There was no 'complete', official theory of Nazism, anywhere. Hitler's political beliefs themselves were formulated in Mein Kampf (My Struggle, 1925). His views were composed of three main axes, which he dogmatically asserted: a conception of history as a "race struggle," which was influenced by social darwinism; anti-Semitism and the idea that Germany needed to conquer a "Lebensraum" ("living space") from Russia. His anti-Semitism, coupled with his anti-Communism, would give the grounds of his conspiracy theory of "judeo-bolshevism ^[16]." Hitler first began to develop his views through observations he made while living in Vienna from 1907 to 1913. He concluded that there was a racial, religious, and cultural hierarchy, and he placed "Aryans" at the top as the ultimate superior race, while Jews and "Gypsies" were people at the bottom. He vaguely examined and questioned the policies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where as a citizen by birth, Hitler lived during the Empire's last throes of life. He believed that its ethnic and linguistic diversity had weakened the Empire and helped to create dissension. Further, he saw democracy as a destabilizing force because it placed power in the hands of ethnic minorities who, he claimed, "weakened and destabilized" the Empire by dividing it against itself. Hitler's political beliefs were then affected by World War I and the 1917 October Revolution, and saw some modifications between 1920 and 1923. They were then definitively formulated in Mein Kampf ^[17].

Nationalism

The Nazi state was founded upon a racially defined "German people" and principally rejected the idea of being bound by the limits of nationalism;^[18] that was only a means for attempting unlimited supremacy. In that sense, its nationalism and hyper-nationalism was tolerated to reach a world-dominating Germanic-Aryan Volksgemeinschaft. This is a central concept of Mein Kampf, symbolized by the motto Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer (one people, one empire, one leader). The Nazi relationship between the Volk and the state was called the Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community"), a late 19th or early 20th century neologism that defined a communal duty of citizens in service to the Reich (opposed to a simple "society"). The term "National Socialism", derives from this citizen-nation relationship, whereby the term socialism is invoked and is meant to be realized through the common duty of the individuals to the German people; all actions are to be in service of the Reich. In practice, the Nazis argued, their goal was to bring forth a nation-state as the locus and embodiment of the people's collective will, bound by the Volksgemeinschaft as both an ideal and an operating instrument. In comparison, non-national socialist ideologies oppose the idea of nations. For further information on national socialism and socialism, and Nazism and fascism, see Fascism and ideology.

Militarism

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

Racism and discrimination

Main article: Nazism and race

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

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

According to Nazism, it is an obvious mistake to permit or encourage plurality within a nation. Fundamental to the Nazi goal was the unification of all German-speaking peoples, "unjustly" divided into different Nation States. The Nazis tried to recruit Dutch and Scandinavian men into the SS, considering them to be of superior "Germanic" stock, with only limited success. In a speech to SS leaders in October 1943, Himmler stated that, "There were no great figures -- this is the tragedy of the renewal movements in Holland, in Flanders, in Norway, and in Denmark -- able to win their people over to us and lead them into the Germanic political community today, according to their own political laws.... The select few who come to us, and fight in our Germanic volunteer units, ... are naturally some of the most valuable members of the Germanic nations. These men ... will be the old fighters of the greater Germanic community."^[19]

Hitler claimed that nations that could not defend their territory did not deserve it. He thought "Slave races", like the Slavic peoples, to be less worthy to exist than "leader races". In particular, if a "master race" should require room to live ("Lebensraum"), he thought such a "race" should have the right to displace the inferior indigenous races.

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

Eugenics

Main article: Nazi eugenics

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

Anti-Semitism

Further information: Racial policies of the Third Reich

According to Nazi propaganda, the Jews thrived on fomenting division amongst Germans and amongst states. Nazi anti-Semitism was primarily racial: "the Jew is the enemy and destroyer of the purity of blood, the conscious destroyer of our race;" however, the Jews were also described as plutocrats exploiting the worker: "As socialists we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation's goods."^[20]

Homosexuality

Main article: History of homosexual people in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

An estimated 100,000 homosexuals were arrested after Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s. Of those, 50,000 were suspected to be incarcerated in concentration camps, making for 5,000 to 15,000 deaths. According to Harry Oosterhuis, the Nazis' view towards homosexuality was ambiguous, and should not be viewed in the context of "race hygiene" or eugenics. Völkisch-nationalist youth movements were long suspected to be attracting homosexuals due to the preaching of Männerbund (male bonding); in practice, Oosterhuis says, this meant that the persecution of homosexuals was more politically motivated than anything else.^[21] For example, the homosexuality of Ernst Röhm was well known at the time and basis for satire and jokes. Röhm was killed chiefly because he was perceived as a political threat, not for his sexuality.

