientific racism]], [[Persecution of Chinese people in Nazi Germany|anti-Chinese sentiment]], [[white supremacy]], [[Nordicism]], [[social Darwinism]], [[homophobia]], [[ableism]], and [[eugenics]]. The Nazis sought to overcome social divisions and create a homogeneous German society based on [[racial purity]]. They aimed to unite all Germans living in historically German territory, gain lands for expansion under the doctrine of {{lang|de|[[Lebensraum]]}}, and exclude those deemed either [[Community Aliens]] or "inferior" races ({{lang|de|[[Untermenschen]]}}).
The term "National Socialism" arose from attempts to create a nationalist alternative to [[Marxist]] socialism and [[free-market capitalism]]. Nazism rejected Marxist concepts of [[class conflict]] and universal [[Egalitarianism|equality]], opposed [[Cosmopolitanism|cosmopolitan]] internationalism, and sought to convince the social classes in German society to subordinate their interests to the "[[common good]]". The Nazi Party's precursor, the [[German Workers' Party]], was founded in 1919. In 1920, the party was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party to appeal to left-wing workers,<ref>[[Samuel W. Mitcham|Mitcham, Samuel W.]] (1996). ''Why Hitler?: The Genesis of the Nazi Reich''. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. p. 68. {{ISBN|978-0-275-95485-7}}</ref> a renaming Hitler initially opposed.<ref>[[Konrad Heiden]], "Les débuts du national-socialisme", Revue d'Allemagne, VII, No. 71 (Sept. 15, 1933), p. 821.</ref> In {{lang|de|[[Mein Kampf]]}} (''My Struggle''), Hitler outlined his antisemitism, anti-communism, and opposition to [[representative democracy]], proposing instead the {{lang|de|[[Führerprinzip]]}} ({{langx|en|leader principle|label=none}}).{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|pp=243–244, 248–249}} Hitler's objectives involved [[Drang nach Osten|eastward expansion]] of German territories, colonization of Eastern Europe, and an alliance with [[British Empire|Britain]] and [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Italy]] against the [[Soviet Union]].
The Nazi Party became the largest party in the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|German parliament]] in the elections of 1932, but it did not have a majority. Because other parties were unable or unwilling to form a coalition government, Hitler was appointed [[Chancellor of Germany|Chancellor]] in January 1933 by President [[Paul von Hindenburg]], with the support of [[National conservatism|conservative nationalists]] who believed they could control Hitler. Using the [[Reichstag Fire Decree]] and the [[Enabling Act of 1933|Enabling Act]], the Nazis established a [[one-party state]] and began the ''[[Gleichschaltung]]'' (Nazification). The {{lang|de|[[Sturmabteilung]]}} (SA) and the {{lang|de|[[Schutzstaffel]]}} (SS) functioned as the party's paramilitary organisations. Hitler purged the leadership of the SA in the 1934 [[Night of the Long Knives]], and later that year assumed the title of {{lang|de|[[Führer und Reichskanzler]]}}. He was now the [[dictator]] of [[Nazi Germany]], under which Jews, political opponents and other "undesirable" elements were [[Nazi Germany#Racism and antisemitism|marginalised, imprisoned or murdered]]. During World War II, millions{{snd}}including two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population{{snd}}were exterminated in a genocide known as [[the Holocaust]]. After [[German Instrument of Surrender|Germany's defeat]] and the public disclosure of the full extent of the Holocaust, Nazi ideology became widely regarded as [[evil]]. Only a few fringe [[racist]] groups, usually called neo-Nazis, describe themselves as its followers. Use of Nazi symbols is illegal in many European countries, including Germany and Austria.
== Etymology == {{Primary sources section | date = November 2025 }}[[File:Golden Nazi Party Badge.svg|thumb|upright=.8|Nazi Party badge emblem]] The full name of the Nazi Party was {{langnf|de|Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei|National Socialist German Workers' Party}} and they officially used the acronym NSDAP. The renaming of the [[German Workers' Party]] (DAP) to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) was partially driven by a desire to use both left- and right-wing terminology, with "Socialist" and "Workers'" appealing to the left, and "National" and "German" appealing to the right.{{sfn|Childers|2001a|loc=26:00–31:04}}
[[George Sylvester Viereck]] interviewed Hitler in 1923 for the ''[[American Monthly]]'':<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hitler |first1=Adolf |last2=Jäckel |first2=Eberhard |title=Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen: 1905-1924 |date=1980 |publisher=Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt |isbn=978-3-421-01997-4 |page=1023 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sämtliche_Aufzeichnungen/KAMBAAAAMAAJ?hl=en |access-date=14 February 2026 |language=de}}</ref> <blockquote>"Why," I asked Hitler, "do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party program is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?" "Socialism," he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists. Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution […] We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one."</blockquote>
Regarding the use of the word ‘workers’ in the party name, Hitler was asked in 1934 “Inasmuch as you were forced by the Weimar Constitution to organize along party lines, you called your movement the National Socialist Workers' Party. In my opinion, you are thus giving the concept of the worker priority over the concept of the bourgeoisie.”, Hitler responded:<ref name="commentary"/><blockquote>I chose the word "worker" because it was more natural and corresponded with every element of my being, and because I wanted to recapture this word for the national force. I did not and will not allow the concept of the worker to simply take on an international connotation and become an object of distrust to the bourgeoisie. In a certain sense, I had to "naturalize" the term worker and subject it once again to the control of the German language and the sovereign rights and obligations of the German Volk. Similarly, I will not tolerate that the correctly used and essentially understood concept of the "Bürger" [citizen] is spoiled. But I believe the "Bürger" is called upon to ensure this.</blockquote>
The term "nazi" had been in use before the rise of the NSDAP as a colloquial and derogatory word for a backwards farmer or [[peasant]]. It characterised an awkward, clumsy person, a [[yokel]]. It was a [[hypocorism]] (pet name) of the German male name ''Igna(t)z'' (a variation of [[Ignatius]]), which was common in [[Bavaria]], where the NSDAP originated.<ref name=GottliebMorgensen2007/><ref name=HarperOED/>
In the 1920s, [[labour movement]] opponents of the NSDAP seized on this, and shortened the party's name, {{lang|de|Nationalsozialistische}}, to the dismissive "Nazi", to associate the NSDAP with the derogatory use of this term.<ref name=Lepage2009_9/><ref name=HarperOED/><ref name=Sourcebook/><ref name=DailyTelegraph23102011/><ref name=Seebold2002/><ref>''Nazi.'' In: Friedrich Kluge, [[Elmar Seebold]]: ''Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache.'' 24. Auflage, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2002, {{ISBN|3-11-017473-1}} ([http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Nazi Online Etymology Dictionary: ''Nazi''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006134952/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Nazi |date=6 October 2014 }}).</ref> This was inspired by the earlier use of the abbreviation {{lang|de|Sozi}} for {{langnf|de|Sozialist|Socialist}}.<ref name=HarperOED /> The first use of the term "Nazi" by the National Socialists themselves occurred in 1926 in a publication by [[Joseph Goebbels]] called {{lang|de|Der Nazi-Sozi}} ["The Nazi-Sozi"]. There, the term "Nazi-Sozi" (but not "Nazi" alone) is used as an abbreviation of "National Socialism".<ref>[[Joseph Goebbels|Goebbels, Joseph]] (1927) [https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/nazi-sozi.htm "The Nazi-Sozi"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221002032348/https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/nazi-sozi.htm |date=2 October 2022 }}, translated and annotated by Randall Bytwerk, [[Calvin College]] German Propaganda Archive</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=November 2025}}
After the NSDAP's rise to power in the 1930s, the term "Nazi" by itself, or "[[Nazi Germany]]", "Nazi regime", etc, were popularised by German exiles, but not used in Germany. The terms spread into other languages and were brought back to Germany after World War II.<ref name=Sourcebook/> The NSDAP briefly adopted "Nazi" in an attempt to [[reappropriate]] it,{{Citation needed|date=November 2025}} for example in articles published in the Nazi newspaper ''[[Völkischer Beobachter]]'' under the title ''[[Ein Nazi fährt nach Palästina]]'' in 1934.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Meier |first=Axel |date=2014-11-18 |title=Die Artikelserie "Ein Nazi fährt nach Palästina" |url=https://www.bpb.de/themen/nationalsozialismus-zweiter-weltkrieg/die-wohnung/195248/die-artikelserie-ein-nazi-faehrt-nach-palaestina/ |access-date= |website=[[Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung]] |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Boas |first=Jacob |title=A Nazi Travels to Palestine |url=https://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/palestine/travelpalestine.htm |access-date=2026-05-18 |website=www.britishempire.co.uk |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Ein Nazi fährt nach Palästina |url=https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/20002 |access-date=2026-05-18 |website=Center for Jewish History}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=A Nazi Travels to Palestine {{!}} History Today |url=https://www.historytoday.com/archive/nazi-travels-palestine |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20260108223702/https://www.historytoday.com/archive/nazi-travels-palestine |archive-date=2026-01-08 |access-date=2026-05-18 |website=www.historytoday.com |language=en}}</ref> But the Nazis soon gave up and avoided using the term while in power.<ref name=Sourcebook/><ref name=DailyTelegraph23102011/> They typically referred to themselves as "National Socialists" and their movement as "National Socialism".{{Citation needed|date=November 2025}}
== Position within the political spectrum == [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-02134, Bad Harzburg, Gründung der Harzburger Front.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Nazis alongside members of the far-right [[reactionary]] and [[Monarchism|monarchist]] [[German National People's Party]] (DNVP) during the brief NSDAP–DNVP alliance in the [[Harzburg Front]] from 1931 to 1932]] [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-13801, Berlin, Reichstag, Eröffnung.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Members of the Nazi Party can be seen seated in the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]] in the left foreground, the far-right seats from the speakers point of view.]]
The majority of scholars identify Nazism, in both theory and practice, as a form of [[far-right politics]].<ref name=Fritzsche_Eatwell_Griffin/> Far-right themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate, and purge society of supposed inferior elements.<ref name="Oliver H. Woshinsky 2008, p. 156"/> When on trial in February 1924 for his leading role in the [[Beer Hall Putsch]] Hitler stated “I have resolved to be the destroyer of Marxism”,<ref>{{cite web |title=The Hitler ("Beer Hall Putsch") Trial: An Account |url=https://famous-trials.com/hitler/2524-the-hitler-beer-hall-putsch-trial-an-account |website=famous-trials.com |access-date=23 January 2026}}</ref> a statement which he later applied to those opposed to the Nazi Party in 1926, claiming “They tried to paralyze the one party that would have been able to give opposition to this Red pest.”<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hitler |first1=Adolf |last2=Affairs |first2=American Council on Public |title=Hitler's Words |date=1944 |publisher=American council on public affairs |page=251 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hitler_s_Words/XTdAAAAAIAAJ?hl=en |language=en}}</ref> At times, [[Adolf Hitler]] and other proponents denied that Nazism was left or right, and instead portrayed it as [[Political syncretism|syncretic]], combining elements from across the political spectrum.<ref name="Adolf Hitler p. 170"/><ref name="Rudy Koshar 1986, p. 190"/> In ''[[Mein Kampf]]'', Hitler attacked both left-wing and right-wing politicians in Germany, saying: <blockquote>Today our left-wing politicians in particular are constantly insisting that their craven-hearted and obsequious foreign policy necessarily results from the disarmament of Germany, whereas the truth is that this is the policy of traitors ... But the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms.<ref name="Adolf Hitler 2010, p. 287"/></blockquote>
In a 1921 speech, Hitler stated: <blockquote> But amongst the masses there begins to flow a new stream - a stream of opposition. It is the recognition of the facts which is already in pursuit of this system, it already is hunting the system down; it will one day scourge the masses into action and carry the masses along with it. And these leaders, they see that behind them the anti-Semitic wave grows and grows; and when the masses once recognize the facts, that is the end of these leaders.[…]There are only two possibilities in Germany; do not imagine that the people will forever go with the middle party, the party of compromises; one day it will turn to those who have most consistently foretold the coming ruin and have sought to dissociate themselves from it. And that party is either the Left: and then God help us! for it will lead us to complete destruction—to Bolshevism, or else it is a party of the Right which at the last, when the people is in utter despair, when it has lost all its spirit and has no longer any faith in anything, is determined for its part ruthlessly to seize the reins of power—that is the beginning of resistance of which I spoke a few minutes ago. Here, too, there can be no compromise - there are only two possibilities: either victory of the Aryan or annihilation of the Aryan and the victory of the Jew. <ref name="holocaustreader"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Adolf Hitler |url=https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111hit1.html |website=history.hanover.edu |access-date=15 April 2026}}</ref></blockquote>
The German newspaper ''[[General-Anzeiger]]'' reported on a dispute in 1930 between the Nazi Party and the [[German National People's Party]] (DNVP), their representatives being [[Wilhelm Frick]] and [[Oskar Hergt]] respectively, concerning the seating arrangement in the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]] whilst [[Paul Löbe]] was serving as President of the Reichstag:<ref>{{cite web |title=General-Anzeiger. 1889-1945 - Deutsches Zeitungsportal |url=https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/Z6PF6KV6MPQT4VLMIEK2B2LGZOS6YWUY?issuepage=1 |website=www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de |publisher=General-Anzeiger |access-date=15 April 2026 |language=de}}</ref><blockquote>'''Who is furthest to the right? Berlin, September 23.''' In the Reichstag on Tuesday afternoon, President Löbe gathered representatives of the various parties to discuss the question of seating, which had become difficult due to the increase in the number of seats. At the end of the meeting, a dispute arose between the representatives of the German Nationals and the National Socialists over which of the two parties was the more explicitly right-wing party. Representative Hergt once again asserted his party's claim to the seat on the far-right wing of the House. Representative Dr. Frick protested against this demand. He believed that this question had been settled once and for all, namely in the sense that the National Socialists were the most right-wing party. The claim of the National Socialists was provisionally recognized in today's discussion, however subject to any agreement between the two parties or any other decision by the Council of Elders after the Reichstag has convened.</blockquote>
On 31 December 1930, the German newspaper ''Annaburger Zeitung'' reprinted a story from ''[[Völkischer Beobachter]]'' concerning a poll about possible involvement of the Nazi Party in government:<ref>{{cite book |title=Annaburger Zeitung : Wochenblatt für Annaburg und die umliegenden Gemeinden ; amtliches Publikations-Organ für Amts- und Gemeinde-Behörden - Deutsches Zeitungsportal |date=December 31, 1930 |url=https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/L7X5ZZZKJ6NWF273LXOXRZ2E6IQX42GC?query= |access-date=15 April 2026 |language=de}}</ref><blockquote>'''The Participation of the National Socialists in the Government.''' What the Völkische Beobachter says about it: Since the new elections to the Reichstag, the question of a reorganization of the Reich government continues to be vigorously discussed in public. The main issue is whether the National Socialists should enter the Reich government on the basis of their great electoral success or not. Left-leaning circles have repeatedly spoken out against the participation of the National Socialists in government affairs, while the parties to the right of the Center Party are actively advocating for the involvement of the National Socialists in the government. A right-wing Berlin newspaper recently conducted a survey among right-wing economists and politicians on the expediency of National Socialist participation in the Reich government. This survey came to the overwhelming conclusion that the National Socialists should be given the opportunity to assume responsibility in the Reich government. Among others, former Reichsbank President Dr. [[Hjalmar Schacht|Schacht]] and the People's Party Reichstag deputy Colonel General [[Hans von Seeckt|von Seekt]] spoke in favor of this.</blockquote>
On the same day, the ''Annaburger Zeitung'' reported on French reactions to the [[1930 German federal election]]:<ref>{{cite web |title=Annaburger Zeitung : Wochenblatt für Annaburg und die umliegenden Gemeinden ; amtliches Publikations-Organ für Amts- und Gemeinde-Behörden - Deutsches Zeitungsportal |url=https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/L7X5ZZZKJ6NWF273LXOXRZ2E6IQX42GC?query= |website=www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de |access-date=15 April 2026 |language=de}}</ref><blockquote> '''Germany and France.''' It will not be so easily forgotten in Germany that, unlike America and England, France responded to the election result of September 14th with a comprehensive withdrawal of the credit invested in our economy. Twice, then, Paris had used this credit policy weapon for a purely power-political purpose: in 1929, to force Germany to accept the Entente demands at the Young Conference in Paris. And a few weeks ago, this weapon was used again to prevent what France considered an imminent shift in German politics to the right. Thus, one finds in a right-wing Parisian newspaper the view that only the fear of a "new credit freeze"—the concession inherent in it is, incidentally, quite valuable!—is preventing Germany from "throwing itself into the arms of Hitler's people" already; for Germany and its government are undoubtedly moving further and further to the right.</blockquote>
Hitler at times redefined socialism. In a speech he gave on 28 July 1922, he said: {{quote|Whoever is prepared to make the national cause his own to such an extent that he knows no higher ideal than the welfare of the nation; whoever has understood our great national anthem, "Deutschland über Alles," to mean that nothing in the wide world surpasses in his eyes this Germany, people and land — that man is a Socialist.<ref>Alan Bullock, A Study in Tyranny, page 76</ref>}}
In 1929, Hitler gave a speech to Nazi leaders and simplified 'socialism' to mean, "Socialism! That is an unfortunate word altogether... What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism."<ref>{{cite book|author-last=Turner |author-first=Henry A. |title=German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=1985 |pages=77}}</ref> When asked in an interview in 1934 whether he supported the "bourgeois right-wing", Hitler claimed Nazism was not exclusively for any class stating: "From the camp of bourgeois tradition, it takes national resolve, and from the materialism of the Marxist dogma, living, creative Socialism."<ref name="commentary"/>
Historians regard the equation of Nazism as "Hitlerism" as too simplistic, as the term was used prior to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Ideologies incorporated into Nazism were already well established in parts of German society long before [[World War I]].{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|p=135}} The Nazis were strongly influenced by the post–World War I far-right, which held common beliefs such as anti-Marxism, anti-liberalism and antisemitism, along with [[nationalism]], contempt for the [[Treaty of Versailles]] and condemnation of the Weimar Republic for signing the armistice in 1918 and later the treaty.<ref name="Peukert, Detlev 1993 pp. 73-74"/> An inspiration for the Nazis were the far-right nationalist ''[[Freikorps#Post–World War I|Freikorps]]'', paramilitary organisations that engaged in political violence after World War I.<ref name="Peukert, Detlev 1993 pp. 73-74" /> Initially, the post–World War I far-right was dominated by [[Monarchism|monarchists]], but the younger generation, associated with ''völkisch'' nationalism, was more radical and did not express any emphasis on restoration of the monarchy.<ref name="Peukert, Detlev 1993 p. 74"/> This younger generation desired to dismantle the Weimar Republic, and create a new, radical and strong state, based upon a martial ruling ethic that could revive the "Spirit of 1914" which was associated with national unity (''[[Volksgemeinschaft]]'').<ref name="Peukert, Detlev 1993 p. 74"/>
The Nazis, the far-right monarchists, the [[reactionary]] [[German National People's Party]] (DNVP) and others, such as monarchist army officers and several prominent industrialists, formed an alliance in opposition to the Weimar Republic in October 1931, in [[Bad Harzburg]], officially known as the "National Front", but referred to as the [[Harzburg Front]].<ref name="machtergreifung"/> The Nazis stated the alliance was tactical and continued to have differences with the DNVP. Hugenberg intiated the alliance in the hopes of forming a united front with Hitler; even earlier in February 1931 the DNVP parliamentary group had joined the Nazi parliamentary group in dramatically walking out of the Reichstag in a protest against the government.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ziblatt |first1=Daniel |title=Conservative Political Parties and the Birth of Modern Democracy in Europe |date=17 April 2017 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-00162-6 |pages=330-331 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Conservative_Political_Parties_and_the_B/leCBDgAAQBAJ?hl=en |access-date=18 April 2026 |language=en}}</ref> After the elections of July 1932, the alliance temporarily broke down when the DNVP lost many seats in the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]]. The Nazis called them "an insignificant heap of reactionaries".<ref name="machtergreifung5"/> The DNVP responded by attacking the Nazis for their "socialism", street violence and the "economic experiments" that would take place if the Nazis gained power.<ref name="machtergreifung6"/> However, the spat was short-lived, and the Nazi Party and DNVP ran as coalition partners again during the [[November 1932 German federal election]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Zentner |first1=Christian |last2=Bedürftig |first2=Friedemann |last3=Hackett |first3=Amy |title=The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich |date=1991 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-02-897500-9 |page=89 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Encyclopedia_of_the_Third_Reich/_HQRAQAAMAAJ?hl=en |language=en}}</ref> In January 1933 the Nazi Party and DNVP entered a coalition government, bringing Hitler into power as Chancellor.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gellately |first1=Robert |title=The Oxford History of the Third Reich |date=2023 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-288683-5 |page=51 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=koikEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA51&dq=%22dnvp%22+%22november+1932%22+%22hitler+coalition%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwr_HE9faTAxWTgGoFHToUDSsQ6AF6BAgHEAM#v=onepage&q=%22dnvp%22%20%22november%201932%22%20%22hitler%20coalition%22&f=false |access-date=18 April 2026 |language=en}}</ref>
Amidst an inconclusive situation in which conservative politicians [[Franz von Papen]] and [[Kurt von Schleicher]] were unable to form governments without the Nazis, Papen proposed to President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor at the head of a government formed primarily of conservatives, with only three Nazi ministers.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|pp=104–106}}<ref>Stephen J. Lee. ''European Dictatorships, 1918–1945.'' Routledge, 1987, p. 169.</ref> Hindenburg did so, and Hitler was able to establish a Nazi one-party dictatorship.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|pp=106–107}}
Kaiser [[Wilhelm II]], who had been forced to abdicate amidst an attempted communist revolution in Germany, initially supported the Nazis. His sons became members of the Party hoping that in exchange, the Nazis would permit restoration of the monarchy.<ref name="nicholas"/> Hitler dismissed the possibility, calling it "idiotic."<ref>{{cite book|title-link=The Second World War (Antony Beevor book)|title=The Second World War |first=Antony|last=Beevor|author-link=Antony Beevor |publisher=Back Bay Books |location=New York |year=2013 |isbn=978-0316023757|pages=92–93}}</ref> Wilhelm grew to distrust Hitler and was appalled at the [[Kristallnacht]] of 1938.<ref>{{cite book|first=Michael|last=Balfour|title=The Kaiser and his Times|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|year=1964|page=409}}</ref> The former emperor denounced the Nazis as a "bunch of shirted gangsters" and "a mob ...led by a thousand liars or fanatics."<ref name="Ken 1938">{{cite magazine|title=The Kaiser on Hitler|magazine=[[Ken (magazine)|Ken]]|date=15 December 1938|url=http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/Kaiser_Wm_and_Hitler.pdf|access-date=6 September 2023|archive-date=11 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111200858/http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/Kaiser_Wm_and_Hitler.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>
There were factions within the Nazi Party, both conservative and radical.<ref name="Michael Mann 2004, p. 183"/> The conservative Nazi [[Hermann Göring]] urged Hitler to conciliate with [[Capitalism|capitalists]] and [[Reactionary|reactionaries]].<ref name="Michael Mann 2004, p. 183" /> Other conservative Nazis included [[Heinrich Himmler]] and [[Reinhard Heydrich]].<ref name="foundations"/> Meanwhile, the radical Nazi Joseph Goebbels opposed capitalism, viewing it as having Jews at its core and he stressed the need for the Party to emphasise both a [[Proletariat|proletarian]] and national character. Those views were shared by [[Otto Strasser]], who later left the Party and formed the [[Black Front]] in the belief Hitler had betrayed the party's socialist goals by endorsing capitalism.<ref name="Michael Mann 2004, p. 183"/><ref name=":03">[[Karl Dietrich Bracher]], ''The German Dictatorship'', 1973, {{p.|230-1}}</ref>