Religion

Further information: Positive Christianity

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

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

Volkism was inherently hostile toward atheism: freethinkers clashed frequently with Nazis in the late 1920s and early 1930s. On taking power, Hitler banned freethought organizations and launched an “anti-godless” movement. In a 1933 speech he declared: “We have . . . undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” This forthright hostility was far more straightforward than the Nazis’ complex, often contradictory stance toward traditional Christian faith.^[22]

Anti-capitalism

Nazi thinking had an anticapitalist (and especially anti-finance capitalist) direction.^[23] The "Twenty-Five Point Programme" of the Nazi Party from 1920 listed several economic demands. Included in these demands were, "that the State shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens," "the abolition of all incomes unearned by work," the ruthless confiscation of all war profits," "the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations," "profit-sharing in large enterprises," "extensive development of insurance for old-age," "land reform suitable to our national requirements," and to achieve this and other aims, "the creation of a strong central state power for the Reich."^[24] However, the degree to which the Nazis supported this programme in later years has been questioned. Several attempts were made in the 1920s to change some of the program or replace it entirely. For instance, in 1924, Gottfried Feder proposed a new 39-point program that kept some of the old planks, replaced others and added many completely new ones.^[25] Hitler refused to allow any discussion of the party programme after 1925, ostensibly on the grounds that no discussion was necessary because the programme was "inviolable" and did not need any changes. At the same time, however, Hitler never voiced public support for the programme and many historians argue that he was in fact privately opposed to it.^{[citation needed]} Hitler did not mention any of the planks of the programme in his book, Mein Kampf, and only talked about it in passing as "the so-called programme of the movement".^[26]

Party spokesman Joseph Goebbels insisted in 1932 that the NSDAP was a "workers' party" and "on the side of labor and against finance".^[27] Hitler said that the Nazis were "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance".^[28] However, he was clear to point out that Nazism "has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism," saying that "Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not."^[29] He further said that "I absolutely insist on protecting private property... we must encourage private initiative".^[30] Nevertheless, he wanted property to be regulated to make sure "benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual".^[31] Attacks were made on what Hitler called "pluto-democracy," which was claimed to be a conspiracy by Jews to favor democratic parties in order to keep capitalism intact.^[32]

Other roots

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

Nazism and the inferiority complex

The Nordic Myth has often been attributed to the reaction to an inferiority complex. Phillip Wayne Powell, in is book, Tree of Hate (1985), claimed that the Nordic Myth began to arise in 15th century Germany, when Germans resented the fact that Italians looked down on them as an inferior and unsophisticated people. In page 48, he states:

"In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a powerful surge of German patriotism was stimulated by the disdain of Italians for German cultural inferiority and barbarism, which lead to a counterattempt by German humanists to laud German qualities."

Fodor, M. W. claimed in "The nation" (1936):

"No race has suffered so much from an inferiority complex as has the German. National Socialism was a kind of Coué method of converting the inferiority complex, at least temporarily, into a feeling of superiority".[1]

Variants of Nazism and Hitlerism abroad

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

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

Key elements of the Nazi ideology

• The National Socialist Program
• The rejection of democracy, and consequently abolishing political parties, labour unions, and free press.
  • Führerprinzip (Leader Principle) as a total belief in the leader (responsibility up the ranks, and authority down the ranks)
• Extreme Nationalism
  • Anti-Bolshevism
  • Strong show of local culture
  • Social Darwinism
  • Defense of Blood and Soil (German: "Blut und Boden" - represented by the red and black colors in the Nazi flag)
  • The Lebensraum policy of creation of more living space for Germans in the east
• Nazism and race, Racial policies of the Third Reich and Nazi eugenics:
  • Anti-Slavism
  • Anti-Semitism
  • The creation of a Herrenrasse (or Herrenvolk) (Master Race = by the Lebensborn (Fountain of Life; A department in the Third Reich)).
  • White Supremacism; more specifically, ranking of individuals according to their race and racial purity, with the Nordic race favoured the most
• Limited freedom of religion (Point #24 in the 25 point plan). [2]
• Rejection of the modern art movement and an embrace of classical art
• Association with Fascism or Totalitarianism^[33]