When the Nazi Party emerged from obscurity to become a political force after 1929, the conservative faction rapidly gained more influence, as wealthy donors took an interest in the Nazis, as a potential bulwark against communism.<ref>Hallgarten, George (1973). "The Collusion of Capitalism". In Snell, John L. (ed.). "The Nazi Revolution: Hitler's Dictatorship and the German Nation". D. C. Heath and Company. p. 132</ref> The Party had previously been financed from membership dues, but after 1929 its leadership sought donations from industrialists, and Hitler began holding many fundraising meetings with business leaders.<ref>Hallgarten, George (1973). "The Collusion of Capitalism". In Snell, John L. (ed.). "The Nazi Revolution: Hitler's Dictatorship and the German Nation". D. C. Heath and Company. p. 133</ref> In the midst of the Great Depression, facing economic ruin and the possibility of a [[Communist Party of Germany|Communist]] or [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democrat]] government, business turned to Nazism as a way out, as it promised to support, rather than attack, business interests.<ref>Hallgarten, George (1973). "The Collusion of Capitalism". In Snell, John L. (ed.). "The Nazi Revolution: Hitler's Dictatorship and the German Nation". D. C. Heath and Company. pp. 137, 142</ref> By January 1933, the Party had secured the support of important sectors of industry, mainly among steel and coal producers, insurance, and the chemical industry.<ref>Hallgarten, George (1973). "The Collusion of Capitalism". In Snell, John L. (ed.). "The Nazi Revolution: Hitler's Dictatorship and the German Nation". D. C. Heath and Company. p. 141</ref>
Large segments of the Party, particularly among the members of the ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' (SA), were committed to the party's official socialist, revolutionary and [[anti-capitalism|anti-capitalist]] positions and expected a social and economic revolution when the party gained power in 1933.<ref name="Joseph W. Bendersky 2007, p. 96"/> Just before the seizure of power, there were even Social Democrats and Communists who switched sides and became known as "[[Beefsteak Nazi]]s": brown on the outside and red inside.<ref>Heiden, Konrad (1938) ''Hitler: A Biography'', London: Constable & Co. Ltd. p. 390</ref> The leader of the SA, [[Ernst Röhm]], pushed for a "second revolution" (the first being the seizure of power) that would enact socialist policies. Röhm also desired that the SA absorb the much smaller German Army into its ranks, under his leadership.<ref name="Joseph W. Bendersky 2007, p. 96"/> Once the Nazis achieved power, Röhm's SA was directed by Hitler to violently suppress the parties of the left, but they also attacked individuals associated with conservative reaction.{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|pp=123–124, 130}} Hitler saw Röhm's independent actions as violating and threatening his leadership, as well as jeopardising the regime by alienating conservative President Hindenburg and the conservative-oriented German Army.{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|p=133}} This resulted in Hitler purging Röhm and other radical members of the SA in 1934, in the [[Night of the Long Knives]].{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|p=133}}
Hitler expressed opposition to capitalism, regarding it as having Jewish origins and holding nations ransom to a parasitic cosmopolitan [[Rentier capitalism|rentier]] class.<ref name="R.J. Overy 2004. pp. 399-403"/> He also expressed opposition to communism and egalitarian forms of socialism, arguing that inequality and hierarchy are beneficial to the nation.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=49}} He believed communism was invented by Jews to weaken nations by promoting [[class struggle]].{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=50}} After seizing power, Hitler took a pragmatic position on economics, accepting private property and allowing capitalist private enterprises, so long as they adhered to the goals of the Nazi state, but not tolerating enterprises he saw as opposed to the national interest.<ref name="Michael Mann 2004, p. 183"/>
German business leaders disliked Nazi ideology but came to support Hitler, because they saw the Nazis as an ally to promote their interests.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=101}} Business groups made significant financial contributions to the Nazi Party before and after the Nazi seizure of power, hoping that a Nazi dictatorship would eliminate the organised labour movement and left-wing parties.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|pp=100–101}} Hitler actively sought to gain the support of business leaders by arguing that private enterprise is incompatible with democracy.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=99}}
Hitler admired the [[British Empire]] and its [[Western European colonialism and colonization|colonial system]] as proof of Germanic superiority over "inferior" races and saw the United Kingdom as Germany's natural ally.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nicosia |first1=Francis R. |title=The Third Reich and the Palestine Question |date=2000 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=0-7658-0624-X |page=82 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kYFrAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA82}}</ref><ref name="britain"/> He wrote in ''Mein Kampf'': "For a long time to come there will be only two Powers in Europe with which it may be possible for Germany to conclude an alliance. These Powers are Great Britain and Italy."<ref name="britain">{{cite book |last1=Buchanan |first1=Patrick J. |title=Churchill, Hitler, and 'The Unnecessary War': How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World |date=2008 |publisher=Crown/Archetype |isbn=978-0-307-40956-0 |page=325 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PYESsQRyIIMC&pg=PA325 |access-date=7 March 2019 |archive-date=12 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712024918/https://books.google.com/books?id=PYESsQRyIIMC&pg=PA325#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>
== Origins == {{see also|Early timeline of Nazism}} The roots of Nazism are to be found in elements of European political culture in circulation before 1914, what [[Joachim Fest]] called the "scrapheap of ideas" then prevalent.<ref>{{cite book| last = Fest| first = Joachim C.|author-link = Joachim Fest | title = Hitler| location = London| publisher = Weidenfeld & Nicolson| year = 1974| orig-year = 1973| isbn = 978-0-297-76755-8}}</ref>{{sfn|Broszat|1987|p=38}} [[Martin Broszat]] points out: <blockquote>[A]lmost all essential elements of ... Nazi ideology were to be found in the radical positions of ideological protest movements [in pre-1914 Germany]. These were: a virulent anti-Semitism, a blood-and-soil ideology, the notion of a master race, [and] the idea of territorial acquisition and settlement in the East. These ideas were embedded in a popular nationalism which was vigorously anti-modernist, anti-humanist and pseudo-religious.{{sfn|Broszat|1987|p=38}}</blockquote>
Brought together, the result was an anti-intellectual and politically semi-illiterate ideology lacking cohesion, a product of mass culture which allowed its followers emotional attachment and offered a simplified and easily digestible world-view, based on a political mythology for the masses.{{sfn|Broszat|1987|p=38}}
=== Völkisch nationalism === {{Main|Völkisch nationalism}}
{{See also|German Question|German nationalism|Pan-Germanism|Unification of Germany|Völkisch movement}} [[File:Johann Gottlieb Fichte.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|[[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]], one of the fathers of [[German nationalism]]]]
Hitler, along with others in the [[Nazi Party]], were influenced by several 19th- and early 20th-century thinkers and proponents of philosophical, onto-epistemic, and theoretical perspectives on [[ecological anthropology]], [[scientific racism]], [[Holism in science|holistic science]], and [[organicism]] regarding the constitution of [[complex systems]] and theorization of organic-racial societies.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harrington |first=Anne |year=2021 |title=Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler |chapter=Chapter Six: Life Science, Nazi Wholeness, and the 'Machine' in Germany's Midst |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780691218083-009/pdf |location=[[Princeton, New Jersey]] |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |doi=10.1515/9780691218083-009 |page=175 |isbn=978-0-691-21808-3 |jstor=j.ctv14163kf.11 |s2cid=162490363 |quote=When Hans Shemm in 1935 declared National Socialism to be "politically applied biology," things began to look up, not only for [[Holism in science|holism]], but for the [[life sciences]] in general. After all, if the good National Socialist citizen was now seen as the man or woman who understood and revered what were called "Life's laws," then it seemed clear that the life scientists had a major role to play in defining a National Socialist educational program that would transmit the essence of these laws to every family in every village in the country. [...] So much seemed familiar: the calls among the [[Nazi Party|National Socialists]] to return to authentic "German" values and "ways of knowing," to "overcome" the materialism and mechanism of the "West" and the "Jewish-international lie" of scientific objectivity; the use of traditional ''volkisch'' tropes that spoke of the [[German people]] (''Volk'') as a mystical, pseudobiological whole and the state as an "organism" in which the individual was subsumed in the whole ("You are nothing, your Volk is everything"); the condemnation of [[Jews]] as an alien force representing chaos, mechanism, and inauthenticity. [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] himself had even used the stock imagery of conservative holism in ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' when he spoke of the democratic state as "a dead mechanism which only lays claim to existence for its own sake" and contrasted this with his vision of statehood for Germany in which "there must be formed a living organism with the exclusive aim of serving a higher idea." |access-date=2 March 2022 |archive-date=5 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221105142315/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780691218083-009/pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Deichmann 2020">{{cite journal |last=Deichmann |first=Ute |date=2020 |title=Science and political ideology: The example of Nazi Germany |url=https://www.redalyc.org/journal/5117/511767145001/html/ |journal=Mètode Science Studies Journal |publisher=[[Universitat de València]] |volume=10 |issue=Science and Nazism. The unconfessed collaboration of scientists with National Socialism |pages=129–137 |doi=10.7203/metode.10.13657 |issn=2174-9221 |s2cid=203335127 |quote=Although in their basic framework [[Nazi racial theories|Nazi anti-Semitic and racist ideology]] and [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|policies]] were not grounded in science, scientists not only supported them in various ways, but also took advantage of them, for example by using the new possibilities of unethical experimentation in humans that these ideologies provided. Scientists' complicity with Nazi ideology and politics does, however, not mean that all sciences in [[Nazi Germany]] were ideologically tainted. I argue, rather, that despite the fact that some areas of science continued at high levels, science in Nazi Germany was most negatively affected not by the imposition of Nazi ideology on the conduct of science but by the enactment of legal measures that ensured the [[Racial segregation#Nazi Germany|expulsion of Jewish scientists]]. The [[anti-Semitism]] of young faculty and students was particularly virulent. Moreover, I show that scientists supported Nazi ideologies and policies not only through so-called reductionist science such as [[Nazi eugenics|eugenics and race-hygiene]], but also by promoting organicist and holistic ideologies of the racial state. [...] The ideology of leading Nazi party ideologues was strongly influenced by the [[Völkisch movement|Volkish movement]] which, in the wake of the writings of philosopher [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]] and other nineteenth century authors, promoted the idea of ''Volk'' (people) as an organic unity. They did not base their virulent anti-Semitism and racism on anthropological concepts. |doi-access=free |hdl=10550/89369 |hdl-access=free |access-date=2 March 2022 |archive-date=1 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220301195436/https://www.redalyc.org/journal/5117/511767145001/html/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Anker |first=Peder |year=2021 |title=Imperial Ecology: Environmental Order in the British Empire, 1895–1945 |chapter=The Politics of Holism, Ecology, and Human Rights |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.4159/9780674020221-008/pdf |location=[[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] and [[London]] |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |doi=10.4159/9780674020221-008 |page=157 |isbn=978-0-674-02022-1 |s2cid=142173094 |quote=The paradoxical character of the politics of holism is the theme of this chapter, which focuses on the mutually shaping relationship between [[John William Bews]], [[J. F. V. Phillips|John Phillips]], and the [[White South Africans|South African]] politician [[Jan Christian Smuts]]. Smuts was a promoter of international peace and understanding through the League of Nations, but also a defender of [[Racial discrimination|racial suppression]] and [[white supremacy]] in his own country. His politics, I will argue, were fully consistent with his holistic philosophy of science. Smuts was guided by the efforts of ecologists such as Bews and Phillips, who provided him with a day-to-day update of the latest advances in scientific knowledge of natural laws governing ''[[Homo sapiens]]''. A substantial part of this chapter will thus return to their research on human ecology to explore the mutual field of inspiration linking them and Smuts. Two aspects of this human ecological research were particularly important: the human gradualism or ecological "succession" of human personalities researched by Bews, and the concept of an ecological biotic community explored by Phillips. Smuts transformed this research into a policy of racial gradualism that respected local ways of life in different (biotic) communities, a policy he tried to morally sanctify and promote as author of the famous [[Preamble to the United Nations Charter|1945 Preamble of the United Nation Charter]] about human rights.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-last=Scheid |author-first=Volker |date=2016 |chapter=Chapter 3: Holism, Chinese Medicine, and Systems Ideologies: Rewriting the Past to Imagine the Future |chapter-url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK379258/ |editor1-last=Whitehead |editor1-first=A. |editor2-last=Woods |editor2-first=A. |editor3-last=Atkinson |editor3-first=S. |editor4-last=Macnaughton |editor4-first=J. |editor5-last=Richards |editor5-first=J. |title=The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities |volume=1 |location=[[Edinburgh]] |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] |doi=10.3366/edinburgh/9781474400046.003.0003 |isbn=978-1-4744-0004-6 |id=Bookshelf ID:NBK379258 |s2cid=13333626 |url=https://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=fulltext&uiLanguage=en&rid=27082 |via=[[NCBI]] |quote='''Common Roots: Holism Before and During the Interwar Years''': This chapter cannot explore in detail the complex entanglements between these different notions of holism, or how they reflect Germany's troubled path towards modernity. My starting point, instead, is the [[Interwar period|interwar years]]. By then, holism had become an important resource for people across Europe, the US and beyond—but once again specifically in Germany—for dealing with what [[Max Weber]], in 1918, had famously analysed as a widely felt [[disenchantment]] with the [[Modern era|modern world]]. The very word 'holism' (as opposed to ideas or practices designated as such today), as well as related words like 'emergence' or 'organicism', date from this time. It was coined in 1926 by Jan Smuts to describe a perceived tendency of evolutionary processes towards the formation of wholes, granting these wholes a special onto-epistemic significance that parts lack. This was cultural holism now underpinned by evolutionary science and deployed by Smuts not only as a tool for grasping the coming into being of the world but also as an ideological justification for the development of [[Apartheid]] in [[South Africa]]. In [[Weimar Germany]] and then [[Nazi Germany|under Nazism]], holistic science became a mainstream academic endeavour, once more intermingling cultural politics and serious scientific research. Holistic perspectives also became popular in the interwar years among academics and the wider public throughout the UK and US. In France, it was associated with [[Vitalism|vitalist philosophies]] and the emergence of neo-Hippocratic thinking in medicine, manifesting the unease many people felt about the shifts that biomedicine was undergoing at the time. |access-date=12 August 2022 |archive-date=12 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712024930/https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/33913 |url-status=live }}</ref>
The [[ultranationalism]] of the Nazis originated in [[pan-Germanism]] and the [[ethno-nationalist]] ''[[Völkisch movement|Völkisch]]'' movement, which had been prominent within [[German nationalism]] since the late 19th century. Nazism was also influenced by the {{lang|de|[[Freikorps]]}} [[paramilitary]] groups that emerged after Germany's defeat in [[World War I]], which was the origin of the party's "cult of violence".{{sfn|Evans|2003|p=229}}
A significant influence was the 19th-century [[German nationalism|German nationalist]] philosopher [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]], whose works served as an inspiration to Hitler and other Nazis, and whose ideas were implemented among the philosophical and ideological foundations of Nazi-oriented [[Völkisch nationalism|''Völkisch'' nationalism]].<ref name="Deichmann 2020"/>{{sfn|Ryback|2010|pp=129–130}} In ''Speeches to the German Nation'' (1808), written amid the [[First French Empire]]'s occupation of Berlin during the [[Napoleonic Wars]], Fichte called for a German national revolution against the occupiers, making passionate speeches, arming his students for battle against the French and stressing the need for action by the German nation, so it could free itself.{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=129}} Fichte's German nationalism was populist and opposed to traditional elites, spoke of the need for a "People's War" (''Volkskrieg'') and put forth concepts similar to those which the Nazis adopted.{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=129}} Fichte promoted German [[exceptionalism]] and stressed the need for the German nation to purify itself (including purging German of French words, which the Nazis undertook).{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=129}}
Another important figure in pre-Nazi ''völkisch'' thinking was [[Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl]], whose work—''Land und Leute'' (''Land and People'', written between 1857–63)—collectively tied the organic German Volk to its native landscape and nature, a pairing in stark opposition to the mechanical and materialistic civilisation then developing as a result of [[industrialisation]].<ref>George L. Mosse, ''The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich'' (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1964), pp. 19–23.</ref> Geographers [[Friedrich Ratzel]] and [[Karl Haushofer]] borrowed from Riehl's work as did Nazi ideologues Alfred Rosenberg and [[Paul Schultze-Naumburg]], who employed Riehl's philosophy in arguing "each nation-state was an organism that required a particular living space in order to survive".<ref>Thomas Lekan and Thomas Zeller, "Introduction: The Landscape of German Environmental History", in ''Germany's Nature: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental History'', edited by Thomas Lekan and Thomas Zeller (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), p. 3.</ref> Riehl's influence is discernible in the ''[[Blut und Boden]]'' (''Blood and Soil'') philosophy introduced by [[Oswald Spengler]], which the Nazi agriculturalist Walther Darré and other prominent Nazis adopted.<ref>The Nazi concept of ''[[Lebensraum]]'' has connections with this idea, with German farmers being rooted to their soil, needing more of it for the expansion of the German Volk—whereas the Jew is precisely the opposite, nomadic and urban by nature. See: Roderick Stackelberg, ''The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany'' (New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 259.</ref><ref>Additional evidence of Riehl's legacy can be seen in the Riehl Prize, ''Die Volkskunde als Wissenschaft'' (Folklore as Science) which was awarded in 1935 by the Nazis. See: George L. Mosse, ''The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich'' (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1964), p. 23. Applicants for the Riehl prize had stipulations that included only being of Aryan blood, and no evidence of membership in any Marxist parties or any organisation that stood against National Socialism. See: Hermann Stroback, "Folklore and Fascism before and around 1933," in ''The Nazification of an Academic Discipline: Folklore in the Third Reich'', edited by James R Dow and Hannjost Lixfeld (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 62–63.</ref>
''Völkisch'' nationalism denounced soulless [[materialism]], [[individualism]] and [[secularised]] urban industrial society, while advocating a "superior" society based on ethnic German "folk" culture and "blood".<ref name="encyclopedia7" /> It denounced foreigners and foreign ideas and declared that Jews, [[Freemasonry|Freemasons]] and others were "traitors to the nation" and unworthy of inclusion.<ref name="constructing"/> ''Völkisch'' nationalism saw the world in terms of [[natural law]] and [[romanticism]] and viewed societies as organic, extolling the virtues of [[rural]] life, condemning the neglect of tradition and decay of morals, denounced the destruction of the natural environment and condemned "cosmopolitan" cultures such as Jews and Romani.<ref name="Jonathan Olsen 1999, p. 62"/>
The first party that attempted to combine nationalism and socialism was the [[German Workers' Party (Austria-Hungary)|(Austria-Hungary) German Workers' Party]], which aimed to solve the conflict between the Austrian Germans and Czechs in the multi-ethnic [[Austrian Empire]], then part of [[Austria-Hungary]].<ref>Andrew Gladding Whiteside, Austrian National Socialism before 1918, (1962), pp. 1–3</ref> In 1896 the German politician Friedrich Naumann formed the National-Social Association, which aimed to combine German nationalism and a non-Marxist form of socialism together; the attempt turned out to be futile and the idea of linking nationalism with socialism quickly became equated with antisemites, extreme German nationalists and the ''völkisch'' movement in general.{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|p=135}}
[[File:VonSchoenerer.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|[[Georg Ritter von Schönerer]], a major exponent of Pan-Germanism in Austria]] During the [[German Empire]], ''völkisch'' nationalism was overshadowed by Prussian patriotism and the federalist tradition of its component states.<ref name="Nina Witoszek 2002. pp. 89-90"/> World War I, including the end of the Prussian monarchy, resulted in a surge of revolutionary ''völkisch'' nationalism.<ref name="witoszek"/> The Nazis supported such revolutionary ''völkisch'' policies<ref name="Nina Witoszek 2002. pp. 89-90"/> and claimed their ideology was influenced by the leadership and policies of [[Chancellor of Germany|German Chancellor]] [[Otto von Bismarck]], who was instrumental in founding the German Empire.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|p=150}} The Nazis declared they were dedicated to continuing the process of creating a unified German [[nation state]].{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|p=149}} While Hitler was supportive of Bismarck's creation of the German Empire, he was critical of Bismarck's moderate domestic policies.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|p=54}} On the issue of Bismarck's support of a ''[[Kleindeutschland]]'' ("Lesser Germany", excluding Austria) versus the Pan-German ''[[German question#Later influence|Großdeutschland]]'' ("Greater Germany") which the Nazis advocated, Hitler stated that Bismarck's attainment of ''Kleindeutschland'' was the "highest achievement" Bismarck could have achieved "within the limits possible at that time".{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|pp=54, 131}} In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler presented himself as a "second Bismarck".{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|p=131}}
During his youth in Austria, Hitler was politically influenced by Austrian Pan-Germanist proponent [[Georg Ritter von Schönerer]], who advocated radical [[German nationalism in Austria|German nationalism]], antisemitism, [[anti-Catholicism]], [[anti-Slavic sentiment]] and anti-Habsburg views.<ref name="nicholls236237"/> From von Schönerer and his followers, Hitler adopted the ''Heil'' greeting, ''Führer'' title and model of absolute party leadership.<ref name="nicholls236237"/> Hitler was also impressed by the [[Populism|populist]] antisemitism and anti-liberal bourgeois agitation of [[Karl Lueger]], who as mayor of Vienna during Hitler's time there used rabble-rousing oratory that appealed to the masses.<ref name="nicholls159160"/> Unlike von Schönerer, Lueger was not a German nationalist, but a pro-Catholic Habsburg supporter and only used German nationalist notions occasionally for his agenda.<ref name="nicholls159160"/> Although Hitler praised Lueger and Schönerer, he criticised the former for not applying a racial doctrine against the Jews and Slavs.<ref>{{cite book|author=Brigitte Hamann|title=Hitler's Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man|year=2010|publisher=Tauris Parke Paperbacks|isbn=978-1-84885-277-8|page=302}}</ref>
=== Racial theories and antisemitism === {{Main|Nazi racial theories}}
{{antisemitism sidebar|Manifestations}} [[File:Arthur de Gobineau.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|[[Arthur de Gobineau]], one of the key inventors of the theory of the "[[Aryan race]]"]]
The concept of the [[Aryan race]], which the Nazis promoted, stems from racial theories asserting that Europeans are the descendants of Indo-Iranian settlers, people of ancient India and [[Iran|Persia]].<ref name="autogenerated6"/> Proponents of this based their assertion on the fact that words in European and Indo-Iranian languages have similar pronunciations and meanings.<ref name=autogenerated6 /> [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] argued that the Germanic peoples held close racial connections to the ancient Indians and Persians, who he claimed were advanced peoples that possessed a great capacity for wisdom, nobility, restraint and science.<ref name=autogenerated6/> Contemporaries of Herder used the concept of the Aryan race to draw a distinction between what they deemed to be "high and noble" Aryan culture versus that of "parasitic" Semitic culture.<ref name=autogenerated6/>
Notions of [[white supremacy]] and Aryan racial superiority were combined in the 19th century, with white supremacists maintaining the belief that certain [[white people]] were members of an Aryan "master race" superior to other races and particularly superior to the Semitic race, which they associated with "cultural sterility".<ref name=autogenerated6 /> [[Arthur de Gobineau]], a French racial theorist and aristocrat, blamed the fall of the French ''[[ancien régime]]'' on racial degeneracy caused by [[Miscegenation|racial intermixing]], which he argued had destroyed the purity of the Aryan race, a term which he reserved for Germanic people.<ref name="autogenerated8"/><ref>A. J. Woodman. ''The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus'', 2009, p. 294: "The white race was defined as beautiful, honourable and destined to rule; within it the Aryans are '{{lang|fr|cette illustre famille humaine, la plus noble}}'." Originally a linguistic term synonymous with Indo-European, '[[Aryan]]' became, not least because of the Essai, the designation of a race, which Gobineau specified was 'la race germanique'</ref> Gobineau's theories, which attracted a strong following in Germany,<ref name=autogenerated8 /> emphasised the existence of an irreconcilable [[polarity in international relations|polarity]] between Aryan ([[Germanic culture|Germanic]]) and [[Jewish culture]]s.<ref name=autogenerated6/>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 119-1600-06, Houston Stewart Chamberlain.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|[[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]], whose book ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' would prove to be a seminal work in the history of German nationalism]]
Aryan [[mysticism]] claimed that [[Christianity]] originated in Aryan religious traditions, and Jews had usurped the legend from Aryans.<ref name=autogenerated6 /> [[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]], an English-born German proponent of racial theory, supported notions of Germanic supremacy and antisemitism.<ref name="autogenerated8"/> Chamberlain's ''[[The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century]]'' (1899), praised Germanic peoples for their creativity and idealism while asserting that the Germanic spirit was threatened by a "Jewish" spirit of selfishness and [[materialism]].<ref name=autogenerated8 /> Chamberlain used his thesis to promote [[Monarchism|monarchical]] conservatism while denouncing [[democracy]], [[liberalism]] and [[socialism]].<ref name=autogenerated8 /> The book became popular, especially in Germany.<ref name=autogenerated8 /> Chamberlain stressed a nation's need to maintain its racial purity to prevent its degeneration and argued that racial intermingling with Jews should never be permitted.<ref name=autogenerated8 /> In 1923, Chamberlain met Hitler, whom he admired as a leader of the rebirth of the free spirit.<ref name="encyclopedia9"/> [[Madison Grant]]'s ''[[The Passing of the Great Race]]'' (1916) advocated [[Nordicism]] and proposed that a [[eugenics]] program should be implemented to preserve the purity of the Nordic race. After reading it, Hitler called it "my Bible".<ref>{{cite book |author=Stefan Kühl|title=Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism|year=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-514978-4}}</ref>
In Germany, the belief that Jews were economically exploiting Germans became prominent due to the ascendancy of wealthy Jews into prominent positions upon the [[unification of Germany]] in 1871.<ref name="Brustein207">William Brustein. ''Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust''. Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 207.</ref> From 1871 to the early 20th century, German Jews were overrepresented in Germany's upper and middle classes, and underrepresented in Germany's lower classes, particularly in agricultural and industrial labour.<ref name="Brustein210"/> German Jewish financiers and bankers played a key role in Germany's economic growth from 1871 to 1913 and benefited enormously. In 1908, amongst the 29 wealthiest German families with fortunes of up to 55 million marks, five were Jewish and the [[Rothschild family|Rothschilds]] were the second wealthiest.<ref>William Brustein. ''Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust''. Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 207, 209.</ref> The predominance of Jews in Germany's banking, commerce and industry sectors was high, even though Jews accounted for only 1% of the population.<ref name="Brustein207"/> Their overrepresentation in these sectors fuelled resentment, among non-Jewish Germans, during economic crises.<ref name="Brustein210">Brustein, 2003, p. 210.</ref> The 1873 stock market crash, and ensuing depression, resulted in attacks on alleged Jewish economic dominance and antisemitism increased.<ref name="Brustein210" /> In the 1870s, German [[Völkisch movement|''völkisch'' nationalism]] began to adopt antisemitic and racist themes and was adopted by radical right political movements.<ref name="witoszek10" />
Radical antisemitism was promoted by prominent advocates of ''völkisch'' nationalism, including [[Eugen Diederichs]], [[Paul de Lagarde]] and [[Julius Langbehn]].<ref name="Jonathan Olsen 1999, p. 62"/> De Lagarde called the Jews a "[[bacillus]], the carriers of decay...who pollute every national culture ... and destroy all faiths with their materialistic liberalism" and he called for the extermination of the Jews.<ref name="Jack Fischel 1998, p. 5"/> Langbehn called for a war of annihilation against the Jews, and his genocidal policies were later published by the Nazis and given to soldiers during World War II.<ref name="Jack Fischel 1998, p. 5"/> One antisemitic ideologue of the period, [[Friedrich Lange (journalist)|Friedrich Lange]], even used the term "National Socialism" to describe his anti-capitalist take on the ''völkisch'' nationalist template.<ref>[[Philip Rees]], ''[[Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890]]'', Simon & Schuster, 1990, p. 220</ref>
Johann Fichte accused Jews in Germany of being a "state within a state" that threatened German national unity.{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=129}} Fichte promoted two options to address this. His first was the creation of a Jewish state in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], so the Jews could be impelled to leave Europe.{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=130}} His second was violence against Jews and he said the goal would be "to cut off all their heads in one night, and set new ones on their shoulders, which should not contain a single Jewish idea".{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=130}}
''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'' (1912) is an antisemitic forgery created by the secret service of the [[Russian Empire]], the [[Okhrana]]. Many antisemites believed it was real and it became popular after World War I.<ref name="stackelberg"/> ''The Protocols'' claimed there was a secret international Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.<ref name="kershaw"/> Hitler had been introduced to ''The Protocols'' by [[Alfred Rosenberg]], and from 1920 he focused his attacks by claiming [[Judaism]] and Marxism were directly connected, that Jews and [[Bolsheviks]] were one and the same, and that Marxism was a Jewish ideology-this became known as "[[Jewish Bolshevism]]".<ref name="dictator"/> Hitler believed ''The Protocols'' were authentic.<ref name="dictator11"/>
During his life in Vienna between 1907–13, Hitler became fervently [[Anti-Slavic sentiment|anti-Slavic]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nazism |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Nazisma |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240228205817/https://www.britannica.com/event/Nazism |archive-date=28 February 2024 |website=Britannica}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Pinkus |first=Oscar |title=The War Aims and Strategies of Adolf Hitler |publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc. |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-7864-2054-4 |pages=27}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Davies |first=Norman |title=Europe: A History |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1997 |isbn=0-19-820171-0 |location=New York |page=850}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Housden |first=Martyn |title=Hitler: Study of a Revolutionary? |publisher=Routledge |year=2000 |isbn=0-415-16359-5 |location=New York |page=32 |chapter=2: Ideologue}}</ref> Prior to gaining power, Hitler blamed moral degradation on ''[[Rassenschande]]'' ("racial defilement"), a way to assure followers of his antisemitism, which had been toned down for popular consumption.<ref name="Koonz2005">{{cite book|author=Claudia Koonz|author-link=Claudia Koonz|title=The Nazi Conscience|year=2005|publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-01842-6}}</ref> Prior to the induction of the Nuremberg Race Laws in 1935 by the Nazis, many German nationalists supported laws to ban ''Rassenschande'' between Aryans and Jews as racial treason.<ref name="Koonz2005"/> Even before the laws were passed, the Nazis banned sex and marriages between party members and Jews.<ref name="Weikart2009">{{cite book|author=Richard Weikart|title=Hitler's Ethic|url=https://archive.org/details/hitlersethicnazi00weik|url-access=limited|year=2009|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-0-230-62398-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/hitlersethicnazi00weik/page/n156 142]}}</ref> Party members found guilty of ''Rassenschande'' were severely punished; some even sentenced to death.<ref name="Gordon1984">{{cite book|author=Sarah Ann Gordon|title=Hitler, Germans, and the 'Jewish Question'|year=1984|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-10162-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/hitlergermansjew0000gord/page/265 265]|url=https://archive.org/details/hitlergermansjew0000gord/page/265}}</ref>
The Nazis claimed Bismarck was unable to complete national unification because Jews had infiltrated parliament, and claimed Nazi abolition of parliament had ended this obstacle.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|p=150}} Using the [[stab-in-the-back myth]], the Nazis accused Jews—and other populations who it considered non-German—of possessing extra-national loyalties, thereby exacerbating German [[antisemitism]] about the ''[[Jewish question|Judenfrage]]'' (the Jewish Question), the far-right [[Antisemitic canard|canard]] popular when the ethnic ''völkisch'' movement and its politics of [[Romantic nationalism]] for establishing a ''[[German question#Later influence|Großdeutschland]]'', was strong.<ref name=PostWWIAntisemitism/><ref name="JFrage"/>
Nazism's racial positions may have developed from views of biologists of the 19th century, including French biologist [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck]], through [[Ernst Haeckel]]'s idealist version of [[Lamarckism]] and the father of [[genetics]], German botanist [[Gregor Mendel]].<ref name="Peter J. Bowler 1989. pp. 304-305"/> Haeckel's works were later condemned by the Nazis as inappropriate for "National-Socialist formation and education in the Third Reich". This may have been because of his "[[Monism|monist]]" [[Atheism|atheistic]], [[Materialism|materialist]] philosophy, which the Nazis disliked, along with his friendliness to Jews, opposition to militarism and support for altruism.<ref name="Robert J. Richards 2008. pp. 7-8"/> Unlike Darwinian theory, Lamarckian theory ranked races in a hierarchy of evolution from [[ape]]s. Darwinian theory did not grade races in a hierarchy of higher or lower evolution from apes, but simply stated that all humans had progressed in their evolution from apes.<ref name="Peter J. Bowler 1989. pp. 304-305"/> Many Lamarckians viewed "lower" races as having been exposed to debilitating conditions for too long for any significant "improvement" to take place in the near future.<ref name="evolution"/> Haeckel used Lamarckian theory to describe the existence of interracial struggle and put races on a hierarchy of evolution, ranging from wholly human to [[Untermensch|subhuman]].<ref name="Peter J. Bowler 1989. pp. 304-305"/>
[[Mendelian inheritance]], or Mendelism, was supported by the Nazis, as well as eugenicists. Mendelian inheritance declared that genetic traits and attributes were passed from one generation to another.<ref name="university14"/> Eugenicists used Mendelian inheritance theory to demonstrate the transfer of biological illness and impairments from parents to children, including mental disability, whereas others also used Mendelian theory to demonstrate the inheritance of social traits, with racialists claiming a racial nature behind certain traits, such as inventiveness or criminal behaviour.<ref name="friedlander"/>
==== Use of the American racist model ==== Hitler and Nazi legal theorists were inspired by America's [[institutional racism]] and saw it as the model to follow. They saw it as a model for the expansion of territory and elimination of indigenous inhabitants therefrom, for [[Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era|laws denying full citizenship for African Americans]], which they wanted to implement against Jews, and for [[Immigration Act of 1924|racist immigration laws]] banning "inferior" races. In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler extolled America as the only example of a country with racist ("völkisch") citizenship statutes in the 1920s, and Nazi lawyers made use of American models in crafting laws for Nazi Germany.<ref name="Whitman"/> US citizenship laws and [[Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States|anti-miscegenation laws]] directly inspired the two principal [[Nuremberg Laws]]—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law.<ref name="Whitman">{{cite book|last1=Whitman|first1=James Q.|title=Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law|date=2017|publisher=Princeton University Press|pages=37–47}}</ref>
=== Response to World War I and Italian Fascism === During World War I, German sociologist [[Johann Plenge]] spoke of the rise of a "National Socialism" in Germany within what he termed the "[[Spirit of 1914|ideas of 1914]]" that were a declaration of war against the "ideas of 1789", the [[French Revolution]].<ref name="Martin Kitchen 2006, p. 205"/> According to Plenge, the "ideas of 1789" which included the rights of man, democracy, individualism and liberalism were being rejected in favour of "the ideas of 1914", which included the "German values" of duty, discipline, law and order.<ref name="Martin Kitchen 2006, p. 205" /> Plenge believed ethnic solidarity (''[[Volksgemeinschaft]]'') would replace class division and "racial comrades" would unite to create a socialist society in the struggle of "proletarian" Germany, against "capitalist" Britain.<ref name="Martin Kitchen 2006, p. 205" /> He believed the "Spirit of 1914" manifested itself in the concept of the "People's League of National Socialism".<ref name="Bernd-Rüdiger Hüppauf 1997, p. 92" /> This National Socialism was a form of [[state socialism]] that rejected the "idea of boundless freedom" and promoted an economy that would serve the whole of Germany, under the leadership of the state.<ref name="Bernd-Rüdiger Hüppauf 1997, p. 92" /> This National Socialism was opposed to capitalism due to the components that were against "the national interest", but insisted National Socialism would strive for greater efficiency in the economy.<ref name="Bernd-Rüdiger Hüppauf 1997, p. 92" /> Plenge advocated an authoritarian, rational ruling elite to develop National Socialism through a hierarchical [[Technocracy|technocratic]] state,<ref name="Thomas Rohkrämer 2007, p. 130" /> and his ideas were part of the basis for Nazism.<ref name="Martin Kitchen 2006, p. 205"/>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R06610, Oswald Spengler.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|[[Oswald Spengler]], a philosopher of history]] [[Oswald Spengler]], a German cultural philosopher, was a major influence on Nazism, although after 1933 he became alienated from it and was condemned by the Nazis for criticising Hitler.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> Spengler's conception of national socialism and several of his political views were shared by the Nazis and the [[Conservative Revolutionary movement]].<ref name=autogenerated7 />
Spengler's ''[[The Decline of the West]]'' (1918), written during the end of World War I, addressed the supposed [[decadence]] of European civilisation, which he claimed was caused by atomising and irreligious individualisation and [[cosmopolitanism]].<ref name=autogenerated16/> Spengler's thesis was that a law of historical development of cultures existed involving a cycle of birth, maturity, ageing and death when they reached their final form of civilisation.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> Upon reaching civilisation, a culture will lose its creative capacity and succumb to decadence until the emergence of "[[barbarian]]s" creates a new epoch.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> Spengler considered the [[Western world]] as having succumbed to decadence of intellect, money, cosmopolitan urban life, irreligious life, [[wikt:Atomization|atomised]] individualisation and believed it was at the end of its biological and "spiritual" fertility.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> He believed the "young" German nation as an imperial power would inherit the legacy of [[Ancient Rome]], lead a restoration of value in "[[Bloodline|blood]]" and instinct, while the ideals of rationalism would be revealed as absurd.<ref name="autogenerated16"/>
Spengler's notions of "Prussian socialism" as described in his book ''[[Preussentum und Sozialismus]]'' ("Prussiandom and Socialism", 1919), influenced Nazism and the [[Conservative Revolutionary movement]].<ref name=autogenerated7/> Spengler wrote: "The meaning of socialism is that life is controlled not by the opposition between rich and poor, but by the rank that achievement and talent bestow. That is ''our'' freedom, freedom from the economic despotism of the individual".<ref name="autogenerated7"/> Spengler adopted the anti-English ideas addressed by Plenge and Sombart during World War I that condemned [[Liberalism in the United Kingdom|English liberalism]] and [[Westminster system|English parliamentarianism]] while advocating a national socialism that was free from [[Marxism]] and that would connect the individual to the state through [[Corporatism|corporatist]] organisation.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> Spengler claimed that socialistic Prussian characteristics existed across Germany, including creativity, discipline, concern for the greater good, productivity and self-sacrifice.<ref name="university17"/> He prescribed war as a necessity by saying: "War is the eternal form of higher human existence and states exist for war: they are the expression of the will to war".<ref name="university18"/>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1971-091-20, Kapp-Putsch, Marine-Brigade Erhardt.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|The [[Marinebrigade Ehrhardt]] during the [[Kapp Putsch]] in Berlin, 1920<ref>German Federal Archive image description</ref> The Marinebrigade Erhardt used the [[swastika]] as its symbol, as seen on their helmets and on the truck, which inspired the Nazi Party to adopt it as the movement's symbol.]]
Spengler's definition of socialism did not advocate a change to property relations.<ref name=autogenerated7/> He denounced Marxism for seeking to train the proletariat to "expropriate the expropriator", the capitalist, and then to let them live a life of leisure on this expropriation.<ref name="H. Stuart Hughes 1992, p. 108"/> He claimed that "Marxism is the capitalism of the working class" and not true socialism.<ref name="H. Stuart Hughes 1992, p. 108"/> According to Spengler, true socialism would be in the form of corporatism, stating that "local corporate bodies organised according to the importance of each occupation to the people as a whole; higher representation in stages up to a supreme council of the state; mandates revocable at any time; no organised parties, no professional politicians, no periodic elections".<ref name="transaction"/>
[[File:Das Dritte Reich.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|''[[Das Dritte Reich]]'' (1923), translated as "The Third Reich", by [[Arthur Moeller van den Bruck]]]] [[Wilhelm Stapel]], an antisemitic German intellectual, used Spengler's thesis on the cultural confrontation between Jews, whom Spengler described as a [[Magi]]an people, versus [[Europeans]], as a [[Faust]]ian people.<ref name="MordecaiKaplan">{{cite book |first=Mordecai M. |last=Kaplan |title=Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life |page=73}}</ref> Stapel described Jews as a landless nomadic people in pursuit of an international culture whereby they can integrate into Western civilisation.<ref name="MordecaiKaplan"/> As such, Stapel claims that Jews have been attracted to "international" versions of socialism, pacifism or capitalism, because as a landless people the Jews have transgressed national cultural boundaries.<ref name="MordecaiKaplan"/>
For all of Spengler's influence on the movement, he was opposed to its antisemitism. He wrote in his personal papers "[H]ow much envy of the capability of other people in view of one's lack of it lies hidden in anti-Semitism!" as well as "[W]hen one would rather destroy business and scholarship than see Jews in them, one is an ideologue, i.e., a danger for the nation. Idiotic."<ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Farrenkopf |title=Prophet of Decline: Spengler on World History and Politics|date=2001 |pages=237–238|publisher=LSU Press |isbn=9780807127278}}</ref>
[[Arthur Moeller van den Bruck]], who was initially the dominant figure of the Conservative Revolutionaries, influenced Nazism.<ref name="university19"/> He rejected [[reactionary]] conservatism while proposing a new state that he called the "Third Reich", which would unite all classes under [[authoritarian]] rule.<ref name="macmillan"/> Van den Bruck advocated a combination of the nationalism of the right and socialism of the left.<ref name="millennial"/>
[[Fascism]] was a major influence on Nazism. The seizure of power by fascist leader Benito Mussolini in the [[March on Rome]] in 1922 drew admiration by Hitler, who less than a month later had begun to model himself and the [[Nazi Party]] upon Mussolini and the Fascists.{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|p=182}} Hitler presented the Nazis as a form of German fascism.<ref name="Fulda, Bernhard 2009, p. 65"/><ref name="Carlsten, F. L. 1982, p. 80"/> In 1923, the Nazis attempted a "March on Berlin" modelled after the March on Rome, which resulted in the failed [[Beer Hall Putsch]] in [[Munich]].<ref name="dissolution"/>
Hitler spoke of Nazism being indebted to the success of Fascism's rise to power in Italy.<ref name="Hugh R. Trevor-Roper 2008. p10">Hugh R. Trevor-Roper (ed.), Gerhard L. Weinberg (ed.). ''Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944: Secret Conversations''. Enigma Books, 2008. p. 10</ref> In a private conversation in 1941, Hitler said that "the brown shirt would probably not have existed without the black shirt", the "brown shirt" referring to the [[Sturmabteilung|Nazi militia]] and the "black shirt" referring to the [[Blackshirts|Fascist militia]].<ref name="Hugh R. Trevor-Roper 2008. p10"/> He said in regards to the 1920s: "If Mussolini had been outdistanced by Marxism, I don't know whether we could have succeeded in holding out. At that period National Socialism was a very fragile growth".<ref name="Hugh R. Trevor-Roper 2008. p10"/>
Other Nazis—especially those associated with the party's more radical wing such as [[Gregor Strasser]], Goebbels and Himmler—rejected [[Italian fascism|Italian Fascism]], accusing it of being too conservative or capitalist.<ref name="university21"/> [[Alfred Rosenberg]] condemned Italian Fascism for being racially confused and having influences from [[Philo-Semitism|philosemitism]].<ref name="stanley"/> Strasser criticised the policy of {{Lang|de|[[Führerprinzip]]}} as being created by Mussolini and considered its presence in Nazism as a foreign-imported idea.<ref name="Stanley G. Payne 1995, p. 464"/> Throughout the relationship between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, several lower-ranking Nazis scornfully viewed fascism as a conservative movement that lacked full revolutionary potential.<ref name="Stanley G. Payne 1995, p. 464"/>
== Ideology and programme == In his book ''The Hitler State'' (''Der Staat Hitlers''), historian [[Martin Broszat]] writes:
<blockquote>...National Socialism was not primarily an ideological and programmatic, but a [[Charismatic authority|charismatic movement]], whose ideology was incorporated in the Führer, Hitler, and which would have lost all its power to integrate without him. ... [T]he abstract, utopian and vague National Socialistic ideology only achieved what reality and certainty it had through the medium of Hitler.</blockquote>
Thus, analysis of the ideology of Nazism is usually descriptive, as it was not generated from first principles, but was the result of numerous factors, including Hitler's personal views, parts of the [[25-point plan]], the general goals of the ''[[völkische]]'' and nationalist movements, and conflicts between party functionaries who battled "to win [Hitler] over to their respective interpretations of [National Socialism]." Once the party had been purged of divergent influences such as [[Strasserism]], Hitler was accepted by its leadership as the "supreme authority to rule on ideological matters".{{sfn|Broszat|1981|p=29}}
Nazi ideology was based on a bio-geo-political "''Weltanschauung''" ([[worldview]]), advocating territorial expansionism to cultivate what it viewed as a "purified and homogeneous [[Aryan race|Aryan population]]." Nazi regime policies were shaped by the integration of [[biopolitics]] and [[geopolitics]] within the [[Hitlerian]] worldview, amalgamating spatial theory, practice, and imagination with biopolitics. In Hitlerism, the concepts of space and [[Race (human categorization)|race]] existed in tension, forming a distinct bio-geo-political framework at the core of the Nazi project. This ideology viewed German territorial conquests and extermination of those ethnic groups it dehumanised as "''[[untermensch]]''" as part of a biopolitical process to establish an ideal German community.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Hitler's Geographies: The Spatialities of the Third Reich |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-226-27442-3 |editor-last1=Giaccaria |editor-last2=Minca |editor-first1=Paolo |editor-first2=Claudio |location=Chicago |pages=10, 11, 29}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Neumann |first=Boaz |date=2002 |title=The National Socialist Politics of Life |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3115178 |journal=New German Critique |issue=85 |pages=107–130 |doi=10.2307/3115178 |jstor=3115178 |access-date=9 December 2023 |archive-date=9 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231209075248/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3115178 |url-status=live | issn=0094-033X|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
=== Nationalism and racialism === {{further|Nazi racial theories|Racial policy of Nazi Germany}} Nazism emphasised German nationalism, including [[irredentism]] and [[expansionism]]. Nazism held racial theories based upon a belief in the existence of an Aryan master race, superior to all other races. The Nazis emphasised the existence of conflict between the Aryan race and others—particularly Jews, whom the Nazis viewed as a mixed race that had infiltrated multiple societies and was responsible for exploitation and repression of the Aryan race. The Nazis also categorised [[Slavs]] as ''[[Untermensch]]'' (sub-human).<ref>Steve Thorne. ''The Language of War''. London: Routledge, 2006, p. 38. {{ISBN|978-0-415-35867-5}}</ref>
Wolfgang Bialas argues the Nazis' sense of morality could be described as a form of procedural [[virtue ethics]], as it demanded [[unconditional obedience]] to absolute virtues, with the attitude of social engineering and replaced common sense intuitions with an ideological catalogue of virtues and commands. The ideal Nazi new man was to be race-conscious, and an ideologically-dedicated warrior, who committed actions for the sake of the German race, while convinced he was acting morally. The Nazis believed an individual could only develop their capabilities and individual characteristics within the framework of the individual's racial membership; the race one belonged to determined whether or not one was worthy of moral care. The Christian concept of [[self-denial]] was replaced with the idea of self-assertion towards those deemed inferior. Natural selection and the struggle for existence were declared by the Nazis to be the most divine laws; peoples and individuals deemed inferior were said to be incapable of surviving without those deemed superior, yet by doing so they imposed a burden on the superior. Natural selection was deemed to favour the strong over the weak and the Nazis deemed that protecting those declared inferior was preventing nature from taking its course; those incapable of asserting themselves were viewed as doomed to annihilation, with the right to life being granted only to those who could survive on their own.<ref>Bialas, Wolfgang, and Lothar Fritze, eds. ''Nazi Ideology and Ethics.'' Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, pp. 15–57 {{ISBN|978-1443854221}}</ref>
==== Irredentism and expansionism ==== {{further|Lebensraum}} [[File:Bundesarchiv R 49 Bild-0131, Aussiedlung von Polen im Wartheland.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|left|Beginning of ''Lebensraum'', the [[Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany|Nazi German expulsion of Poles]] from [[Reichsgau Wartheland|central Poland]], 1939]]