Other new elements

• Animal rights [3], [4]
• Environmentalism [5], [6], [7], [8]
• Kraft durch Freude The well-being of the working classes.
• Public health [9] (Antismoking campaigns, asbestos restrictions, occupational health and safety standards)

Nazism and romanticism

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

Anti-Semitism was shown to be a handy tool for Nazis to gain support, mainly due to the popular Houston Stewart Chamberlain.^[34] Personal accounts by August Kubizek, Hitler's childhood friend, have varied, offering ambiguous claims that anti-Semitism did and did not date back to Hitler's youth.^[35] One reason is the higher Jewish community in Austria and Germany because Germany had been a haven for many Jews over the years, including influential families such as the Rothschilds, although World War I and the Dolchstosslegende ended that legacy. Anti-Judaism had already been widely transformed into anti-Semitism before 1914 due to the new Europe-wide post-Darwin theory of racism. Historians universally accept that Nazism's mass acceptance depended upon nationalistic appeals and fear against "unnormal people" (which also could include xenophobia and anti-Semitism) and a patriotic flattery toward the wounded collective pride of defeated World War I veterans. Early support for the Nazis, displayed in various parades, came from the old conservative order that was the military.

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

The idealization of tradition, folklore, classical thought, leadership (as exemplified by Frederick the Great), their rejection of the liberalism of the Weimar Republic, and calling the German state the "Third Reich" (which traces back to the medieval First Reich and the pre-Weimar Second Reich) has led many to regard the Nazis as reactionary.

Nazism and mysticism

Nazi mysticism is a term used to describe a philosophical undercurrent of Nazism that denotes the combination of Nazism with occultism, esotericism, cryptohistory, and/or the paranormal. The esoteric Thule Society and Germanenorden were secret societies that, while only a small part of the völkisch movement, led into the Nazi party.^[35]

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

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

Ideological competition

Nazism and Communism emerged as two serious contenders for power in Germany after the First World War, particularly as the Weimar Republic became increasingly unstable. What became the Nazi movement arose out of resistance to the Bolshevik-inspired insurgencies that occurred in Germany in the aftermath of the First World War. The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused a great deal of excitement and interest in the Leninist version of Marxism and caused many socialists to adopt revolutionary principles. The Spartacist uprising in Berlin and the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 were both manifestations of this. The Freikorps, a loosely organized paramilitary group (essentially a militia of former World War I soldiers) was used to crush both these uprisings and many leaders of the Freikorps, including Ernst Röhm, later became leaders in the Nazi party. After Mussolini's Fascists took power in Italy in 1922, fascism presented itself as a realistic option for opposing "Communism", particularly given Mussolini's success in crushing the Communist and anarchist movements that had destabilized Italy with a wave of strikes and factory occupations after the First World War. Fascist parties formed in numerous European countries.

Many historians, such as Ian Kershaw and Joachim Fest, argue that Hitler's Nazis were one of numerous nationalist and increasingly fascistic groups that existed in Germany and contended for leadership of the anti-Communist movement and, eventually, of the German state. Further, they assert that fascism and its German variant, National Socialism, became the successful challengers to Communism because they were able to both appeal to the establishment as a bulwark against Bolshevism and appeal to the working class base, particularly the growing underclass of unemployed and unemployable and growingly impoverished middle class elements who were becoming declassed (denounced as the lumpenproletariat). The Nazis' use of pro-labor rhetoric appealed to those disaffected with capitalism by promoting the limiting of profits, the abolishing of rents and the increasing of social benefits (only for Germans) while simultaneously presenting a political and economic model that divested "Soviet socialism" of elements that were dangerous to capitalism, such as the concept of class struggle, "the dictatorship of the proletariat" or worker control of the means of production. Thus, Nazism's populism, anti-Communism and anti-capitalism helped it become more powerful and popular than traditional conservative parties, like the DNVP. For the above reasons, particularly the fact that Nazis and Communists fought each other (often violently) during most of their existence, Nazism and Communism are commonly seen as opposite extremes on the political spectrum. However, this view is not without its challengers. A number of political theorists and economists, primarily those associated with the Austrian school, argue that Nazism, Soviet Communism and other totalitarian ideologies share a common underpinning in collectivism.

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