At the core of Nazi ideology was the bio-geo-political project to acquire ''[[Lebensraum]]'' ("living space") through territorial conquests.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Hitler's Geographies: The Spatialities of the Third Reich |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-226-27442-3 |editor-last1=Giaccaria |editor-last2=Minca |editor-first1=Paolo |editor-first2=Claudio |location=Chicago |page=37 |chapter=1: For a Tentative Spatial Theory of the Third Reich}}</ref> The German Nazi Party supported German irredentist claims to Austria, [[Alsace-Lorraine]], the [[Sudetenland]], and the [[Polish Corridor]]. A key policy of the German Nazi Party was ''Lebensraum'' for the German nation based on claims Germany was facing an overpopulation crisis and expansion was needed to end overpopulation within existing territory, and provide resources necessary for its people's well-being.<ref name="Stephen J. Lee 1945, p. 237">Stephen J. Lee. ''Europe, 1890–1945'', p. 237. {{ISBN?}}</ref> The party publicly promoted the expansion of Germany into territories held by the Soviet Union.<ref name="Peter D. Stachura P. 31">Peter D. Stachura. ''The Shaping of the Nazi State'', p. 31.</ref>
In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler stated that ''Lebensraum'' would be acquired in Eastern Europe, especially Russia.<ref>Joseph W. Bendersk, A History of Nazi Germany: 1919–1945, p. 177</ref> In his early years as leader, Hitler claimed he would be willing to accept friendly relations with Russia on the tactical condition that Russia agree to return to the borders established by the German–Russian [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] from 1918, which gave large territories held by Russia to German control in exchange for peace.<ref name="Peter D. Stachura P. 31"/> In 1921, Hitler had commended the Treaty as opening the possibility for restoration of relations between Germany and Russia by saying: [[File:Trial of the Nazis of the Klaipėda Region – priest Theodor Freiherr von Sass, veterinarian Ernst Neumann, and others in Kaunas, 1935.jpg|thumb|The [[Trial of Neumann and Sass|first trial of the Nazis in Europe]], which took place in [[Kaunas]] in 1935. The accused claimed that the [[Klaipėda Region]] should be part of Germany, not [[Lithuania]], and spread propaganda, prepared for an armed uprising.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gliožaitis |first1=Algirdas |title=Neumanno-Sasso byla |trans-title=The Case of Neumann-Sass |url=https://www.mle.lt/straipsniai/neumanno-sasso-byla |website=Mažosios Lietuvos enciklopedija |access-date=12 February 2022 |language=lt |archive-date=12 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220212210419/https://www.mle.lt/straipsniai/neumanno-sasso-byla |url-status=live }}</ref>]] {{blockquote|Through the peace with Russia the sustenance of Germany as well as the provision of work were to have been secured by the acquisition of land and soil, by access to raw materials, and by friendly relations between the two lands.|Adolf Hitler<ref name="Peter D. Stachura P. 31"/>}}
From 1921 to 1922, Hitler called for the achievement of ''Lebensraum'', involving a territorially-reduced Russia, as well as supporting [[Russian nationalism|Russian nationalists]] in overthrowing the [[Bolsheviks]] and establishing a new [[White movement|White Russian]] government.<ref name="Peter D. Stachura P. 31"/> Hitler's attitudes changed by the end of 1922, in which he then supported an alliance of Germany with Britain to destroy Russia.<ref name="Peter D. Stachura P. 31"/> Hitler later declared how far he intended to expand Germany into Russia: {{blockquote|Asia, what a disquieting reservoir of men! The safety of Europe will not be assured until we have driven Asia back behind the Urals. No organized Russian state must be allowed to exist west of that line.|Adolf Hitler<ref name="André Mineau 2004, p. 36">André Mineau. ''Operation Barbarossa: Ideology and Ethics Against Human Dignity''. Rodopi, 2004, p. 36</ref>}} {{quote box | title = Hitler's doctrine of ''Lebensraum''|"For the future of the German nation the 1914 frontiers are of no significance. They did not serve to protect us in the past, nor do they offer any guarantee for our defence in the future. With these frontiers the [[German people]] cannot maintain themselves as a compact unit, nor can they be assured of their maintenance. ... Against all this we, National Socialists, must stick firmly to the aim that we have set for our foreign policy; namely, that the German people must be assured the territorial area which is necessary for it to exist on this earth. ... The right to territory may become a duty when a great nation seems destined to go under unless its territory be extended. And that is particularly true when the nation in question is not some little group of negro people but the Germanic mother of all the life which has given cultural shape to the modern world." | author = — [[Adolf Hitler]] | source = — ("''[[Mein Kampf]]''", Volume 2, Chapter 14: "Germany's policy in Eastern Europe")<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hitler |first=Adolf |date=1939 |title=Mein Kampf |publisher=Hurst & Blackett Ltd.|chapter= XIV: Germany's policy in Eastern Europe|pages=498, 500}}</ref> | align = right | width = 25em }}
''Lebensraum'' policy involved expansion of Germany's borders to east of the [[Ural Mountains]].<ref name="André Mineau 2004, p. 36"/><ref>[[Rolf-Dieter Müller]], [[Gerd R. Ueberschär]]. ''[[Hitler's War in the East 1941−1945|Hitler's War in the East, 1941–1945: A Critical Assessment]]''. Berghahn Books, 2009, p. 89.</ref> Hitler planned for the "surplus" Russian population living west of the Urals to be deported to the east of them.<ref>Bradl Lightbody. ''The Second World War: Ambitions to Nemesis''. London; New York: Routledge, 2004, p. 97.{{ISBN?}}</ref>
Adam Tooze explains that Hitler believed Lebensraum was vital to securing American-style consumer affluence for the German people. In this light, Tooze argues that the view the regime faced a "[[Guns versus butter model|guns or butter]]" contrast is mistaken. While it is true that resources were diverted from civilian consumption to military production, Tooze explains that at a strategic level "guns were ultimately viewed as a means to obtaining more butter".{{sfn|Tooze|2008|pp=161–162}}
While the Nazi pre-occupation with agrarian living and food production are often seen as a sign of their backwardness, Tooze explains this was in fact a driving issue in European society for at least the last two centuries. The issue of how European societies should respond to the new [[World economy|global economy]] in food was a major issue facing Europe in the early 20th century. Agrarian life in Europe was incredibly common—in the early 1930s, over 9 million Germans (a third of the workforce) still worked in agriculture and many not working in it still had allotments or otherwise grew their food. Tooze estimates half the German population in the 1930s was living in towns and villages with populations under 20,000. Many in cities still had memories of rural-urban migration—Tooze thus explains that Nazis' obsession with agrarianism was not an atavistic gloss on a modern industrial nation, but a consequence of the fact that Nazism was the product of a society still in economic transition.{{sfn|Tooze|2008|pp=166–167}} [[File:Europe topography map.png|thumb|upright=1.2|Topographical map of Europe: the Nazi Party declared support for ''[[Drang nach Osten]]'' (expansion of Germany east to the Ural Mountains), that is shown on the upper right side of the map as a brown diagonal line.]] The Nazis obsession with food production was a consequence of the First World War. While Europe was able to avert famine with international imports, blockades brought the issue of [[food security]] back into politics, the [[Blockade of Germany (1914–1919)|Allied blockade of Germany]] in and after World War I did not cause a famine, but chronic malnutrition killed about 600,000 people in Germany and Austria. The economic crises of the interwar period meant most Germans had memories of acute hunger. Thus Tooze concludes the Nazis' obsession with acquiring land was not a case of "turning back the clock", but a refusal to accept that the result of the distribution of land, resources and population, after the imperialist wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, should be accepted as final. While the victors of the First World War had suitable agricultural land to population ratios, large empires, or both, meaning the issue of living space was closed, the Nazis, knowing Germany lacked either, refused to accept Germany's place as a medium-sized workshop dependent on imported food.{{sfn|Tooze|2008|pp=167–168}}
The conquest of ''Lebensraum'' was an initial step<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FhEFAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Whoever+dominates+Europe+will+thereby+assume+the+leadership+of+the+world.+%22|title=The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943|first=Joseph|last=Goebbels|date=1970|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=978-0-8371-3815-2|via=Google Books|access-date=15 September 2020|archive-date=12 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712024922/https://books.google.com/books?id=FhEFAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Whoever+dominates+Europe+will+thereby+assume+the+leadership+of+the+world.+%22|url-status=live}}</ref> towards the final Nazi goal of complete German global hegemony.<ref name="Weinberg">Weinberg, Gerhard L. (1995) ''Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in modern German and world history'' [[Cambridge University Press]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=9OfrTvu7CNYC&q=world+peace&pg=PA28 p. 36] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415163518/https://books.google.com/books?id=9OfrTvu7CNYC&q=world%20peace&pg=PA28 |date=15 April 2023 }}</ref> [[Rudolf Hess]] relayed to [[Walter Hewel]] Hitler's belief that [[world peace]] could only be acquired "when one power, the [[Racial supremacism|racially best one]], has attained uncontested supremacy". When this control would be achieved, this power could then set up for itself a world police and assure itself "the necessary living space. [...] The lower races will have to restrict themselves accordingly".<ref name="Weinberg"/>
==== Racial theories ==== In its [[Race (human categorization)|racial categorisation]], Nazism viewed what it called the Aryan race as the [[master race]] of the world—a race superior to all other races.<ref name="George Lachmann Mosse p79">George Lachmann Mosse. Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich, p. 79.</ref> It viewed Aryans as being in conflict with a mixed race people, the Jews, whom the Nazis identified as a dangerous enemy. It also viewed several other peoples as dangerous to the Aryan race. To preserve the perceived racial purity of the Aryans, race laws were introduced in 1935, known as the Nuremberg Laws. At first these prevented sexual relations and marriages between Germans and Jews, and later extended to the "[[Romani people|Gypsies]], [[Black people|Negroes]], and their bastard offspring", who were described as of "alien blood".<ref name=RGallately>{{cite book |author=S.H. Milton |chapter="Gypsies" as social outsiders in Nazi Germany|title=Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany |editor1=Robert Gellately |editor2=Nathan Stoltzfus |year=2001 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-08684-2 |pages=216, 231}}</ref><ref name="Burleigh1991">{{cite book |author=Michael Burleigh |title=The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945 |date=1991 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-39802-2 |page=[https://archive.org/details/racialstate00mich/page/49 49] |url=https://archive.org/details/racialstate00mich/page/49}}</ref> Such relations between Aryans (cf. [[Aryan certificate]]) and non-Aryans were now punishable under the race laws as ''[[Rassenschande]]'' or "race defilement".<ref name=RGallately /> After the war began, defilement law was extended to include all foreigners (non-Germans).{{sfn|Majer|2003|p=180}} At the bottom of the racial scale of non-Aryans were Jews, Romanis, Slavs<ref name="Mineau, André 2004 p. 180">Mineau, André (2004). ''Operation Barbarossa: Ideology and Ethics Against Human Dignity''. Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, p. 180. {{ISBN|90-420-1633-7}}.</ref> and blacks.<ref name="Simone Gigliotti 2005. Pp. 14">Simone Gigliotti, [[Berel Lang]]. ''The Holocaust: a reader''. Malden, MA; Oxford, England; Carlton, Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, p. 14.</ref> To maintain the "purity and strength" of the Aryan race, the Nazis eventually sought to [[Genocide|exterminate]] Jews, Romani, Slavs and the [[Physical disability|physically]] and [[Developmental disability|mentally disabled]].<ref name="Mineau, André 2004 p. 180"/><ref name="Simone Gigliotti 2005, p. 14"/> Other groups deemed "[[Social degeneration|degenerate]]" and "[[Asociality|asocial]]" who were not targeted for extermination, but for [[Social exclusion|exclusionary treatment]] by the Nazi state, included [[Homosexuality|homosexuals]], [[Black people in Nazi Germany|blacks]], [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] and political opponents.<ref name="Simone Gigliotti 2005, p. 14"/> One of Hitler's ambitions at the start of the war was to [[Generalplan Ost|exterminate, expel or enslave]] Slavs from [[Central Europe|Central]] and [[Eastern Europe]], to acquire [[Lebensraum]] for German settlers.<ref name="google"/>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-16748, Ausstellung "Wunder des Lebens".jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A "poster information" from the exhibition "''Miracle of Life''" in Berlin in 1935]]
A Nazi-era textbook entitled ''Heredity and Racial Biology for Students'', by Jakob Graf, described the Nazi conception of the Aryan race in a section titled "The Aryan: The Creative Force in Human History".<ref name="George Lachmann Mosse p79"/> Graf claimed the original Aryans developed from Nordic peoples who invaded [[Ancient India]], launched the development of Aryan culture that spread to [[ancient Persia]], and were responsible for the latter's development into an empire.<ref name="George Lachmann Mosse p79"/> He claimed that [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek culture]] was developed by Nordic peoples due to paintings which showed Greeks who were tall, light-skinned, light-eyed, blond-haired.<ref name="George Lachmann Mosse p79"/> He said the [[Roman Empire]] was developed by the [[Italic peoples|Italics]] who were related to the [[Celts]] who were also Nordic.<ref name="George Lachmann Mosse p79"/> He believed the vanishing of the Nordic component of the populations in Ancient Greece and [[Ancient Rome]] led to their downfall.<ref name="George Lachmann Mosse p79"/> The [[Renaissance]] was claimed to have developed in the [[Western Roman Empire]] because of the [[Migration Period]] that brought new Nordic blood, such as the presence of Nordic blood in the [[Lombards]]; that remnants of the [[Visigoths]] were responsible for the creation of the [[Spanish Empire]]; and that the heritage of the [[Franks]], [[Goths]] and [[Germanic peoples]] in France was responsible for its rise as a major power.<ref name="George Lachmann Mosse p79" /> He claimed the rise of the Russian Empire was due to its leadership by people of [[Normans|Norman]] descent.<ref name="George Lachmann Mosse p79" /> He described the rise of [[Anglo-Saxon]] societies in [[North America]], [[South Africa]] and [[Australia]] as being the result of the Nordic heritage of Anglo-Saxons.<ref name="George Lachmann Mosse p79"/> He concluded: "Everywhere Nordic creative power has built mighty empires with high-minded ideas, and to this very day [[Indo-European languages|Aryan languages]] and cultural values are spread over a large part of the world, though the creative Nordic blood has long since vanished in many places".<ref name="George Lachmann Mosse p79"/>
[[File:Buchenwald Corpses 60623.jpg|thumb|left|A wagon piled high with corpses outside the crematorium in [[Buchenwald concentration camp]]]]
In Nazi Germany, the idea of creating a master race resulted in efforts to "purify" the ''Deutsche Volk'' through [[Nazi eugenics|eugenics]] and its culmination was the [[compulsory sterilisation]] or [[involuntary euthanasia]] of physically or mentally disabled people. After World War II, the euthanasia programme was named [[Action T4]].<ref>Sandner (1999): 385 ([http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1999_3.pdf 66 in PDF] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221112122424/https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1999_3.pdf |date=12 November 2022 }}) Note 2. The author claims that the term Aktion T4 was not used by the Nazis and that it was first used in the trials of the doctors and later included in the historiography.</ref> The ideological justification for [[euthanasia]] was Hitler's view of [[Sparta]] as the original ''völkisch'' state and he praised Sparta's dispassionate destruction of congenitally-deformed infants to maintain racial purity.<ref name="pathological"/><ref name="Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945: nature as model and nature as threat"/> Some non-Aryans enlisted in Nazi organisations like the Hitler Youth and the ''[[Wehrmacht]]'', including Germans of African descent<ref name="experiences"/> and Jewish descent.<ref>{{cite book|author=Bryan Mark Rigg|title=Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story Of Nazi Racial Laws And Men Of Jewish Descent In The German Military|date=2004|publisher=University Press of Kansas|isbn=978-0-7006-1358-8}}</ref> The Nazis began to implement "racial hygiene" policies as soon as they came to power. The 1933 "[[Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring]]" prescribed compulsory sterilisation for people with a range of conditions which were thought to be hereditary, such as [[schizophrenia]], [[epilepsy]], [[Huntington's chorea]] and "[[Intellectual disability|imbecility]]". Sterilization was also mandated for chronic [[alcoholism]] and other forms of [[Deviance (sociology)|social deviance]].{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=507}} An estimated 360,000 people were sterilised between 1933-39. Although some Nazis suggested the programme should be extended to people with physical disabilities, such ideas had to be expressed carefully, given some Nazis had physical disabilities, such as Joseph Goebbels, who had a deformed right leg.<ref>This was the result of either a [[club foot]] or [[osteomyelitis]]. Goebbels is commonly said to have had [[club foot]] (''talipes equinovarus''), a congenital condition. [[William L. Shirer]], who worked in Berlin as a journalist in the 1930s and was acquainted with Goebbels, wrote in ''[[The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]]'' (1960) that the deformity was caused by a childhood attack of [[osteomyelitis]] and a failed operation to correct it.</ref> [[File:Czeslawa Kwoka - Brasse.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|One of many Polish children murdered in Auschwitz by the Nazis. The ''[[Generalplan Ost]]'' envisaged the deportation, extermination, Germanization and enslavement of all or most [[Nazi war crimes in occupied Poland during World War II|Poles]], [[Final Solution of the Czech Question|Czechs]], [[Reichskommissariat Ukraine|Ukrainians]], [[German occupation of Belarus during World War II|Belarusians]] and [[World War II casualties of the Soviet Union|Russians]].]] Nazi racial theorist [[Hans F. K. Günther]] argued European peoples were divided into five races: [[Nordic race|Nordic]], [[Mediterranean race|Mediterranean]], [[Dinaric race|Dinaric]], [[Alpine race|Alpine]] and [[East Baltic race|East Baltic]].<ref name="Baum2006_156" /> Günther applied a [[Nordicism|Nordicist]] conception to justify his belief that Nordics were the highest in the racial hierarchy.<ref name="Baum2006_156" /> In ''[[Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes]]'' (1922) ("Racial Science of the German People"), Günther recognised Germans as being composed of all five races, but emphasised the strong Nordic heritage among them.<ref name="Maxwell150">Anne Maxwell (2010 [2008]). ''Picture Imperfect: Photography and Eugenics, 1870–1940''. Eastbourne, England; Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press p. 150. {{ISBN?}}</ref> Hitler read ''Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes'', which influenced his racial policy.<ref>John Cornwell. ''Hitler's Scientists: Science, War, and the Devil's Pact''. Penguin, 2004. [https://books.google.com/books?id=5bA2vTgvobAC&dq=hitler+gunther+aryan&pg=PT68] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406165051/https://books.google.com/books?id=5bA2vTgvobAC&dq=hitler%20gunther%20aryan&pg=PT68|date=6 April 2023}}</ref> Gunther believed Slavs belonged to an "Eastern race" and warned against Germans mixing with them.<ref>Racisms Made in. Germany (Racism Analysis |Yearbook 2 – 2011) Ed. by Wulf D. Hund, Christian Koller, Moshe Zimmermann p. 19</ref> The Nazis described Jews as being a racially mixed group of primarily [[Armenoid race|Near Eastern]] and [[Arabid race|Oriental]] racial types.<ref name="Weinreich111">Max Weinreich. ''Hitler's Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany's Crimes Against the Jewish People''. Yale University Press, 1999, p. 111.</ref> Because such racial groups were concentrated outside Europe, the Nazis claimed Jews were "racially alien" to all European peoples and did not have deep racial roots in Europe.<ref name="Weinreich111" />
Günther emphasised Jews' Near Eastern racial heritage.{{sfn|Steinweis|2008|p=28}} Günther identified the mass conversion of the [[Khazars]] to [[Judaism]] in the 8th century as creating two branches of the Jewish people: those of primarily Near Eastern racial heritage became the [[Ashkenazi Jews]] (that he called Eastern Jews) while those of Oriental racial heritage became the [[Sephardi Jews]] (that he called Southern Jews).{{sfn|Steinweis|2008|pp=31–32}} Günther claimed the Eastern type was composed of commercially spirited and artful traders, and held [[psychological manipulation]] skills which aided them in trade.{{sfn|Steinweis|2008|p=28}} He claimed the Eastern race had been "bred not so much for the conquest and exploitation of nature as it had been for the conquest and exploitation of people".{{sfn|Steinweis|2008|p=28}} Günther believed European peoples had a racially-motivated aversion to peoples of Near Eastern racial origin and their traits, and as evidence of this he showed examples of depictions of satanic figures with Near Eastern physiognomies in art.{{sfn|Steinweis|2008|p=29}} [[File:Der_Untermensch.jpg|thumb|Cover of the racist booklet "''Der Untermensch''" published by [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] in 1942. 4 million copies of the brochure were printed by Nazi Germany and distributed across occupied territories. The pamphlet depicted the [[Slavs|Slavic]] and Jewish inhabitants of [[Eastern Europe]] as primitive people.<ref>Sources: * {{harvnb|Müller|Ueberschar|2009|p=245}} * {{Cite journal |title=Der Untermensch |url=https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1077/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201126075206/https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1077/ |archive-date=26 November 2020 |journal=Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection|date=January 1942 }} * {{harvnb|Aschheim|1992|pp=236–237}}</ref>]] Hitler's conception of the Aryan ''Herrenvolk'' ([[master race]]) excluded most Slavs from Central and Eastern Europe. They were regarded as a race disinclined to a higher form of [[civilisation]], which was under an instinctive force that reverted them back to nature. The Nazis regarded Slavs as having dangerous Jewish and Asiatic, meaning [[Mongols|Mongol]], influences.<ref>André Mineau. ''Operation Barbarossa: Ideology and Ethics Against Human Dignity''. Rodopi, 2004. pp. 34–36.</ref> Because of this, the Nazis declared Slavs to be ''Untermenschen'' ("subhumans").<ref>Steve Thorne. ''The Language of War''. London: Routledge, 2006, p. 38.</ref>
Nazi anthropologists attempted to scientifically prove the historical admixture of the Slavs who lived further East and Günther regarded the Slavs as being primarily Nordic centuries ago, but had mixed with non-Nordics.<ref name="Wendt2010">{{cite book|author=Anton Weiss-Wendt|author-link = Anton Weiss-Wendt|title=Eradicating Differences: The Treatment of Minorities in Nazi-Dominated Europe|date=2010|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|isbn=978-1-4438-2449-1|page=63}}</ref> Exceptions were made for a few Slavs who the Nazis saw as descended from German settlers and therefore fit to be Germanised and considered part of the Aryan master race.<ref>[[Wendy Lower]]. ''Nazi Empire-building and the Holocaust In Ukraine''. The University of North Carolina Press, 2005, p. 27.</ref> Hitler described Slavs as "a mass of born slaves who feel the need for a master".<ref>Marvin Perry. Western Civilization: A Brief History. Cengage Learning, 2012, p. 468.</ref> Himmler classified Slavs as "bestial ''untermenschen''" and Jews as the "decisive leader of the ''Untermenschen''".{{sfn|Aschheim|1992|pp=236–237}} These ideas were fervently advocated through [[Propaganda in Nazi Germany|Nazi propaganda]], which indoctrinated many Germans. "''Der Untermenschen''", a racist brochure published by the SS in 1942, is an infamous piece of [[Anti-Slavic sentiment#Nazi Germany|anti-Slavic propaganda]].{{sfn|Müller|Ueberschar|2009|p=245}}{{sfn|Aschheim|1992|p=236}}
The Nazi notion of Slavs as inferior served as a legitimisation of their desire to create ''Lebensraum'', where millions of Germans would be moved into conquered territories, while the Slavic inhabitants were to be annihilated, removed or enslaved.<ref name="Bendersky">{{cite book|last=Bendersky|first=Joseph W.|title=A Concise History of Nazi Germany|year=2007|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.|location=Plymouth, England|isbn=978-0-7425-5363-7|pages=161–162}}</ref> Nazi Germany's policy changed towards Slavs in response to manpower shortages, forcing it to allow Slavs to serve in its military within the occupied territories, despite the fact they were considered "subhuman".<ref>Norman Davies. ''[[Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory]]''. Pan Macmillan, 2008. pp. 167, 209.</ref>
Hitler declared racial conflict against Jews was necessary to save Germany from suffering under them, and he dismissed concerns: <blockquote>We may be inhumane, but if we rescue Germany we have achieved the greatest deed in the world. We may work injustice, but if we rescue Germany then we have removed the greatest injustice in the world. We may be immoral, but if our people is rescued we have opened the way for morality.<ref name="koenigsberg"/></blockquote>
Propagandist Goebbels frequently employed antisemitic rhetoric to underline this view: "The Jew is the enemy and the destroyer of the purity of blood, the conscious destroyer of our race."<ref name="thosedamnednazis"/>
=== Social class === The Nazis believed "human life consisted of eternal struggle and competition and derived its meaning from struggle and competition."{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=6}} The Nazis saw this struggle in military terms, and advocated a society organised like an army to achieve success. They promoted the idea of a national-racial "people's community" (''[[Volksgemeinschaft]]'') to accomplish "the efficient prosecution of the struggle against other peoples and states."{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=7}} Like an army, the ''Volksgemeinschaft'' was meant to consist of a hierarchy of ranks or classes, some commanding and others obeying, all working together for a common goal.{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=7}} This concept was rooted in writings of 19th century ''völkisch'' authors who glorified medieval German society, viewing it as a "community rooted in the land and bound together by custom and tradition," in which there was no class conflict, or selfish individualism.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=40}} The concept of the ''Volksgemeinschaft'' appealed to many, as it was seen to affirm a commitment to a new type of society, yet offer protection from the tensions and insecurities of modernisation. It would balance individual achievement with group solidarity. Stripped of its ideological overtones, the Nazi vision of modernisation without internal conflict, and a community that offered both security and opportunity, was so potent a vision that many Germans were willing to overlook its racist and anti-Semitic essence.<ref>Fritz, Stephen. ''Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II.'' University Press of Kentucky, 1997.{{ISBN?}}</ref>
Nazism rejected the Marxist concept of [[class conflict]], and it praised both German capitalists and German workers as essential to the ''Volksgemeinschaft''. Social classes would continue to exist, but there would be no conflict between them.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=48}} Hitler said that "the capitalists have worked their way to the top through their capacity, and as the basis of this selection, which again only proves their higher race, they have a right to lead."<ref name="Nicholls 245">David Nicholls. ''Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion''. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000, p. 245.{{ISBN?}}</ref> German business leaders co-operated in the Nazi rise to power and received benefits from the Nazi state after it was established, including high profits and state-sanctioned monopolies.<ref>Grunberger, Richard, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1971. pp. 167, 175–176</ref> Celebrations and symbolism were used to encourage those engaged in physical labour, with leading National Socialists praising the "honour of labour", which fostered a sense of community (''Gemeinschaft'') for the German people and promoted solidarity towards the Nazi cause.<ref>Alf Lüdtke, "The 'Honor of Labor': Industrial Workers and the Power of Symbols under National Socialism", in ''Nazism and German Society, 1933–1945'', edited by David F. Crew (New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 67–109.</ref> To win workers away from Marxism, [[Propaganda in Nazi Germany|Nazi propaganda]] sometimes presented its expansionist foreign policy as a "class struggle between nations."<ref name="Nicholls 245"/> Bonfires were made of school children's differently coloured caps as symbolic of the unity of social classes.<ref name="Grunberger46">[[Richard Grunberger]], ''The 12-Year Reich'', p. 46, {{ISBN|0-03-076435-1}}</ref>
In 1922, Hitler disparaged other nationalist and [[racialist]] parties as disconnected from the populace, especially working-class young people: {{blockquote|The racialists were not capable of drawing the practical conclusions...especially in the Jewish Question...the German racialist movement developed a similar pattern to that of the 1880s and 1890s. As in those days, its leadership gradually fell into the hands of highly honourable, but fantastically naïve men of learning, professors, district counsellors, schoolmasters, and lawyers—in short a bourgeois, idealistic, and refined class. It lacked the warm breath of the nation's youthful vigour.<ref name="burleigh"/>}}
Nevertheless, the Nazis' voter base consisted mainly of farmers and the middle class, including groups such as Weimar government officials, teachers, doctors, clerks, self-employed businessmen, salesmen, retired officers, engineers, and students.{{sfn|Mason|1993|pp=48–50}} Their demands included lower taxes, higher prices for food, restrictions on department stores and consumer co-operatives, and reductions in social services and wages.{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=49}} The need to maintain their support made it difficult for the Nazis to appeal to the working class, which often had opposite demands.{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=49}}
From 1928, the Nazis' growth into a large political movement was dependent on middle class support, and on the public perception that it "promised to side with the middle classes and to confront the economic and political power of the working class."{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=44}} The financial collapse of the [[White-collar worker|white collar]] middle-class of the 1920s figured significantly in their support of Nazism.<ref name="Burleigh, 2000, p. 77"/> Although the Nazis continued to make appeals to "the German worker", Timothy Mason concludes that "Hitler had nothing but slogans to offer the working class."{{sfn|Mason|1993|p=48}} Conan Fischer and Detlef Mühlberger argue that while the Nazis were primarily rooted in the lower middle class, they were able to appeal to all classes and that while workers were underrepresented, they were still a substantial source of support.<ref>Fischer, Conan, ed. The rise of national socialism and the working classes in Weimar Germany. Berghahn Books, 1996.</ref><ref>Mühlberger, Detlef. "The sociology of the NSDAP: The question of working-class membership." Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 3 (1980): 493–511.</ref> H.L. Ansbacher argues working-class soldiers had the most faith in Hitler out of any occupational group.<ref>Fritz, Stephen. Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II. University Press of Kentucky, 1997, p. 210</ref>
The Nazis established a norm that every worker should be semi-skilled, which was not simply rhetorical. The number of men leaving school, to work as unskilled labourers, fell from 200,000 in 1934 to 30,000 in 1939. For many working-class families, the 1930s and 40s were a time of social mobility; not by moving into the middle class, but within the blue-collar skill hierarchy.{{sfn|Tooze|2008|p=143}} The experience of workers varied considerably. Workers' wages did not increase much during Nazi rule, as the government feared wage-price inflation, and thus wage growth was limited. Prices for food and clothing rose, though costs for heating, rent and light decreased. Skilled workers were in shortage from 1936, meaning workers who engaged in vocational training could get higher wages. Benefits provided by the Labour Front were positively received, even if workers did not always believe propaganda about the ''Volksgemeinschaft''. Workers welcomed opportunities for employment after the harsh years of the Depression, creating a belief that the Nazis had removed the insecurity of unemployment. Workers who remained discontented risked the [[Gestapo]]'s informants. Ultimately, the Nazis faced a conflict between their rearmament program, which required sacrifices from workers (longer hours and a lower standard of living), versus a need to maintain the confidence of the working class. Hitler was sympathetic to the view that stressed taking further measures for rearmament, but did not fully implement them, to avoid alienating the working class.<ref>Spielvogel, Jackson J. Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History. Routledge, 2016.</ref>
While the Nazis had substantial support amongst the middle-class, they often attacked traditional middle-class values and Hitler personally held contempt for them. This was because the traditional image of the middle class was one that was obsessed with status, material attainment and quiet, comfortable living, in opposition to the Nazi ideal of a New Man. The New Man was envisioned as a heroic figure who rejected a materialistic and private life, for a public life and pervasive sense of duty, willing to sacrifice everything for the nation. Despite the Nazis' contempt for these values, they were able to secure millions of middle-class votes. Hermann Beck argues that while some of the middle-class dismissed this as mere rhetoric, many others agreed with the Nazis. The defeat of 1918, and failures of Weimar, caused many middle-class Germans to question their own identity, thinking their values to be anachronisms and agreeing these were no longer viable. While this rhetoric would become less frequent after 1933, due to the increased emphasis on the ''volksgemeinschaft'', its ideas would not disappear until the Nazis' overthrow. The Nazis instead emphasised that the middle-class must become ''staatsbürger'', a publicly active and involved citizen, rather than a selfish, materialistic ''spießbürger'', only interested in private life.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Beck |first=Hermann |title=The Antibourgeois Character of National Socialism |journal=The Journal of Modern History |volume=88 |issue=3 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |date=2016 |pages=572–609 |doi=10.1086/687528 |s2cid=157869544 |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/687528 |access-date=7 October 2021 |archive-date=12 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025420/https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/687528?journalCode=jmh |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>Steele, David Ramsay. "The Mystery of Fascism." Liberty Magazine (2001).</ref>
=== Sex and gender === {{further|Women in Nazi Germany|Transgender people in Nazi Germany}} [[File:Pflichten der polen.jpg|thumb|Obligations of Polish workers in Germany, warning them of the death penalty for any sexual relations between Germans and Poles]]
Nazi ideology advocated excluding women from politics and confining them to the spheres of "[[Kinder, Küche, Kirche]]" (Children, Kitchen, Church).<ref>For more elucidation about this conception and its oversimplification, see: Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, "Beyond ''Kinder, Küche, Kirche'': Weimar Women in Politics and Work" in Renate Bridenthal, et al. (eds), ''When Biology Became Destiny in Weimar and Nazi Germany'' (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984), pp. 33–65.</ref> Many women enthusiastically supported the regime, but formed internal hierarchies.<ref>[[Claudia Koonz]], ''Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics'' (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), pp. 53–59.</ref> Hitler's opinion was that while other eras of history had experienced the development and liberation of the female mind, the National Socialist goal was singular: it wished for them to produce children.<ref>Hitler on 23 November 1937. In Max Domarus ed., ''Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, 1932–1945'', (vol I). Triumph. (Würzburg: Verlagsdruckerei Schmidt, 1962), p. 452.</ref> Hitler remarked about women that "with every child that she brings into the world, she fights her battle for the nation. The man stands up for the ''Volk'', exactly as the woman stands up for the family".<ref>Hitler in a speech to the National Socialist Women's Congress, published in the ''Völkischer Beobachter'', 15 September 1935 (Wiener Library Clipping Collection). Cited from: George Mosse, ''Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich'' (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), p. 40.</ref> Proto-natalist programs offered favourable loans and grants to newlyweds, and encouraged them to give birth by providing additional incentives.<ref>[[Claudia Koonz]], ''Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics'' (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), pp. 149, 185–187.</ref> [[Birth control|Contraception]] was discouraged for racially-valuable women and [[abortion]] was forbidden by law, including prison for women who sought them, and doctors who performed them, whereas abortion for racially "undesirable" persons was encouraged.<ref>Jill Stephenson, ''Women in Nazi Germany'' (London and New York: Longman, 2001), pp. 37–40.</ref><ref>Gerda Bormann was concerned by the ratio of racially valuable women that outnumbered men and she thought that the war would make the situation worse in terms of childbirths, so much so that she advocated a law (never passed) which allowed healthy Aryan men to have two wives. See: Anna Maria Sigmund, ''Women of the Third Reich'' (Ontario: NDE, 2000), pp. 17–19.</ref>
While unmarried until the end of the regime, Hitler often made excuses about his busy life hindering any chance for marriage.<ref>Anna Maria Sigmund, ''Women of the Third Reich'' (Ontario: NDE, 2000), p. 17.</ref> Among National Socialist ideologues, marriage was valued not for moral considerations, but because it provided an optimal breeding environment. Himmler reportedly told a confidant that when he established the ''[[Lebensborn]]'' program, an organisation that would dramatically increase the birth rate of "Aryan" children through extramarital relations between women classified as racially pure and their male equals, he had only the purest male "conception assistants" in mind.<ref>Himmler was thinking about members of the SS fulfilling this task. See: Felix Kersten, ''Totenkopf und Treue. Aus den Tagebuchblättern des finnischen Medizinalrats Felix Kersten'' (Hamburg: Mölich Verlag, 1952), pp. 228–229.</ref>
Since the Nazis extended the ''[[Rassenschande]]'' ("race defilement") law to all foreigners at the beginning of the war,{{sfn|Majer|2003|p=180}} pamphlets were issued to German women which ordered them to avoid sex with foreign workers brought to Germany and view these workers as a danger to their blood.<ref name="Rupp1978">{{cite book|author=Leila J. Rupp|title=Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939–1945|date=1978|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-04649-5|url=https://archive.org/details/mobilizingwomenf00leil}}</ref> Although the law was applicable to both genders, German women were punished more severely for having sex with foreign [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|forced labourers]].<ref>{{cite web |author=Helen Boak |title=Nazi policies on German women during the Second World War – Lessons learned from the First World War? |url=https://www.academia.edu/4794258 |pages=4–5 |access-date=2 November 2017 |archive-date=12 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025420/https://www.academia.edu/4794258 |url-status=live }}</ref> The Nazis issued the [[Polish decrees]] in March 1940 which contained regulations concerning the Polish forced labourers ([[Zivilarbeiter]]) brought to Germany. One regulation stated that any Pole "who has sex...with a German man or woman, or approaches them in any other improper manner, will be punished by death".<ref name="Gellately2001">{{cite book|author=Robert Gellately|title=Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany|url=https://archive.org/details/backinghitlercon00gell|url-access=registration|date =2001|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-160452-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/backinghitlercon00gell/page/155 155]}}</ref> After the decrees were enacted, Himmler stated: {{blockquote|Fellow Germans who engage in sexual relations with male or female civil workers of the [[Polish people|Polish]] nationality, commit other immoral acts or engage in love affairs shall be arrested immediately.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-dishonorable-german-girls-the-forgotten-persecution-of-women-in-world-war-ii-a-672803.html|title=The 'Dishonorable' German Girls: The Forgotten Persecution of Women in World War II|last=Friedmann|first=Jan|work=Der Spiegel|access-date=January 21, 2010|date=2010-01-21|archive-date=23 November 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221123090421/https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-dishonorable-german-girls-the-forgotten-persecution-of-women-in-world-war-ii-a-672803.html|url-status=live}}</ref>}}
The Nazis issued similar regulations against 'Eastern Workers' ''([[Ostarbeiter]])'', including imposition of the death penalty if they engaged in sex with German persons.<ref name="Gellately1990">{{cite book|author=Robert Gellately|title=The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945|year=1990|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-820297-4|page=224}}</ref> Heydrich issued a decree in 1942, which declared that: sex between a German woman and Russian worker or prisoner of war, would result in the Russian man being punished with death.<ref name="Evans2012">{{cite book|author=Richard J. Evans|title=The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster|date= 2012|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=978-0-14-191755-9|page=355}}</ref> Another decree stated any "unauthorised" sex would result in the death penalty.{{sfn|Majer|2003|p=369}} Because the [[Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour]] did not permit capital punishment for race defilement, special courts were convened to allow the death penalty to be imposed.{{sfn|Majer|2003|pp=331–32}} Women accused of race defilement were marched through the streets with their head shaven and placards detailing their crimes around their necks<ref name="Stephenson2001">{{cite book|author=Jill Stephenson|title=Women in Nazi Germany|year=2001|publisher=Longman|isbn=978-0-582-41836-3|page=156}}</ref> and those convicted of race defilement were sent to concentration camps.<ref name="Rupp1978"/> When Himmler reportedly asked Hitler what the punishment should be for German women who were found guilty of race defilement with prisoners of war, he ordered that "every POW who has relations with a German girl or a German would be shot" and the woman should be publicly humiliated by "having her hair shorn and being sent to a concentration camp".<ref name="Longerich2012">{{cite book|author=Peter Longerich|title=Heinrich Himmler: A Life|url=https://archive.org/details/heinrichhimmlerl00long|url-access=limited|year=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-959232-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/heinrichhimmlerl00long/page/n495 475]}}</ref>
The [[League of German Girls]], the girls' wing of the Nazi party, instructed girls to avoid race defilement.<ref>"[http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/fink.htm The Jewish Question in Education] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101225172546/http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/fink.htm |date=25 December 2010 }}"</ref> [[Transgender]] people [[Transgender people in Nazi Germany|had a variety of experiences]] depending on whether they were considered "Aryan" or capable of useful work.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nunn |first1=Zavier |date=2022 |title=Trans Liminality and the Nazi State |journal=Past & Present |issue=260 |pages=123–157 |doi=10.1093/pastj/gtac018|doi-access=free }}</ref> Historians have noted transgender people were targeted by the Nazis through legislation and sent to concentration camps.<ref>{{cite web |title=Paper: Trans Identities and "Cross Dressing" in Nazi Germany: Trans People as a Discrete Target of State Violence (134th Annual Meeting (January 3–6, 2020)) |url=https://aha.confex.com/aha/2020/webprogram/Paper27446.html |access-date=3 January 2023 |website=aha.confex.com |archive-date=3 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230103035935/https://aha.confex.com/aha/2020/webprogram/Paper27446.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Sutton">{{Cite journal |last=Sutton |first=Katie |date=2012 |title='We Too Deserve a Place in the Sun': The Politics of Transvestite Identity in Weimar Germany |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23269669 |journal=German Studies Review |volume=35 |issue=2 |page=348 |doi=10.1353/gsr.2012.a478043 |jstor=23269669 |access-date=16 June 2023 |archive-date=29 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329104623/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23269669 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Paragraph 175 and the Nazi Campaign against Homosexuality |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/paragraph-175-and-the-nazi-campaign-against-homosexuality |access-date=12 March 2023 |website=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] |quote=Not everyone arrested under Paragraph 175 identified as a man. During the German Empire and the Weimar Republic, Germany was home to a developing community of people who identified as 'transvestites.' [...] Initially, this term encompassed people who performed in drag, people who cross-dressed for pleasure, as well as those who today might identify as trans or transgender. |archive-date=12 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230112154217/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/paragraph-175-and-the-nazi-campaign-against-homosexuality |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Transgender Experiences in Weimar and Nazi Germany |url=https://mjhnyc.org/events/transgender-experiences-in-weimar-and-nazi-germany/ |access-date=19 June 2023 |website=Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust |language=en-US |archive-date=28 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230628134816/https://mjhnyc.org/events/transgender-experiences-in-weimar-and-nazi-germany/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Marhoefer |first=Laurie |date=6 June 2023 |title=Historians are learning more about how the Nazis targeted trans people |url=http://theconversation.com/historians-are-learning-more-about-how-the-nazis-targeted-trans-people-205622 |access-date=19 June 2023 |website=The Conversation |language=en |archive-date=7 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240107131119/https://theconversation.com/historians-are-learning-more-about-how-the-nazis-targeted-trans-people-205622 |url-status=live }}</ref>
==== Opposition to homosexuality ==== {{further|Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany}} [[File:Berlin Pink Triangle.JPG|thumb|left|upright=.65|Berlin memorial to homosexual victims of the Holocaust: ''Totgeschlagen – Totgeschwiegen'' (Struck Dead – Hushed Up)]] After the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler promoted Himmler and the SS, who then zealously suppressed homosexuality by saying: "We must exterminate these people root and branch ... the homosexual must be eliminated".{{sfn|Plant|1988|p=99}} In 1936, Himmler established the "[[Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung der Homosexualität und Abtreibung]]" ("Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion").<ref name="Homosexualität und Staatsräson. Männlichkeit, Homophobie und Politik in Deutschland 1900-1945"/> Between 1937-39, the Nazi regime arrested 95,000 homosexual men.{{Sfn|Friedman|2011|p=392}} Nazi ideology still viewed men who were gay as a part of the master race, but the regime attempted to force them into sexual and social conformity. Homosexuals were viewed as failing in their duty to procreate and reproduce for the Aryan nation. Gay men who would not conform were sent to concentration camps under the "Extermination Through Work" campaign.<ref>{{cite web |last=Neander |first=Biedron |title=Homosexuals. A Separate Category of Prisoners |publisher=Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum |url=http://en.auschwitz.org/h/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=3 |access-date=10 August 2013 |archive-date=14 January 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140114033949/http://en.auschwitz.org/h/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=3 |url-status=dead}}</ref> As concentration camp prisoners, homosexual men were forced to wear [[pink triangle]] badges.{{sfn|Plant|1988|pp=}}{{page needed|date=August 2025}}
=== Religion === {{Main|Religion in Nazi Germany}}
{{further|Catholic Church and Nazi Germany|German Christians (movement)|German Faith Movement|Kreuz und Adler|Positive Christianity||Religious aspects of Nazism|Anti-Masonry#Nazi Germany and occupied Europe|Religious views of Adolf Hitler}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-15234, Berlin, Luthertag.jpg|thumb|Members of the [[German Christians (movement)|German Christians]] organisation celebrating Luther Day in Berlin in 1933. A speech is given by Bishop Hossenfelder.]] [[File:Orsen.jpg|thumb|Hitler in 1935 with [[Cesare Orsenigo]], the [[Catholic Church]]'s [[nuncio to Germany]]]]
The [[National Socialist Program|Nazi Party Programme]] of 1920 guaranteed freedom for all religious denominations which were not hostile to the State and endorsed [[Positive Christianity]], in order to combat "the Jewish-materialist spirit".<ref name="documents"/> Positive Christianity was a modified version of [[Christianity]] which emphasised [[Racial hygiene|racial purity]] and [[nationalism]].{{sfn|McNab|2009|p=182}} The Nazis were aided by theologians such as [[Ernst Bergmann (philosopher)|Ernst Bergmann]]. In his ''Die 25 Thesen der Deutschreligion'' (''Twenty-five Points of the German Religion''), Bergmann held the view that the [[Old Testament]] was inaccurate, along with portions of the [[New Testament]], claimed [[Jesus]] was not a Jew but instead of Aryan origin, and Hitler was the new [[messiah]].{{sfn|McNab|2009|p=182}}
Hitler denounced the Old Testament as "[[Satan]]'s Bible" and using components of the New Testament he attempted to prove Jesus was an Aryan and antisemite by citing passages such as [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8:44 John 8:44] where he noted Jesus is yelling at "the Jews", as well as saying to them "your father is the devil" and the [[Cleansing of the Temple]], which describes Jesus' whipping of the "Children of the Devil".<ref name="Redles60">David Redles. ''Hitler's Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic Belief and the Search for Salvation''. New York; London: New York University Press, 2005, p. 60.</ref> Hitler claimed the New Testament included distortions by [[Paul the Apostle]], who Hitler described as a "mass-murderer turned saint".<ref name="Redles60"/> The Nazis displayed an original edition of [[Martin Luther]]'s ''[[On the Jews and their Lies]]'' during the Nuremberg rallies.<ref name="understandably"/><ref name="baylor"/>
The Nazis were initially hostile to Catholics because most supported the [[German Centre Party]]. Catholics opposed Nazi promotion of [[compulsory sterilisation]] of those deemed inferior, and the Catholic Church forbade its members to vote for the Nazis. In 1933, extensive Nazi violence occurred against Catholics due to their association with the Centre Party, and opposition to the Nazi sterilisation laws.<ref name="international27"/> The Nazis demanded Catholics declare their loyalty to the German state.<ref name="Robert Anthony Krieg 2004, p. 4"/> In their propaganda, the Nazis used elements of Germany's Catholic history, in particular the German Catholic [[Teutonic Knights]] and their campaigns in [[Eastern Europe]]. The Nazis identified them as "sentinels" in the East against "Slavic chaos", though beyond that symbolism, the influence of the Teutonic Knights on Nazism was limited.<ref name="interaction"/> Hitler admitted Nazis' night rallies were inspired by Catholic rituals he had witnessed during his Catholic upbringing.<ref name="Roger Griffin 2005, p. 85"/> The Nazis did seek official reconciliation with the Catholic Church and endorsed the creation of the pro-Nazi Catholic ''[[Kreuz und Adler]]'', an organisation which advocated a form of [[national Catholicism]] that would reconcile the Catholic Church's beliefs with Nazism.<ref name="Robert Anthony Krieg 2004, p. 4"/> In July 1933, a concordat (''[[Reichskonkordat]]'') was signed between Nazi Germany and the Catholic Church, which in exchange for acceptance of the Catholic Church in Germany required Catholics to be loyal to the German state. The Catholic Church ended its ban on members supporting the Nazis.<ref name="Robert Anthony Krieg 2004, p. 4"/>
During the Second World War and fanaticization of National Socialism, priests and nuns increasingly came to the attention of the Gestapo and SS. In the concentration camps, separate priestly blocks were formed, and church resistance was strictly persecuted. Monastery sister [[Maria Restituta Kafka]] was sentenced to death and executed only for a song critical of the regime.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.doew.at/erinnern/biographien/spurensuche/maria-restituta-helene-kafka-1894-1943|title=DÖW – Erinnern – Biographien – Spurensuche – Maria Restituta (Helene Kafka, 1894–1943)|website=www.doew.at|access-date=2 February 2021|archive-date=27 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221027132933/https://www.doew.at/erinnern/biographien/spurensuche/maria-restituta-helene-kafka-1894-1943|url-status=live}}</ref> Polish priests came en masse to Auschwitz. Catholic resistance groups like those around [[Roman Karl Scholz]] were persecuted.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://roman-karl-scholz.zurerinnerung.at/|title=Zur Erinnerung an Dr. Roman Karl Scholz|website=roman-karl-scholz.zurerinnerung.at|access-date=2 February 2021|archive-date=5 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205173720/https://roman-karl-scholz.zurerinnerung.at/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.noen.at/klosterneuburg/klosterneuburg-gedenken-an-widerstandskaempfer-roman-scholz-klosterneuburg-roman-scholz-148011362|title=Gedenken an Widerstandskämpfer Roman Scholz|date=25 May 2019|website=www.noen.at|access-date=2 February 2021|archive-date=5 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205175218/https://www.noen.at/klosterneuburg/klosterneuburg-gedenken-an-widerstandskaempfer-roman-scholz-klosterneuburg-roman-scholz-148011362|url-status=live}}</ref> While Catholic resistance was often anti-war and passive, there are examples of active combating National Socialism. The group around the priest [[Heinrich Maier]] approached the American secret service and provided them with plans and location sketches of [[V-2 rocket]]s, [[Tiger tank]]s, [[Messerschmitt Bf 109]] and [[Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet]] and their production sites, so the Allies could successfully bomb them.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ausstellung.de.doew.at/popup.php?t=img&id=240|title=DöW – Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes|website=ausstellung.de.doew.at|access-date=2 February 2021|archive-date=8 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210208210500/https://ausstellung.de.doew.at/popup.php?t=img&id=240|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.zeit.de/1996/02/Die_Spione_aus_dem_Pfarrhaus/seite-2 |title=Die Spione aus dem Pfarrhaus |newspaper=Die Zeit |date=5 January 1996 |access-date=2 February 2021 |archive-date=5 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210205231043/https://www.zeit.de/1996/02/Die_Spione_aus_dem_Pfarrhaus/seite-2 |url-status=live |last1=Stehle |first1=Hansjakob }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.derstandard.at/story/1271378203933/im-netz-der-verraeter|title=Im Netz der Verräter|website=Der Standard|access-date=2 February 2021|archive-date=5 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205173717/https://www.derstandard.at/story/1271378203933/im-netz-der-verraeter|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Hecht, Rauch, Rodt: Geköpft für Christus & Österreich. (1995).</ref><ref>Pirker, Peter (2012). Suberversion deutscher Herrschaft. Der britische Geheimdienst SOE und Österreich. Zeitgeschichte im Kontext. 6. Göttingen: V & R Unipress. p. 252. {{ISBN|978-3-86234-990-6}}.</ref> After the war, their history was often forgotten, also because they acted against the express instructions of their church authorities.<ref>Erika Weinzierl: Kirchlicher Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus. In: Themen der Zeitgeschichte und der Gegenwart. Vienna 2004, {{ISBN|3-8258-7549-0}}, p. 76.</ref><ref>Helga Thoma "Mahner-Helfer-Patrioten: Porträts aus dem österreichischen Widerstand" (2004), p 159.</ref><ref>Benedicta Maria Kempner: "Priester vor Hitlers Tribunalen" (1966).</ref>
[[Michael Burleigh]] claims Nazism used Christianity for political purposes, such use required that "fundamental tenets were stripped out, but the remaining diffuse religious emotionality had its uses".<ref name="Roger Griffin 2005, p. 85"/> Burleigh claims that Nazism's conception of spirituality was "self-consciously [[Paganism|pagan]] and primitive".<ref name="Roger Griffin 2005, p. 85"/> [[Roger Griffin]] rejects the claim Nazism was primarily pagan, noting that while there were influential [[Modern paganism|neo-paganists]] in the Party, such as Himmler and [[Alfred Rosenberg]], they represented a minority and their views did not influence ideology beyond its use for symbolism. Hitler denounced paganism in ''Mein Kampf'' and condemned Rosenberg and Himmler's paganism as "nonsense".<ref name="totalitarianism"/>
=== Economics === {{main|Economy of Nazi Germany}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-15750, Ausstellung "Deutsches Volk-Deutsche Arbeit".jpg|thumb|upright=1.05|''Deutsches Volk–Deutsche Arbeit:'' German People, German Work (1934) – an example of [[reactionary modernism]]]]
The Nazis came to power in the midst of the [[Great Depression]], when [[unemployment]] was close to 30%.<ref name="DeLong 1997">{{cite web|last=DeLong|first=J. Bradford|title=Slouching Towards Utopia?: The Economic History of the Twentieth Century. XV. Nazis and Soviets|date=February 1997|publisher=University of California at Berkeley|work=econ161.berkeley.edu|url=http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Purge15.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080511190923/http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Purge15.html|access-date = 21 April 2013|archive-date=11 May 2008}}</ref> Nazi theorists and politicians blamed economic failures on political causes like the influence of Marxism on the workforce, the exploitative machinations of what they called international Jewry and the vindictiveness of western leaders' [[World War I reparations|reparation]] demands. Instead of traditional economic incentives, the Nazis offered political solutions, such as the elimination of [[trade union]]s, rearmament and biological politics.<ref>[[Richard Overy|R.J. Overy]], ''War and Economy in the Third Reich'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 1–5.</ref> Work programs designed to establish full employment for the population were instituted once the Nazis seized power. Hitler encouraged national projects like construction of the ''[[Autobahn]]'' highway system and the introduction of an affordable 'people's car' (''[[Volkswagen Beetle|Volkswagen]]''). The Nazis also bolstered the economy through the business and employment generated by rearmament.<ref>[[Richard Overy|R. J. Overy]], ''War and Economy in the Third Reich'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 7–11.</ref> They benefited from the first post-Depression upswing, and this combined with their public works projects, job-procurement and subsidised home repair programmes reduced unemployment by 40% in one year. This development tempered the unfavourable psychological climate caused by the economic crisis and encouraged Germans to march in step with the regime.<ref>Richard Grunberger, ''The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany, 1933–1945'' (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1971), p. 19.</ref>
Nazi economic policies were in many respects a continuation of those from the [[German National People's Party]], a [[national-conservative]] party and the Nazis' coalition partner.<ref>Beck Hermann, ''The Fateful Alliance: German Conservatives and Nazis in 1933: The Machtergreifung in a New Light'' (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008), p. 243.</ref> While other capitalist countries strove for increased [[state ownership]] of industry during this period, the Nazis transferred [[public ownership]] into the [[private sector]] and handed over some [[public service]]s to private organizations, mostly affiliated with the Party. It was an intentional policy with multiple objectives, rather than ideologically driven, and was used as a tool to enhance support for the government and party.<ref name="Bel2006">{{cite journal |last=Bel |first=Germà |date=April 2006 |title=Against the mainstream: Nazi privatization in 1930s Germany |url=http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf |journal=Economic History Review |publisher=University of Barcelona |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=34–55 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00473.x |ssrn=895247 |access-date=20 September 2020 |hdl-access=free |hdl=2445/11716 |s2cid=154486694|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720073011/http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf |archive-date=20 July 2011 }}</ref> According to [[Richard Overy]], the Nazi [[war economy]] was a [[mixed economy]] that combined [[free market]]s with [[Economic planning|central planning]], and he described it as being somewhere between the [[Economy of the Soviet Union|command economy]] of the USSR and the [[Economy of the United States|capitalist system]] of the US.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Overy |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Overy |title=Why The Allies Won |publisher=Random House |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-84595-065-1 |location=London}}</ref>
The Nazis continued the policies introduced by the conservative government of [[Kurt von Schleicher]] in 1932 to combat the Depression.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=49}} Upon being appointed Chancellor in 1933, Hitler appointed [[Hjalmar Schacht]], a former member of the [[German Democratic Party]], as President of the [[Reichsbank]] and later Minister of Economics in 1934.<ref name="DeLong 1997"/> Hitler promised measures to increase employment, protect the currency, and promote recovery from the Depression. These included an agrarian settlement program, labour service, and a guarantee to maintain health care and pensions.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=37}} However, these policies and programs, which included [[public works]] programs supported by [[deficit spending]] to stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment,{{sfn|Tooze|2007|p={{page needed|date=January 2011}}}} were planned by the [[Weimar Republic]] and appropriated by the Nazis.<ref>W. Dick; A. Lichtenberg (4 August 2012). [https://www.dw.com/en/the-myth-of-hitlers-role-in-building-the-autobahn/a-16144981 "The myth of Hitler's role in building the German autobahn"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221216105109/https://www.dw.com/en/the-myth-of-hitlers-role-in-building-the-autobahn/a-16144981 |date=16 December 2022 }}. Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 4 August 2012.</ref> Hitler's main priority was rearmament and buildup of the military in preparation for a war to conquer ''[[Lebensraum]]'' in the East.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=38}} The policies of Schacht created a scheme for deficit financing, in which capital projects were paid for with the issuance of promissory notes called [[Mefo bills]], which could be traded by companies with each other.<ref>{{cite book|last= Overy|first=R.J.|author-link=Richard Overy|title= The Nazi economic recovery 1932–1938|year= 1996|publisher= Cambridge Univ. Press|location= Cambridge [u.a.]|isbn= 0-521-55767-4|page= 42|edition= 2nd}}</ref> This was particularly useful in allowing Germany to rearm because the Mefo bills were not [[Reichsmark]]s and did not appear in the federal budget, so they helped conceal rearmament.<ref>William L. Shirer, ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), p. 260.</ref> Hitler said that "the future of Germany depends exclusively and only on the reconstruction of the Wehrmacht. All other tasks must cede precedence to the task of rearmament."{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=38}} This policy was implemented immediately, with military expenditures quickly growing larger than civilian work-creation programs. As early as June 1933, military spending for the year was budgeted to be three times larger than spending on civilian work-creation measures in 1932 and 1933 combined.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=55}} Germany increased its military spending faster than any other state in peacetime, with military spending rising from 1 to 10 per cent of national income in the first two years of the regime.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=66}} Eventually, it reached 75 per cent by 1944.{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=333}}
In spite of their rhetoric condemning [[big business]] prior to their rise to power, the Nazis quickly entered into a partnership with business from as early as February 1933. After his appointment as Chancellor but before gaining dictatorial powers, Hitler made a personal appeal to business leaders to help fund the Nazi Party for the crucial months to follow. He argued they should support establishing a dictatorship because "private enterprise cannot be maintained in the age of democracy" and because democracy would allegedly lead to communism.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=99}} He promised to destroy the German left, including trade unions, without mention of anti-Jewish policies or foreign conquests.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=100}} In the following weeks, the Party received contributions from 17 different business groups, the largest from [[IG Farben]] and [[Deutsche Bank]].{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=100}} Adam Tooze writes that business leaders were "willing partners in the destruction of political pluralism in Germany".{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=101}} In exchange, owners and managers of businesses were granted unprecedented powers to control their workforce, [[collective bargaining]] was abolished and wages frozen at a relatively low level.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=102}} Profits rose rapidly, as did corporate investment.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=114}} The Nazis privatised public properties and services, only increasing economic state control through regulations.<ref name="guillebaud"/> Hitler believed private ownership was useful in that it encouraged creative competition and innovation, but insisted it had to conform to national interests and be "productive" rather than "parasitical".<ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 403"/> Property rights were conditional upon following Nazi priorities, with high profits as a reward for firms who followed them and the threat of nationalisation used against those who did not.<ref name=economic573/> Under Nazi economics, free competition and self-regulating markets diminished, but Hitler's [[social Darwinist]] beliefs made him retain business competition and private property as economic engines.<ref name="economics"/><ref name="university28"/>
The Nazis were hostile to the idea of [[social welfare]] in principle, upholding the social Darwinist concept that the weak should perish.{{sfn|Evans|2005|pp=483–484}} They condemned the Weimar welfare system, and charity, accusing them of supporting people regarded as racially inferior and weak, who should have been weeded out through natural selection.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=484}} Nevertheless, faced with the mass unemployment and poverty of the Depression, the Nazis found it necessary to set up charitable institutions to help racially-pure Germans, to maintain popular support, while arguing this represented "racial self-help" and not indiscriminate charity or universal social welfare.{{sfn|Evans|2005|pp=484–485}} Nazi programs such as the [[Winterhilfswerk|Winter Relief of the German People]] and the broader [[Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt|National Socialist People's Welfare]] (NSV) were organised as quasi-private institutions, officially relying on donations from Germans to help others of their race, though in practice those who refused to donate could face severe consequences.{{sfn|Evans|2005|pp=486–487}} Unlike the social welfare institutions of the Weimar Republic and the Christian charities, the NSV distributed assistance on explicitly racial grounds. It provided support only to those who were "racially sound, capable of and willing to work, politically reliable, and willing and able to reproduce". Non-Aryans were excluded, as well as the "work-shy", "asocials" and the "hereditarily ill".{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=489}} Successful efforts were made to get middle-class women involved in social work assisting large families,<ref name="Grunberger46"/> and the Winter Relief campaigns acted as a ritual to generate public sympathy.<ref name="Richard Grunberger p 79">Richard Grunberger, ''The 12-Year Reich'', p. 79, {{ISBN|0-03-076435-1}}</ref>
Agrarian policies were important to the Nazis, as they corresponded not just to the economy, but their geopolitical conception of ''Lebensraum''. For Hitler, the acquisition of land and soil was important in moulding the economy.<ref>Ian Kershaw, ''Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution'' (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 52–53.</ref> To tie farmers to their land, selling it was prohibited.<ref>Rafael Scheck, ''Germany, 1871–1945: A Concise History'', p. 167.</ref> Farm ownership remained private, but business monopoly rights were granted to marketing boards to control production and prices with a quota system.<ref name=berman >{{cite book |title=The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BNV5uVCQnq8C&q=146&pg=PA146 |first=Sheri |last=Berman |author-link=Sheri Berman |page=146 |isbn=978-0-521-52110-9 |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |access-date=18 November 2020 |archive-date=12 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025420/https://books.google.com/books?id=BNV5uVCQnq8C&q=146&pg=PA146#v=snippet&q=146&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> The Hereditary Farm Law of 1933 established a cartel structure under a government body known as the [[Reichsnährstand]] (RNST) which determined "everything[,] from what seeds and fertilizers were used to how land was inherited".<ref name=berman/> Hitler primarily viewed the economy as an instrument of power, not creating wealth and technical progress to improve quality of life, but to provide the material foundations for conquest.<ref>[[Richard Overy|R.J. Overy]], ''War and Economy in the Third Reich'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 1–30.</ref> While economic progress had its role in appeasing Germans, the Nazis did not believe economic solutions were sufficient to thrust Germany onto the stage as a world power. The Nazis sought to secure an economic revival accompanied by massive military spending for rearmament, especially later through the implementation of the [[Four Year Plan]], which consolidated their rule and firmly secured a command relationship between the arms industry and government.<ref>Klaus Hildebrand, ''The Third Reich'' (London & New York: Routledge, 1986), pp. 39–48.</ref> Between 1933-39, military expenditures were upwards of 82 billion Reichsmarks and represented 23% of Germany's economy as the Nazis mobilised their people and economy for war.<ref>Jost Dülffer, ''Nazi Germany 1933–1945: Faith and Annihilation'' (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), pp. 72–73.</ref>
==== Anti-communism ==== [[File:Bolshevism is Jewish!.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Anti-communist, antisemitic propaganda poster in Nazi Germany]]
The Nazis claimed that communism was dangerous to the well-being of nations because of its intention to dissolve [[private property]], its support of [[class conflict]], its aggression against the [[middle class]], its hostility towards small business and its [[atheism]].<ref name=autogenerated20 /> Nazism rejected class conflict-based socialism and [[economic egalitarianism]], favouring a [[Social stratification|stratified]] economy with [[social class]]es based on merit and talent, retaining private property and the creation of national solidarity that transcends class distinction.<ref name=autogenerated11/> During the 1930s and 40s, anti-communist regimes and groups that supported Nazism included the [[Falangism|Falange]] in [[Francoist Spain]], the [[Vichy regime]] and the [[33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French)]] in France and the [[British Union of Fascists]] under [[Oswald Mosley]].<ref name="carroll"/>
In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler stated his desire to "make war upon the Marxist principle that all men are equal".<ref>Hitler, Adolf, ''Mein Kampf'', Hurst and Blackett ltd., 1939, p. 343</ref> He believed "the notion of equality was a sin against nature."{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=51}} Nazism upheld the "natural inequality of men," including inequality between races and within races. The Nazi state aimed to advance those individuals with special talents or intelligence, so they could rule over the masses.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=49}} Nazi ideology relied on elitism and the {{Lang|de|[[Führerprinzip]]}} (leadership principle), arguing elite minorities should assume leadership over the majority, and be organised according to a "hierarchy of talent", with a single leader—the [[Führer]]—at the top.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|pp=49–50}} The {{Lang|de|Führerprinzip}} held that each member of the hierarchy owed absolute obedience to those above him and should hold absolute power over those below him.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=50}}
During the 1920s, Hitler urged disparate Nazi factions to unite in opposition to [[Jewish Bolshevism]].<ref name="Adolf Hitler"/> Hitler asserted that the "three vices" of "Jewish Marxism" were democracy, [[pacifism]] and [[Internationalism (politics)|internationalism]].<ref name="Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution"/> The Communist movement, the trade unions, the Social Democratic Party and the left-wing press were considered to be Jewish-controlled and part of the "international Jewish conspiracy" to weaken the nation by promoting disunity through class struggle.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=50}} The Nazis believed the Jews had instigated the [[Bolshevik revolution]] in Russia and Communists had [[Stab-in-the-back myth|stabbed Germany in the back]], and caused it to lose the First World War.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=52}} They argued that cultural trends of the 1920s (such as [[jazz]] and [[cubism|cubist art]]) represented "[[cultural Bolshevism]]" and were part of an assault aimed at the spiritual degeneration of the German ''Volk''.{{sfn|Bendersky|1985|p=52}} Goebbels published a pamphlet titled ''The Nazi-Sozi'' which described how Nazism differed from Marxism.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Nazi-Sozi|url=http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/nazi-sozi.htm|trans-title=Joseph Goebbels, Der Nazi-Sozi (Elberfeld: Verlag der Nationalsozialistischen Briefe, 1927)|access-date=22 August 2017|archive-date=29 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029223830/http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/nazi-sozi.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1930, Hitler said: "Our adopted term 'Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxist Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not".<ref name="university29"/>
The [[Communist Party of Germany]] (KPD) was the largest Communist party in the world outside the Soviet Union, until it was destroyed by the Nazis in 1933.<ref>David Nicholls. ''Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion''. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000, p. 50.</ref> In the 1920s and early 1930s, Communists and Nazis fought each other in [[Weimar paramilitary groups|street violence]], with Nazi paramilitary organisations being opposed by the Communist [[Roter Frontkämpferbund|Red Front]] and [[Antifaschistische Aktion#Establishment|Anti-Fascist Action]]. After the beginning of the Depression, Communists and Nazis saw their share of the vote increase. While the Nazis formed alliances with other parties of the right, the Communists refused to form an alliance with the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]], the largest party of the left.<ref>Ben Fowkes. ''Communism in Germany under the Weimar Republic''. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1984. pp. 166–167</ref> After the Nazis came to power, they banned the Communist Party under the allegation it was preparing for revolution and had caused the [[Reichstag fire]].<ref>Ben Fowkes. ''Communism in Germany under the Weimar Republic''. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1984. pp. 170–171</ref> Four thousand KPD officials were arrested in February 1933, and by the end of the year 130,000 communists had been sent to [[Nazi concentration camps]].<ref>Ben Fowkes. ''Communism in Germany under the Weimar Republic''. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1984, p. 171</ref>
==== Views of capitalism ==== {{see also|List of companies involved in the Holocaust}}
The Nazis argued that [[free-market capitalism]] damages nations due to [[international finance]] and the dominance of disloyal big business, which they considered to be the product of Jewish influences.<ref name="autogenerated20"/> Nazi propaganda posters in [[working class]] districts emphasised anti-capitalism, such as one that said: "The maintenance of a rotten industrial system has nothing to do with nationalism. I can love Germany and hate capitalism".<ref name="publishers30"/>
In public, and privately, Hitler opposed free-market capitalism because it "could not be trusted to put national interests first", arguing it holds nations ransom in the interests of a parasitic cosmopolitan [[Rentier capitalism|rentier]] class.<ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 399"/> He believed [[free trade]] would lead to global domination by the British Empire and the United States, which he believed were controlled by Jewish bankers. In particular, Hitler saw the US as a future rival and feared that the [[globalization]] after World War I would allow [[North America]] to displace [[Europe]] as the world's most powerful continent. Hitler's anxiety over the rise of the US was a major theme in his unpublished ''[[Hitlers Zweites Buch|Zweites Buch]]''. He even hoped for a time that Britain could be swayed into an alliance with Germany on the basis of a shared rivalry with the US.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|pp=8–11}} Hitler desired an economy that would direct resources "in ways that matched the many national goals of the regime" such as the buildup of the military, building programs for cities and roads, and economic self-sufficiency.<ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 403"/> Hitler distrusted free-market capitalism for being unreliable due to its [[egotism]] and preferred a state-directed economy that maintains private property and competition but subordinates them to the interests of the ''[[Volk]]'' and Nation.<ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 399"/>
Hitler told a party leader in 1934: "The economic system of our day is the creation of the Jews".<ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 399" /> Hitler said to [[Benito Mussolini]] that capitalism had "run its course".<ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 399"/> Hitler said the business [[bourgeoisie]] "know nothing except their profit. 'Fatherland' is only a word for them."<ref name="dictators"/> Hitler was disgusted with the bourgeois elites during the [[Weimar Republic]], whom he referred to as "cowardly shits".<ref>Kritika: ''explorations in Russian and Eurasian history'', Volume 7, Issue 4. Slavica Publishers, 2006, p. 922.</ref>
In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler effectively supported [[mercantilism]] in the belief that economic resources should be seized by force, as he believed that ''[[Lebensraum]]'' would provide Germany with economically-valuable territories.<ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 402"/> He argued the US and UK only benefitted from free trade because they had already conquered substantial internal markets through British colonial conquests and [[Territorial evolution of the United States|American westward expansion]].{{sfn|Tooze|2006|pp=8–11}} Hitler argued that the only means to maintain economic security was to [[Autarky|have direct control over resources]] rather than being forced to rely on trade.<ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 402"/> Hitler claimed war to gain such resources was the only means to surpass the failing capitalist system.<ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 402"/>
In practice, however, the Nazis merely opposed one [[type of capitalism]], namely 19th-century [[free-market capitalism]] and the ''[[laissez-faire]]'' model, which they nonetheless applied to the social sphere in the form of [[social Darwinism]].{{sfn|Evans|2005|pp=483–484}} Some have described Nazi Germany as an example of [[corporatism]], [[authoritarian capitalism]], or [[totalitarian capitalism]].<ref name="Bel2006" /><ref name="SJSU">{{Cite web |title=The Economic System of Corporatism |url=https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/corporatism.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200712232229/https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/corporatism.htm |archive-date=12 July 2020 |access-date=2 October 2021 |publisher=San José University Department of Economics}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2007-07-01/return-authoritarian-great-powers|title=The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers|last=Gat|first=Azar|date=1 July 2007|work=Foreign Affairs|access-date=8 June 2019|archive-date=17 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221217213850/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2007-07-01/return-authoritarian-great-powers|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Fuchs |first=Christian |date=29 June 2017 |title=The Relevance of Franz L. Neumann's Critical Theory in 2017: Anxiety and Politics in the New Age of Authoritarian Capitalism |url=https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/3d32b4bfd248b58cca5d0f68ede8ee936bb6e3dd0572344e82c86089553b79b0/570163/Neumann_Christian_tripleC.pdf |journal=Media, Culture & Society |volume=40 |issue=5 |pages=779–791 |doi=10.1177/0163443718772147 |access-date=8 July 2020 |s2cid=149705789 |archive-date=13 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191013201910/https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/3d32b4bfd248b58cca5d0f68ede8ee936bb6e3dd0572344e82c86089553b79b0/570163/Neumann_Christian_tripleC.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> While claiming to strive for autarky in propaganda, the Nazis crushed existing movements towards self-sufficiency<ref>{{cite book|title=Italian fascism: Its Origins and Development|orig-year=1938|last=De Grand|first=Alexander J.|year=2000|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-6622-3|edition=3rd|location=Lincoln|oclc=42462895}}</ref> and established extensive capital connections to ready for expansionist war and genocide<ref>{{cite book|title=IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation|last=Edwin|first=Black|date=2001|publisher=Crown Publishers|isbn=978-0-609-60799-2|edition=1st|location=New York|oclc=45896166}}</ref> in alliance with traditional business and [[commerce]] elites.<ref>{{cite book|title=[[The Anatomy of Fascism]]|last=Paxton|first=Robert O.|author-link=Robert Paxton|date=2005|publisher=Vintage Books|isbn=978-1-4000-3391-1|edition=1st|location=New York|oclc=58452991}} – [https://archive.org/details/anatomyoffascism0000paxt Read online, registration required]</ref> In spite of their anti-capitalist rhetoric in opposition to big business, the Nazis allied with business as soon as they had power by appealing to the fear of communism and promising to destroy the German left and trade unions,{{sfn|Tooze|2006|pp=99–100}} eventually purging both more radical and reactionary elements from the party in 1934.{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|p=133}}
Goebbels was strongly opposed to capitalism and communism, viewing them as the "two great pillars of materialism" that were "part of the international Jewish conspiracy for world domination".<ref>Read, Anthony, ''The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle'', New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 138</ref> Nevertheless, he wrote in his diary in 1925 that if he were forced to choose between them, "in the final analysis, it would be better for us to go down with Bolshevism than live in eternal slavery under capitalism".<ref name="disciples"/> Goebbels linked his antisemitism to his anti-capitalism, stating in a 1929 pamphlet that "we see, in the Hebrews, the incarnation of capitalism, the misuse of the nation's goods".<ref name="thosedamnednazis"/>
Within the Nazis, the faction associated with anti-capitalist beliefs was the SA, a paramilitary wing led by [[Ernst Röhm]]. The SA had a complicated relationship with the rest of the party, with Röhm and local SA leaders having significant autonomy.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Billig |first=Joseph |title=L'hitlérisme et le système concentrationnaire |publisher=Presses Universitaires de France |year=2000 |isbn=9782705928964 |language=fr |chapter=3-A : La mise au pas du « strasserisme » et de la SA}}</ref>{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|pp=1110–111}} Different local leaders would even promote different political ideas in their units, including "nationalistic, socialistic, anti-Semitic, racist, völkisch, or conservative ideas."{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|p=113}} There was tension between the SA and Hitler, especially from 1930, as Hitler's "increasingly close association with industrial interests and traditional rightist forces" caused many in the SA to distrust him.{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|p=119}} The SA regarded Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 as a "first revolution" against the left, and some voices began arguing for a "second revolution" against the right.{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|pp=123–124}} After engaging in violence against the left in 1933, Röhm's SA began attacks against individuals deemed to be associated with conservative reaction.{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|pp=123–124, 130}} Hitler saw Röhm's independent actions as violating and possibly threatening his leadership, as well as jeopardising the regime by alienating the conservative President von Hindenburg and the conservative-oriented army.{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|p=133}} This resulted in Hitler purging Röhm and other radical members of the SA in 1934, during the [[Night of the Long Knives]].{{sfn|Nyomarkay|1967|p=133}}
The [[Strasserism|Strasserists]], led by brothers [[Gregor Strasser|Gregor]] and [[Otto Strasser]], were another anti-capitalist faction within the Nazis. Being close to Goebbels, they linked their antisemitism and authoritarianism to anti-capitalism. They opposed the ''[[Führerprinzip]]'' and argued for a redistribution of wealth, desiring an alliance with the USSR. The group blamed Hitler for betraying the "socialist" part of Nazism, causing rising tensions between Hitler and the brothers. The brothers left the Nazi Party and founded the [[Black Front]] in 1930. In 1933, Hitler banned their party, ending their influence. Gregor was assassinated in 1934 during the [[Night of the Long Knives]], while Otto fled the country.<ref name=":03" /><ref name=":12" />
=== Totalitarianism === {{see also|Totalitarianism}} [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1987-0410-503, Nürnberg, Reichsparteitag, Wehrmachts-Aufmarsch.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Nuremberg Rally|Nazi Party rally]] in [[Nuremberg]], 1936]]
Under Nazism, with its emphasis on the nation, individualism was denounced and instead importance was placed upon Germans belonging to the German ''[[Volk]]'' and "people's community" (''Volksgemeinschaft)''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mosse|first=George Lachmann|title=Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich|year=1966|publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press|isbn=978-0-299-19304-1|page=239}}</ref> Hitler declared that "every activity and every need of every individual will be regulated by the collectivity represented by the party" and that "there are no longer any free realms in which the individual belongs to himself".<ref name="Fest">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BjDrszaNTygC&q=%22individual%27s+entire+life%22+hitler&pg=PA418|title=Hitler|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|author=Fest, Joachim|page=418|isbn=978-0-544-19554-7|date=2013|access-date=18 November 2020|archive-date=12 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025421/https://books.google.com/books?id=BjDrszaNTygC&q=%22individual%27s+entire+life%22+hitler&pg=PA418#v=snippet&q=%22individual's%20entire%20life%22%20hitler&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>
A core objective of the Nazis was the establishment of a [[Totalitarianism|totalitarian state]] which indoctrinated the population with [[Ultranationalism|ultra-nationalist]] ideas and violently enforced its ideological worldview upon the society.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Revolutions and the Revolutionary Tradition: In the West 1560–1991 |publisher=Routledge |year=2000 |isbn=0-415-17294-2 |editor-last=Parker |editor-first=David |location=London |pages=3, 192, 193, 194}}</ref> Himmler justified the establishment of a repressive [[police state]], in which the security forces could exercise power arbitrarily, by claiming that national security and order should take precedence over the needs of the individual.<ref name="Browder">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Syyy2MtOrcsC&q=individual+needs+nazism&pg=PA240|title=Foundations of the Nazi Police State: The Formation of Sipo and SD|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|author=Browder, George C|page=240|isbn=978-0-8131-9111-9|date=2004|access-date=18 November 2020|archive-date=12 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025430/https://books.google.com/books?id=Syyy2MtOrcsC&q=individual+needs+nazism&pg=PA240#v=snippet&q=individual%20needs%20nazism&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> In a speech in 1933, [[Joseph Goebbels]] stated:<blockquote>"The revolution we have carried out is a total one. It has embraced all areas of public life and transformed them from below. It has completely changed and recast the relationship of people to each other, to the State, and to life itself. It was in fact the breakthrough of a fresh [[Weltanschauung|world-view]], which had fought for power in opposition for fourteen years to provide the basis for the German people to develop a new relationship with the State. What has been happening since 30 January is only the visible expression of this revolutionary process."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Griffin |first=Roger |title=Fascism |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-19-289249-2 |pages=133, 134}}</ref></blockquote>
According to [[Hannah Arendt]], Nazism had an allure as a totalitarian ideology because it helped Germany deal with the aftermath of the First World War and material suffering of the Depression, and brought to order the revolutionary unrest. Instead of the [[Pluralism (political philosophy)|plurality]] that existed in [[Democracy|democratic]] or [[Parliamentary system|parliamentary states]], Nazism as a totalitarian system promulgated "clear" solutions to the problems faced by Germany, levied support by de-legitimizing the former government of Weimar and provided a politico-biological pathway to a better future, free from uncertainty. It was the atomised and disaffected masses that Hitler and the party elite pointed in a particular direction and used propaganda to make them into ideological adherents, to bring Nazism to life.<ref>Hannah Arendt, ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'' (Orlando, FL Harcourt Inc., 1973), pp. 305–459.</ref>
While the ideologues of Nazism, [[Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism|much like those of Stalinism]], abhorred democratic governance, their differences are substantial. They had similarly tyrannical leaders, state-controlled economies, repressive police structures, and a common thematic political construction. But they had opposing goals and worldviews, which made them radically different.<ref>Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick, eds., "Introduction – After Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared", in ''Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared'' (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 20–21.</ref>
[[Carl Schmitt]], a Nazi legal theorist, characterized the "''[[Führerprinzip]]''" as the ideological foundation of Nazi Germany's "total state".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Griffin |first=Roger |title=Revolutions and the Revolutionary Tradition: In the West 1560–1991 |publisher=Routledge |year=2000 |isbn=0-415-17294-2 |editor-last=Parker |editor-first=David |location= London |page=193 |chapter=11: Revolution from the Right: Fascism}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Griffin |first=Roger |title=Fascism |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-19-289249-2 |pages=138, 139}}</ref> In "''Staat, Bewegung, Volk''" (1933), Schmitt wrote: <blockquote>"National Socialism does not think in abstractions and clichés. It is the enemy of all normative and functionalist ways of proceeding. It supports and cultivates every authentic substance of the people wherever it encounters it, in the countryside, in ethnic groups [''Stämme''] or classes. It has created the hereditary farm law; saved the peasantry; purged the Civil Service of alien [ ''fremdgeartet''] elements and thus re-stored it as a class. It has the courage to treat unequally what is unequal and enforce necessary differentiations."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Griffin |first=Roger |title=Fascism |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-19-289249-2 |pages=138}}</ref></blockquote>
== Classification: Reactionary or Revolutionary == Although Nazism is sometimes seen as reactionary, it did not seek to return to the pre-Weimar monarchy, but instead looked further back to a mythic halcyon Germany which never existed. It has also been seen as the result of a crisis of capitalism, which manifested as a "totalitarian monopoly capitalism". In this view Nazism is a mass movement of the middle class, in opposition to a mass movement of workers in socialism, and its extreme form, Communism.{{sfn|Bracher|1970|pp=19–20}} [[Karl Dietrich Bracher]] argues: <blockquote>Such an interpretation runs the risk of misjudging the revolutionary component of National Socialism, which cannot be dismissed as being simply reactionary. Rather, from the very outset, and particularly as it developed into the SS state, National Socialism aimed at a transformation of state and society.{{sfn|Bracher|1970|pp=19–20}}</blockquote>
On Hitler's and the Nazi's political positions, Bracher claims: <blockquote>[They] were of a revolutionary nature: destruction of existing political and social structures and their supporting elites; profound disdain for civic order, for human and moral values, for [[House of Habsburg|Hapsburg]] and [[House of Hohenzollern|Hohenzollern]], for liberal and Marxist ideas. The middle class and middle-class values, bourgeois nationalism and capitalism, the professionals, the intelligentsia and the upper class were dealt the sharpest rebuff. These were the groups which had to be uprooted [...].{{sfn|Bracher|1970|p=165}}</blockquote>
Similarly, [[Modris Eksteins]] argued: <blockquote>Contrary to many interpretations of Nazism, which tend to view it as a reactionary movement, as, in the words of [[Thomas Mann]], an "explosion of antiquarianism", intent on turning Germany into a pastoral folk community of thatched cottages and happy peasants, the general thrust of the movement, despite archaisms, was futuristic. Nazism was a headlong plunge into the future, towards a "brave new world." Of course, it used to advantage residual conservative and utopian longings, paid respect to these romantic visions, and picked its ideological trappings from the German past. but its goals were, by its own lights, distinctly progressive. It was not a double-faced [[Janus]] whose aspects were equally attentive to the past and the future, nor was it a modern [[Proteus]], the god of metamorphosis, who duplicates pre-existing forms. The intention of the movement was to create a new type of human being from whom would spring a new morality, a new social system, and eventually a new international order. That was, in fact, the intention of all the fascist movements. After a visit to Italy and a meeting with Mussolini, [[Oswald Mosley]] wrote that fascism "has produced not only a new system of government, but also a new type of man, who differs from politicians of the old world as men from another planet." Hitler talked in these terms endlessly. National Socialism was more than a political movement, he said; it was more than a faith; it was a desire to create mankind anew.<ref>Eksteins, Modris. Rites of spring: The Great War and the birth of the modern age. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000, p. 303</ref></blockquote>
[[Ian Kershaw]] says about Nazism, [[Italian Fascism]] and Bolshevism: <blockquote>They were different forms of a completely new, modern type of dictatorship—the complete antithesis to [[liberal democracy]]. They were all revolutionary, if by that term we understand a major political upheaval driven by the utopian aim of changing society fundamentally. They were not content simply to use repression as a means of control, but sought to mobilize behind an exclusive ideology to "educate" people into becoming committed believers, to claim them soul as well as body. Each of the regimes was, therefore, dynamic in ways that "conventional" authoritarianism was not.<ref>{{cite hellback| page=265}}</ref></blockquote>
Despite such tactical breaks necessitated by pragmatic concerns, which were typical for Hitler during his rise to power and early years of his regime, those who see Hitler as a revolutionary argue he never ceased being a revolutionary dedicated to the radical transformation of Germany, especially when it concerned racial matters. [[Martyn Housden]] states: <blockquote>[Hitler] compiled a most extensive set of revolutionary goals (calling for radical social and political change); he mobilized a revolutionary following so extensive and powerful that many of his aims were achieved; he established and ran a dictatorial revolutionary state; and he disseminated his ideas abroad through a revolutionary foreign policy and war. In short, he defined and controlled the National Socialist revolution in all its phases.<ref>[[Martyn Housden|Housden, Martyn]] (2000) ''Hitler: Study of a Revolutionary?''. New York: Routledge, p. 193. {{isbn|0-415-16359-5}}</ref></blockquote>
There were aspects of Nazism which were undoubtedly reactionary, such as their attitude toward women, which was completely traditionalist,{{sfn|Bracher|1970|p=179}} calling for the return of women to the home as wives, mothers and homemakers. Although ironically this was undermined by growing labour shortages, and need for more workers caused by men leaving for military service. The number of working women actually increased from 4.2 million in 1933 to 4.5 million in 1936 and 5.2 million in 1938,{{sfn|Bracher|1970|pp=421–422}} despite active discouragement and legal barriers put in place by the regime.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sarti |first1=Wendy Adele-Marie |title=Women and Nazis: Perpetrators of Genocide and Other Crimes During Hitler's Regime, 1933–1945 |date=2011 |publisher=Academica Press |isbn=978-1-936320-11-0 |page=19 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1CosAQAAMAAJ |access-date=14 June 2021 |language=en |archive-date=12 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025923/https://books.google.com/books?id=1CosAQAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> Another reactionary aspect was in Nazi arts policy, which stemmed from Hitler's rejection of all forms of [[degenerate art|"degenerate"]] modern art, [[20th-century classical music|music]] and [[Modern architecture|architecture]].{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|p=82}} In regards to modern art, Hitler in July 1937 denounced what he called “cultural Bolshevism”, particularly painters who “paint meadows blue, skies green, and clouds sulphur-yellow[…]'One kind of art is artistic and is permitted. The other kind is inartistic and is to be penalized. In the permissible kind of art trees are green, sky blue, and soil is brown. The inartistic art is a hodgepodge of colors.”<ref>{{cite book |title=Littell's Living Age |date=1937 |publisher=Littell, Son and Company |page=173 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Littell_s_Living_Age/OXdRAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&authuser=1 |access-date=14 May 2026 |language=en}}</ref>
[[Martin Broszat]] describes Nazism as having: <blockquote>...a peculiar hybrid, half-reactionary, half-revolutionary relationship to established society, to the political system and tradition. ... [Its] ideology was almost like a backwards-looking Utopia. It derived from romantic pictures and clichés of the past, from warlike-heroic, patriarchal or absolutist ages, social and political systems, which, however, were translated into the popular and avant-garde, into the fighting slogans of totalitarian nationalism. The élitist notion of aristocratic nobility became the ''völkische'' 'nobility of blood' of the 'master race', the princely '[[divine right of kings|theory of divine right]]' gave way to the popular national Führer; the obedient submission to the active national '[[Hitler's cult of personality|following]]'.{{sfn|Broszat|1981|pages=21–22}}</blockquote>
=== Contemporary events and views === After the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, and his imprisonment, Hitler decided the way for the Nazis to achieve power was not through insurrection, but through legal and quasi-legal means. This did not sit well with the stormtroopers of the SA, who chafed under the restrictions Hitler placed on them, and their subordination to the party. This resulted in the [[Stennes Revolt]] of 1930–31, after which Hitler made himself Supreme Commander of the SA and brought Ernst Röhm back to be their Chief of Staff and keep them in line. The quashing of the SA's revolutionary fervor convinced many business and military leaders that the Nazis had put aside their insurrectionist past, and Hitler could be a reliable partner.{{sfn|Bracher|1970|pp=231–232}}{{sfn|Evans|2003|p=274}}
After the Nazis' "[[Machtergreifung|Seizure of Power]]" in 1933, Röhm and the SA pressed for a continuation of the "National Socialist revolution" to bring sweeping social changes, which Hitler, for tactical reasons, was not willing to do at that time. He was focused on rebuilding the military and reorienting the economy to provide the rearmament necessary for invasion of countries to the east, to get the ''[[Lebensraum]]'' ("living space") he believed was necessary to the survival of the Aryan race. He needed the co-operation of not only the military, but the vital organs of capitalism, big business, which he would not get if Germany's social and economic structure was being radically overhauled. Röhm's proclamation that the SA would not allow the "German Revolution" to be halted, caused Hitler to announce that "The revolution is not a permanent condition." The unwillingness of Röhm and the SA to cease their agitation for a "Second Revolution", and fear of a "Röhm putsch" to accomplish it, were factors behind Hitler's purging of the SA leadership in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|pp=501–503}}{{sfn|Bracher|1970|pp=300–302}}
Kaiser [[Wilhelm II]], the last [[German Emperor]], was appalled at the [[Kristallnacht]] of 1938, stating "For the first time, I am ashamed to be a German":{{Sfn | Balfour | 1964 | p = 419}} {{blockquote|There's a man alone, without family, without children, without God ... He builds legions, but he doesn't build a nation. A nation is created by families, a religion, traditions: it is made up out of the hearts of mothers, the wisdom of fathers, the joy and the exuberance of children ... For a few months I was inclined to believe in National Socialism. I thought of it as a necessary fever. And I was gratified to see that there were, associated with it for a time, some of the wisest and most outstanding Germans. But these, one by one, he has got rid of or even killed ... He has left nothing but a bunch of shirted gangsters! This man could bring home victories to our people each year, without bringing them either glory or danger. But of our Germany, which was a nation of poets and musicians, of artists and soldiers, he has made a nation of hysterics and hermits, engulfed in a mob and led by a thousand liars or fanatics.|Wilhelm on Hitler, December 1938<ref name="Ken 1938" />}}
[[Otto von Habsburg]], the last [[List of heirs to the Austrian throne|Crown Prince]] of [[Austria-Hungary]], denounced Nazism, stating:<ref name="gunther1936">{{cite book | url=https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16059565W/Inside_Europe | title=Inside Europe | publisher=Harper & Brothers | last=Gunther | first=John | date=1936 | pages=321–323 | access-date=4 February 2024 | archive-date=29 November 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191129104306/https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16059565W/Inside_Europe | url-status=live }}</ref> {{blockquote|I absolutely reject [Nazi] Fascism for Austria ... This un-Austrian movement promises everything to everyone, but really intends the most ruthless subjugation of the Austrian people ... The people of Austria will never tolerate that our beautiful fatherland should become an exploited colony, and that the Austrian should become a man of second category.}}
Following German annexation of Austria, Otto was sentenced to death by the Nazis. [[Rudolf Hess]] ordered that Otto be executed immediately if caught.<ref name="guardian-obit">{{cite news |author=Dan van der Vat |author-link=Dan van der Vat |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/04/otto-von-habsburg-obituary |title=Otto von Habsburg obituary |work=The Guardian |date=4 July 2011 |access-date=6 July 2011 |location=London |archive-date=30 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930132055/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/04/otto-von-habsburg-obituary |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Biography |url=https://habsburgottoalapitvany.hu/en/biography/ |access-date=2023-02-03 |website=Otto von Habsburg Foundation |date=12 August 2019 |language=en-GB |archive-date=28 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231128124737/https://habsburgottoalapitvany.hu/en/biography/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Omeidl "Rudolf Hess, der Stellvertreter des Führers, hatte den deutschen Invasionstruppen für das neutrale Belgien den Befehl erteilt, Otto von Habsburg und seine Brüder, falls sie gefasst würden, ohne jedes weitere Verfahren sofort zu erschießen." {{cite web |url=http://www.omeidl.com/monarch.html |title=Monarch |access-date=2011-11-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101005080553/http://www.omeidl.com/monarch.html |archive-date=5 October 2010}}</ref> His personal property and that of the House of Habsburg were confiscated. It was not returned after the war.<ref>{{cite news|last=Zoch |first=Irene |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1455082/Habsburgs-demand-return-of-estates-seized-by-Nazis-in-1938.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1455082/Habsburgs-demand-return-of-estates-seized-by-Nazis-in-1938.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Habsburgs demand return of estates seized by Nazis in 1938 |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=22 February 2004 |access-date=6 July 2011 |location=London}}{{cbignore}}</ref> The "[[Habsburg Law]]", which had dethroned the Habsburgs but been repealed, was reintroduced by the Nazis.<ref name="newser">{{cite web |url=http://www.newser.com/article/d9o8qcb00/otto-von-habsburg-oldest-son-of-austria-hungarys-last-emperor-dies-at-age-98.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191026093053/https://www.newser.com/article/d9o8qcb00/otto-von-habsburg-dies-at-age-98.html |archive-date=26 October 2019 |title=Otto von Habsburg dies at age 98 |website=[[Newser]] |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |access-date=4 February 2024}}</ref>
== Post-war Nazism == {{main|Neo-Nazism}}
Following [[End of World War II in Europe|Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II]] and the end of [[the Holocaust]], overt expressions of support for Nazi ideas were prohibited in Germany and other European countries. Nonetheless, movements which self-identify as National Socialist or which are described as adhering to Nazism continue to exist on the fringes of politics in many Western societies. Usually espousing a [[white supremacy|white supremacist]] ideology, many deliberately adopt the symbols of Nazi Germany.<ref>{{cite book|last=Blamires|first=Cyprian P.|editor1-last=Blamires|editor1-first=C. P.|editor2-last=Jackson|editor2-first=Paul|year=2006|title=World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia|volume=1: A–K|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-57607-940-9|pages=459–461|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nvD2rZSVau4C&q=neo-nazism&pg=PA460|access-date=18 November 2020|archive-date=12 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025946/https://books.google.com/books?id=nvD2rZSVau4C&q=neo-nazism&pg=PA460|url-status=live}}</ref>
===Revival of Nazism=== Following the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945, various groups sought to revive aspects of National Socialist ideology.<ref name="linge-note">In his postwar memoir, Hitler’s valet Heinz Linge recalled that when asked for final instructions, Hitler replied “Für den kommenden Mann” (“For the coming man”), which Linge interpreted as referring to a hypothetical future successor. Linge, Heinz. ''With Hitler to the End: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler’s Valet''. London: Frontline Books; New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2009, pp. 199–200.</ref>
In the immediate postwar period, small neo-Nazi parties and organizations emerged in several European countries. In West Germany, the [[Socialist Reich Party]] (SRP), founded in 1949, sought to revive elements of National Socialist ideology before it was banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1952.<ref>Kershaw, Ian. ''Hitler: 1936–1945: Nemesis''. London: Penguin Books, 2000.</ref> Similar movements appeared in other countries, often adapting their rhetoric and organizational structures in response to legal prohibitions and changing political conditions.<ref>Evans, Richard J. ''The Third Reich at War''. London: Penguin Books, 2008.</ref>
In the 21st century, international organizations have warned of a resurgence of neo-Nazi and related white supremacist movements in multiple regions. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has described neo-Nazis and white supremacists as increasingly organized and capable of recruiting across borders, characterizing them as a growing transnational threat.<ref>{{cite web |title=As Neo-Nazism, White Supremacy Spread, People Must Unite against Hate, Secretary-General Says |website=United Nations |date=31 January 2018 |url=https://press.un.org/en/2018/sgsm18880.doc.htm |access-date=9 February 2026}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=White supremacy a "transnational threat", U.N. chief warns |work=Reuters |date=22 February 2021 |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/white-supremacy-transnational-threat-un-chief-warns-2021-02-22/ |access-date=9 February 2026}}</ref>
Russian officials have also issued repeated warnings about what they describe as the revival of Nazism and neo-Nazi ideology. President Vladimir Putin has stated on multiple occasions that Nazism and its collaborators must not be rehabilitated and has linked contemporary extremism to what he characterizes as attempts to revise the outcomes of World War II.<ref>{{cite news |title=Putin warns against attempts to rehabilitate Nazism |work=The Guardian |date=15 October 2014 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/15/vladimir-putin-nazism-warning-serbia-visit |access-date=9 February 2026}}</ref> Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has similarly warned of what he calls a resurgence of Nazi ideology and symbols, particularly in the context of international disputes over historical memory and the interpretation of the Second World War.<ref>{{cite news |title=Russia warns of resurgence of Nazism |work=Reuters |date=9 May 2022 |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-resurgence-nazism-2022-05-09/ |access-date=9 February 2026}}</ref>
A 2018 report to the United Nations Human Rights Council noted that neo-Nazi groups continue to adapt their messaging and use online platforms and popular culture to propagate their ideology, including in countries where Nazism is banned or socially stigmatized.<ref>{{cite web |title=Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance |website=United Nations Human Rights Council |date=25 April 2018 |url=https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/38/53 |access-date=9 February 2026}}</ref>
German domestic intelligence authorities have also warned of a resurgence of neo-Nazi and far-right extremist activity within the country. The [[Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution]] (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV) has repeatedly identified neo-Nazism as a persistent internal security threat in its annual reports, noting that such groups continue to adapt their ideology, symbols, and recruitment methods despite Germany’s post-war prohibitions on Nazism. Former BfV president [[Thomas Haldenwang]] stated that far-right extremism represents the most significant threat to Germany’s constitutional order, emphasizing that neo-Nazi ideology remains active both through organized groups and online radicalization networks.<ref>{{cite news |last=Rinke |first=Andreas |title=Germany's far right biggest threat to security, intelligence chief says |work=Reuters |date=13 July 2023 |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germanys-far-right-biggest-threat-security-intelligence-chief-says-2023-07-13/ |access-date=9 February 2026}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Annual Report on the Protection of the Constitution |website=Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution |url=https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/EN/public-relations/publications/annual-reports/annual-reports-node.html |access-date=9 February 2026}}</ref>
== See also == {{div col}} * [[Art in Nazi Germany]] * [[Consequences of Nazism]] * [[Glossary of Nazi Germany]] * [[Italian fascism]] * [[Kokkashugi]] * [[List of books about Nazi Germany]] * [[List of nicknames and pseudonyms of Nazis]] * [[List of Nazi ideologues]] * [[List of Nazi Party leaders and officials]] * [[Nazi architecture]] * [[Nazi occultism]] * [[Nazi salute]] * [[Nazism and cinema]] * [[Nazism and the Wehrmacht]] {{div col end}}
==Notes== {{notelist}} ==References== ===Footnotes=== <references> <ref name="Baum2006_156">{{cite book|last=Baum|first=Bruce David|year=2006|title=The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political History of Racial Identity|url=https://archive.org/details/risefallcaucasia00baum|url-access=limited|location=New York/London|publisher=New York University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/risefallcaucasia00baum/page/n166 156]|isbn=978-1-4294-1506-4}}</ref> <ref name="Lepage2009_9">{{cite book|first=Jean-Denis|last=Lepage|year=2009|title=Hitler Youth, 1922–1945: An Illustrated History|url=https://archive.org/details/hitleryouthillus00lepa|url-access=limited|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-3935-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/hitleryouthillus00lepa/page/n15 9]}}</ref> <ref name="GottliebMorgensen2007">{{cite book|editor1-last=Gottlieb|editor1-first=Henrik|editor1-link=Henrik Gottlieb|editor2-last=Morgensen|editor2-first=Jens Erik|year=2007|title=Dictionary Visions, Research and Practice: Selected Papers from the 12th International Symposium on Lexicography, Copenhagen 2004|edition=illustrated|location=Amsterdam|publisher=J. Benjamins Pub. Co.|isbn=978-90-272-2334-0|page=247|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UaggHAJ7jToC&pg=PA247|access-date=22 October 2014|archive-date=12 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025924/https://books.google.com/books?id=UaggHAJ7jToC&pg=PA247#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> <ref name="HarperOED">{{cite web|last1=Harper|first1=Douglas|title=Nazi|website=etymonline.com|publisher=Online Etymology Dictionary|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Nazi|access-date=22 October 2014|archive-date=6 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006134952/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Nazi|url-status=live}}</ref> <ref name="Sourcebook">{{cite book|editor1-last=Rabinbach|editor1-first=Anson|editor1-link=Anson Rabinbach|editor2-last=Gilman|editor2-first=Sander|editor2-link=Sander Gilman|year=2013|title=The Third Reich Sourcebook|location=Berkeley|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-95514-1|page=4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XhDakMp55i0C&pg=PA4|access-date=14 August 2015|archive-date=12 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025925/https://books.google.com/books?id=XhDakMp55i0C&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> <ref name="DailyTelegraph23102011">{{cite news|last1=Copping|first1=Jasper|date=23 October 2011|title=Why Hitler hated being called a Nazi and what's really in humble pie – origins of words and phrases revealed|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8843158/Why-Hitler-hated-being-called-a-Nazi-and-whats-really-in-humble-pie-origins-of-words-and-phrases-revealed.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8843158/Why-Hitler-hated-being-called-a-Nazi-and-whats-really-in-humble-pie-origins-of-words-and-phrases-revealed.html |archive-date=10 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=22 October 2014}}{{cbignore}}</ref> <ref name="Seebold2002">{{cite book|editor-last=Seebold|editor-first=Elmar|editor-link=Elmar Seebold|year=2002|title=Kluge Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache|edition=24th|location=Berlin|publisher=[[Walter de Gruyter]]|language=de|isbn=978-3-11-017473-1}}</ref> <ref name="Fritzsche_Eatwell_Griffin">{{cite book|last=Fritzsche|first=Peter|author-link=Peter Fritzsche|year=1998|title=Germans into Nazis|url=https://archive.org/details/germansintonazis00frit|url-access=registration|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-35092-2}}<br />{{cite book|last=Eatwell|first=Roger|year=1997|title=Fascism, A History|publisher=Viking-Penguin|isbn=978-0-14-025700-7|pages=xvii–xxiv, 21, 26–31, 114–140, 352}}<br />{{cite book|last=Griffin|first=Roger|author-link=Roger Griffin|year=2000|chapter=Revolution from the Right: Fascism|editor-last=Parker|editor-first=David|title=Revolutions and the Revolutionary Tradition in the West 1560–1991|location=London|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-17295-0|pages=185–201}}</ref> <ref name="Adolf Hitler 2010, p. 287">Hitler, Adolf, ''Mein Kampf'', Bottom of the Hill Publishing, 2010, p. 287.</ref> <ref name="Adolf Hitler p. 170">Hitler, Adolf in [[Max Domarus|Domarus, Max]] and Patrick Romane, eds. ''The Essential Hitler: Speeches and Commentary'', Waulconda, Illinois: Bolchazi-Carducci Publishers, Inc., 2007, p. 170.</ref> <ref name="Adolf Hitler">"They must unite, [Hitler] said, to defeat the common enemy, Jewish Marxism." ''A New Beginning,'' Adolf Hitler, ''Völkischer Beobachter.'' February 1925. Cited in: {{cite book|last=Toland |first=John|year=1992|title=Adolf Hitler|publisher=Anchor Books|page=207|isbn=978-0-385-03724-2}}</ref> <ref name="autogenerated11">Bendersky, Joseph W. ''A History of Nazi Germany: 1919–1945''. 2nd ed. Burnham Publishers, 2000, p. 40.</ref> <ref name="autogenerated16">Blamires, Cyprian; Jackson, Paul. ''World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia: Volume 1''. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc, 2006, p. 628.</ref> <ref name="autogenerated20">Bendersky, Joseph W. ''A History of Nazi Germany: 1919–1945''. 2nd ed. Burnham Publishers, 2000, p. 72.</ref> <ref name="autogenerated6">Blamires, Cyprian; Jackson, Paul. ''World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia: Volume 1''. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc, 2006, p. 62.</ref> <ref name="autogenerated7">Winkler, Heinrich August and Alexander Sager, ''Germany: The Long Road West'', English ed. 2006, p. 414.</ref> <ref name="autogenerated8">Stackelberg, Roderick; Winkle, Sally Anne. ''The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts'', London: Routledge, 2002, p. 11.</ref> <ref name="baylor">[[Marc H. Ellis|Ellis, Marc H]]. [http://www3.baylor.edu/American_Jewish/everythingthatusedtobehere/resources/PowerPoints/Christian%20Anti-Semitism%20(part%202).ppt "Hitler and the Holocaust, Christian Anti-Semitism"]{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070710100514/http://www3.baylor.edu/American_Jewish/everythingthatusedtobehere/resources/PowerPoints/Christian%20Anti-Semitism%20%28part%202%29.ppt |date=10 July 2007}}, Baylor University Center for American and Jewish Studies, Spring 2004, slide 14. Also see [http://elsinore.cis.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/04-29-46.htm#herrwerth Nuremberg Trial Proceedings] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060321151237/http://elsinore.cis.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/04-29-46.htm |date=21 March 2006}}, Vol. 12, p. 318, Avalon Project, Yale Law School, 19 April 1946.</ref> <ref name="Bernd-Rüdiger Hüppauf 1997, p. 92">Hüppauf, Bernd-Rüdiger ''War, Violence, and the Modern Condition'', Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1997, p. 92.</ref> <ref name="Burleigh, 2000, p. 77">Burleigh, Michael. ''The Third Reich: A New History'', New York: Hill and Wang, 2000, p. 77.</ref> <ref name="burleigh">Burleigh, Michael. ''The Third Reich: A New History'', New York: Hill and Wang, 2000. pp. 76–77.</ref> <ref name="Carlsten, F. L. 1982, p. 80">Carlsten, F. L. ''The Rise of Fascism''. 2nd ed. University of California Press, 1982, p. 80.</ref> <ref name="carroll">Carroll Quigley, ''Tragedy and Hope'', 1966, p. 619.</ref> <ref name="commentary">Adolf Hitler, [[Max Domarus]]. ''The Essential Hitler: Speeches and Commentary''. pp. 171, 172–173.</ref> <ref name="constructing">Keith H. Pickus. ''Constructing Modern Identities: Jewish University Students in Germany, 1815–1914''. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1999, p. 86.</ref> <ref name="dictator">David Welch. ''Hitler: Profile of a Dictator''. 2nd edition. New York: UCL Press, 2001. pp. 13–14.</ref> <ref name="dictator11">David Welch. ''Hitler: Profile of a Dictator'', 2001, p. 16.</ref> <ref name="dictators">[[Richard Overy|Overy, R.J.]], ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia'', W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004, p. 230.</ref> <ref name="disciples">Read, Anthony, ''The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle'', New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 142</ref> <ref name="dissolution">David Jablonsky. ''The Nazi Party in Dissolution: Hitler and the Verbotzeit, 1923–1925''. London; Totowa, NJ: Frank Cass and Company Ltd., 1989. pp. 20–26, 30</ref> <ref name="documents">J Noakes and G Pridham, ''Documents on Nazism, 1919–1945'', London 1974</ref> <ref name="economic573">{{cite journal|last=Temin|first=Peter|author-link=Peter Temin|date=November 1991|title=Soviet and Nazi economic planning in the 1930s|journal=The Economic History Review|series=New Series|volume=44|issue=4|pages=573–593|doi=10.2307/2597802|url=http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/1721.1/64262/1/sovietnazieconom00temi.pdf|jstor=2597802|hdl=1721.1/64262|hdl-access=free|access-date=4 November 2018|archive-date=12 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025923/http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/1721.1/64262/1/sovietnazieconom00temi.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> <ref name="economics">Barkai, Avaraham 1990. ''Nazi Economics: Ideology, Theory and Policy.'' Oxford Berg Publisher.</ref> <ref name="encyclopedia7">Cyprian Blamires. ''World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1''. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2006, p. 542.</ref> <ref name="encyclopedia9">Blamires, Cyprian and Paul Jackson, ''World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia: Volume 1'', 2006, p. 126.</ref> <ref name="evolution">Peter J. Bowler. ''Evolution: The History of an Idea'', 1989, p. 305.</ref> <ref name="experiences">[[Clarence Lusane]]. ''Hitler's Black Victims: The Historical Experiences of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi Era''. Routledge, 2002. pp. 112–113, 189.</ref> <ref name="foundations">Browder, George C., ''Foundations of the Nazi Police State: The Formation of Sipo and SD'', Lexington: Kentucky University Press, 2004, p. 202.</ref> <ref name="friedlander">Henry Friedlander. ''The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995, p. 5.</ref> <ref name="Fulda, Bernhard 2009, p. 65">Fulda, Bernhard. ''Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic''. Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 65.</ref> <ref name="google">[[William W. Hagen]] (2012). "''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zBgr3kL-PP4C German History in Modern Times: Four Lives of the Nation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201002232035/https://books.google.com/books?id=zBgr3kL-PP4C&pg=&dq&hl=en |date=2 October 2020 }}''". Cambridge University Press, p. 313. {{ISBN|0-521-19190-4}}</ref> <ref name="guillebaud">Guillebaud, Claude W. 1939. ''The Economic Recovery of Germany 1933–1938''. London: MacMillan and Co. Limited.</ref> <ref name="H. Stuart Hughes 1992, p. 108">Hughes, H. Stuart, ''Oswald Spengler'', New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1992, p. 108.</ref> <ref name="Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution">{{cite book|last=Kershaw|first=Ian|year=2008|title=Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution|publisher=Yale University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/hitlergermansfin00kers/page/53 53]|isbn=978-0-300-12427-9|url=https://archive.org/details/hitlergermansfin00kers/page/53}}</ref> <ref name="Homosexualität und Staatsräson. Männlichkeit, Homophobie und Politik in Deutschland 1900-1945">{{cite book|last=Pretzel|first=Andreas|chapter=Vom Staatsfeind zum Volksfeind. Zur Radikalisierung der Homosexuellenverfolgung im Zusammenwirken von Polizei und Justiz|editor-last=Zur Nieden|editor-first=Susanne|publisher=Campus Verlag|location=Frankfurt/M.|title=Homosexualität und Staatsräson. Männlichkeit, Homophobie und Politik in Deutschland 1900–1945|year=2005|page=236|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HaZwHeBm2lkC&pg=PA236|isbn=978-3-593-37749-0|access-date=14 August 2015|archive-date=12 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712025925/https://books.google.com/books?id=HaZwHeBm2lkC&pg=PA236#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> <ref name="holocaustreader">[[Lucy Dawidowicz|Dawidowicz, Lucy]]. ''A Holocaust Reader'' Behrman House, Inc, 1976, p. 31.</ref> <ref name="interaction">Ausma Cimdiņa, Jonathan Osmond. ''Power and Culture: Hegemony, Interaction and Dissent''. PLUS-Pisa University Press, 2006.</ref> <ref name="international27">Robert Anthony Krieg. ''Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany''. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004. pp. 4–8.</ref> <ref name="Jack Fischel 1998, p. 5">Jack Fischel. ''The Holocaust''. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1998, p. 5.</ref> <ref name="JFrage">"THHP Short Essay: What Was the Final Solution?". Holocaust-History.org, July 2004, webpage: [http://www.holocaust-history.org/short-essays/final-solution.shtml HoloHist-Final] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080204024440/http://www.holocaust-history.org/short-essays/final-solution.shtml |date=4 February 2008 }}: notes that [[Hermann Göring]] used the term in his order of 31 July 1941 to [[Reinhard Heydrich]], chief of the [[Reich Security Main Office]] (RSHA).</ref> <ref name="Jonathan Olsen 1999, p. 62">Jonathan Olsen. ''Nature and Nationalism: Right-wing Ecology and the Politics of Identity in Contemporary Germany''. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999, p. 62.</ref> <ref name="Joseph W. Bendersky 2007, p. 96">{{cite book|last=Bendersky|first=Joseph W.|title=A Concise History of Nazi Germany|year=2007|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.|location=Plymouth, England|isbn=978-0-7425-5363-7|page=96}}</ref> <ref name="kershaw">[[Ian Kershaw]]. ''Hitler, 1936–45: Nemesis''. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2001, p. 588.</ref> <ref name="koenigsberg">Richard A. Koenigsberg. ''Nations have the Right to Kill: Hitler, the Holocaust, and War''. New York: Library of Social Science, 2009, p. 2.</ref> <ref name="machtergreifung">Beck, Hermann ''The Fateful Alliance: German Conservatives and Nazis in 1933: The Machtergreifung in a New Light'', Berghahn Books, 2008. {{ISBN|978-1-84545-680-1}}, p. 72.</ref> <ref name="machtergreifung5">Beck, Hermann ''The Fateful Alliance: German Conservatives and Nazis in 1933: The Machtergreifung in a New Light'', 2008. pp. 72–75.</ref> <ref name="machtergreifung6">Beck, Hermann ''The Fateful Alliance: German Conservatives and Nazis in 1933: The Machtergreifung in a New Light'', 2008, p. 84.</ref> <ref name="macmillan">Burleigh, Michael ''The Third Reich: a new history'' Pan MacMillan (2001) p. 75</ref> <ref name="Martin Kitchen 2006, p. 205">[[Martin Kitchen|Kitchen, Martin]], ''A History of Modern Germany, 1800–2000'', Malden, MA; Oxford, England; Carlton, Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishing, Inc., 2006, p. 205.</ref> <ref name="Michael Mann 2004, p. 183">Mann, Michael, ''Fascists'', New York City: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 183.</ref> <ref name="millennial">Redles, David ''Nazi End Times; The Third Reich as a Millennial Reich'' in Kinane, Karolyn & Ryan, Michael A. (eds) ''End of Days: Essays on the Apocalypse from Antiquity to Modernity'' McFarland and Co (2009) p. 176.</ref> <ref name="nicholas">Miranda Carter. George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I. Borzoi Book, 2009. 420 pp.</ref> <ref name="nicholls159160">David Nicholls. ''Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. pp. 159–160.</ref> <ref name="nicholls236237">David Nicholls. ''Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. pp. 236–237.</ref> <ref name="Nina Witoszek 2002. pp. 89-90">Nina Witoszek, Lars Trägårdh. ''Culture and Crisis: The Case of Germany and Sweden''. Berghahn Books, 2002. pp. 89–90.</ref> <ref name="Oliver H. Woshinsky 2008, p. 156">[[Oliver H. Woshinsky]]. ''Explaining Politics: Culture, Institutions, and Political Behavior''. Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2008, p. 156.</ref> <ref name="pathological">{{cite book|author=Hitler, Adolf|title=Hitler's Secret Book|year=1961|publisher=Grove Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-394-62003-9|oclc=9830111|pages=8–9, 17–18|quote=Sparta must be regarded as the first Völkisch State. The exposure of the sick, weak, deformed children, in short, their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject.|title-link=Hitler's Secret Book|author-link=Adolf Hitler}}</ref> <ref name="Peter J. Bowler 1989. pp. 304-305">[[Peter J. Bowler]]. ''Evolution: The History of an Idea''. 2nd edition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989. pp. 304–305.</ref> <ref name="Peukert, Detlev 1993 p. 74">[[Detlev Peukert|Peukert, Detlev]], ''The Weimar Republic''. 1st paperback ed. Macmillan, 1993. {{ISBN|978-0-8090-1556-6}}, p. 74.</ref> <ref name="Peukert, Detlev 1993 pp. 73-74">Peukert, Detlev, ''The Weimar Republic''. Macmillan, 1993. {{ISBN|978-0-8090-1556-6}}, pp. 73–74.</ref> <ref name="PostWWIAntisemitism">"Florida Holocaust Museum: Antisemitism – Post World War 1" (history), flholocaustmuseum.org, 2003, webpage: [http://www.flholocaustmuseum.org/history_wing/antisemitism/post_ww1.cfm Post-WWI Antisemitism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081003233617/http://www.flholocaustmuseum.org/history_wing/antisemitism/post_ww1.cfm|date=3 October 2008}}.</ref> <ref name="publishers30">Bendersky, Joseph W. ''A History of Nazi Germany: 1919–1945''. 2nd ed. Burnham Publishers, 2000. pp. 58–59.</ref> <ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 399">Overy, R.J., ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia'', W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004, p. 399</ref> <ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 402">Overy, R.J., ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia'', W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004, p. 402.</ref> <ref name="R.J. Overy 2004, p. 403">Overy, R.J., ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia'', W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004, p. 403.</ref> <ref name="R.J. Overy 2004. pp. 399-403">Overy, R.J., ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia'', W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004. pp. 399–403.</ref> <ref name="Robert Anthony Krieg 2004, p. 4">Robert Anthony Krieg. ''Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany'', 2004, p. 4.</ref> <ref name="Robert J. Richards 2008. pp. 7-8">[[Robert J. Richards]]. ''Myth 19 That Darwin and Haeckel were Complicit in Nazi Biology''. The University of Chicago. http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Myth.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120912124953/http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Myth.pdf |date=12 September 2012 }}</ref> <ref name="Roger Griffin 2005, p. 85">Roger Griffin. ''Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion''. Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2005, p. 85.</ref> <ref name="Rudy Koshar 1986, p. 190">Koshar, Rudy. ''Social Life, Local Politics, and Nazism: Marburg, 1880–1935'', University of North Carolina Press, 1986, p. 190.</ref> <ref name="Simone Gigliotti 2005, p. 14">Simone Gigliotti, Berel Lang. ''The Holocaust: A Reader''. Malden, MA; Oxford; Carlton, Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, p. 14.</ref> <ref name="Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945: nature as model and nature as threat">{{cite book|author=Mike Hawkins|title=Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945: nature as model and nature as threat|year=1997|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-57434-1|oclc=34705047|page=276|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SszNCxSKmgkC&q=Hitler%27s+Secret+Book+sparta&pg=PA276|access-date=18 November 2020|archive-date=12 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240712030431/https://books.google.com/books?id=SszNCxSKmgkC&q=Hitler%27s+Secret+Book+sparta&pg=PA276#v=onepage&q=Hitler's%20Secret%20Book%20sparta&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> <ref name="stackelberg">Roderick Stackelberg, Sally Anne Winkle. ''The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts'', 2002, p. 45.</ref> <ref name="Stanley G. Payne 1995, p. 464">Stanley G. Payne. ''A History of Fascism, 1914–1945'', 1995, p. 464.</ref> <ref name="stanley">Stanley G. Payne. ''A History of Fascism, 1914–1945'', 1995, p. 463.</ref> <ref name="Thomas Rohkrämer 2007, p. 130">Rohkrämer, Thomas, "A Single Communal Faith?: The German Right from Conservatism to National Socialism", ''Monographs in German History''. Volume 20, Berghahn Books, 2007, p. 130</ref> <ref name="thosedamnednazis">Goebbels, Joseph; Mjölnir (1932). ''Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken''. Munich: [[Franz Eher Nachfolger]]. English translation: ''[https://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/haken32.htm Those Damned Nazis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140810185325/http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/haken32.htm |date=10 August 2014 }}''.</ref> <ref name="totalitarianism">Roger Griffin. ''Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion'', 2005, p. 93.</ref> <ref name="transaction">Hughes, H. Stuart, ''Oswald Spengler'', New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1992, p. 109.</ref> <ref name="understandably">Scholarship for [[Martin Luther|Martin Luther's]] 1543 treatise, ''[[On the Jews and their Lies]]'', exercising influence on Germany's attitude: * Wallmann, Johannes. "The Reception of Luther's Writings on the Jews from the Reformation to the End of the 19th Century", ''Lutheran Quarterly'', n.s. 1 (Spring 1987) 1:72–97. Wallmann writes: "The assertion that Luther's expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment have been of major and persistent influence in the centuries after the Reformation, and that there exists a continuity between Protestant anti-Judaism and modern racially oriented anti-Semitism, is at present wide-spread in the literature; since the Second World War it has understandably become the prevailing opinion." * Michael, Robert. ''Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust''. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; see chapter 4 "The Germanies from Luther to Hitler", pp. 105–151. * Hillerbrand, Hans J. "Martin Luther," ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 2007. Hillerbrand writes: "[H]is strident pronouncements against the Jews, especially toward the end of his life, have raised the question of whether Luther significantly encouraged the development of German anti-Semitism. Although many scholars have taken this view, this perspective puts far too much emphasis on Luther and not enough on the larger peculiarities of German history."</ref> <ref name="university14">Denis R. Alexander, Ronald L. Numbers. ''Biology and Ideology from Descartes to Dawkins''. Chicago, Illinois; London: University of Chicago Press, 2010, p. 209.</ref> <ref name="university17">Weitz, Eric D., ''Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy'', Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007. pp. 336–337.</ref> <ref name="university18">Weitz, Eric D., ''Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy'', Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 336.</ref> <ref name="university19">Stern, Fritz Richard ''The politics of cultural despair: a study in the rise of the Germanic ideology'' University of California Press reprint edition (1974) p. 296</ref> <ref name="university21">Stanley G. Payne. ''A History of Fascism, 1914–1945''. Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1995. pp. 463–464.</ref> <ref name="university28">Hayes, Peter. 1987 ''Industry and Ideology IG Farben in the Nazi Era.'' Cambridge University Press.</ref> <ref name="university29">Carsten, Francis Ludwig ''The Rise of Fascism'', 2nd ed. University of California Press, 1982, p. 137. Quoting: Hitler, A., ''Sunday Express'', 28 September 1930.</ref> <ref name="witoszek">Witoszek, Nina and Lars Trägårdh, ''Culture and Crisis: The Case of Germany and Sweden'', Berghahn Books, 2002, p. 90.</ref> <ref name="witoszek10">Nina Witoszek, Lars Trägårdh. ''Culture and Crisis: The Case of Germany and Sweden''. Berghahn Books, 2002, p. 89.</ref> </references>
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