German ideological and political movement led by Adolf Hitler
In combined form, the two concepts of "national" and "social" had become fashionable among Christian Socialist and Volkisch-anti-Semitic movements before 1914 in Germany and Austria. This was taken up by the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers' Party) founded in Munich in 1919. A year later it, added Nationalsozialistische to its name and thus became the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), the party that, under Hitler's leadership, was to pave the way for a "German dictatorship" and play a role of fateful consequence in world history.
Main Ideas
Manifestations of Volkisch anti-Semitism and pan-Germanism - two basic elements of the ideology that the NSDAP proclaimed at its inception - had appeared in Germany long before World War I. The following ideas played a major role in Nazi ideology: the myth of blood and soil, the "master race" idea, and the utopian vision of Germany conquering Lebensraum ("living space") in the East and "Germanizing" the conquered area. Many events combined to pave the way from those radical ideas to Nazism: the defeat in World War I; the "dictate" of the peace conference, and the Treaty of Versailles; the social and economical crisis; the Dolchstosslegende (stab in the back) myth; and the widespread opinion that the Weimar Republic was an inferior form of regime imposed on the Germans.
Hitler's Early Career
In 1921 Hitler, after a brief career as party propagandist, became the undisputed Fuehrer (leader) of the NSDAP and rapidly transformed the party into the instrument of his political will through his spectacular demagogic gifts. The NSDAP had an especially profound effect on the very large number of Volkisch and patriotic organisations in Bavaria, which in the early 1920s had coalesced into the counterrevolutionary Ordnungszelle (Order Unit). Hitler thus became the political leader of an abortive attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic (the Hitler Putsch, also known as the Munich Beer-Hall Putsch, of November 8 and 9, 1923). The NSDAP was outlawed - for a while - and Hitler was incarcerated for nine months in Landsberg prison. Shortly after his release, the NSDAP was revived (February 1925) and spread from Bavaria to western and northern Germany.
The Rise of the NSDAP
In the short period in which the Weimar Republic managed to achieve a degree of relative normalcy (1925-1928), the NSDAP did not gain more than marginal significance as an extremist splinter party, despite its efforts to obtain influence and power by legal means and participation in elections. In the 1928 Reichstag elections, it received less than 3 percent of the vote. At this time, Hitler published Mein Kampf ("My Struggle") which became the Bible of the National Socialists. The Nazi Party became a mass movement in the wake of the economic depression of 1929 and 1930. By 1932, it had 800,000 members and 14 million voters and had attracted to its ranks many moderate elements, including Young Conservatives and Christian Socialists. In a series of spectacular election campaigns from 1930 to 1933, the NSDAP became the largest political party in the country (37 percent in the July 1932 elections). Conservative elite groups facilitated the Nazis' rise by lending their support to the NSDAP while underestimating its real nature and potential. For many Germans, one has to assume Hitler's leadership seemed to hold out greater promise in the crisis than any Democratic Party.
The Attraction of National Socialism
The attraction that National Socialism exercised had its primary source in the national and social frustrations experienced by broad sectors of the German middle class, especially the younger generation. The 1848 bourgeois revolution had failed, and even the Weimar Republic was unable to meet the still-outstanding need for greater political and social participation because of inflation and the global economic crisis. By disseminating stereotypical enemy images ("Jew-Republic," "Jewish Marxism," "Culture-Bolshevism," and so on), by holding out the promise of a "people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft), and with the help of the Nazi movement's appeal of freshness and power, Hitler was able to gain the allegiance of the same young bourgeois generation that had withheld it from the "dreary" Weimar Republic and to enlist it as a dedicated and dynamic force in Nazism.
Addressing Societal Division and Crisis
The many divisions in German society also helped Nazism to attain dominance: the comparatively strong religious and social contrasts, the parochial divisions, and the great regional differences in social structure and political and cultural traditions. This lack of national homogeneity had prevented a truly national society from emerging in Germany even when the country was united into a single Reich. The permanent crisis of the Weimar period created an exaggerated demand for national integration, a demand which Hitler, with his beguiling rhetoric, could address. This socio-psychological pathology, to the astonishment of the outside world, persuaded large parts of the educated German bourgeoisie at a critical point in the nation's history to commit themselves to an irrational, almost religious belief in the Fuehrer. After the Nazi take over, this blind belief, superbly moulded by Joseph Goebbels's propaganda, was to become the Nazis' major instrument for rallying the country under its banner.
From Consolidation of Power to Increased Radicalisation
The initial revolutionary phase of 1933 and 1934 was succeeded by a quiet period. The Nazi Party consolidated its power and a steady flow of achievements at home and abroad also raised the regime's prestige in the world. The economic crisis and unemployment were brought to an end, Germany was no longer isolated, and it unilaterally restored its sovereignty with regard to the country's military affairs. But this moderate phase came to an end in 1938 after the sensational foreign policy successes of that year - the annexation of Austria and of the Sudetenland. Hitler could now call himself Fuehrer of the "Greater German Reich." A new Nazi activism was set in motion accompanied by the removal of any remaining conservative influences in the economy (Hjalmar Schacht), foreign affairs (Konstantin von Neurath), and the armed forces (generals Werner von Blomberg and Werner von Fritsch); and by the ascendancy of individuals and organisations under Hitler's immediate control. This development was directly linked to increasingly urgent demands to achieve more of the goals of Nazi ideology and to renew anti-Jewish manifestations and other forms of hatred. The orgy of violence on Kristallnacht (November 8-9, 1938) was an unmistakable sign of this new radicalisation of the Nazi system. Embodying that system in its more radical form were the SS - the "Blackshirt" order built by Heinrich Himmler - and the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) and SD (Sicherheitsdients; Security Service). It was in the SS, in particular, that men were bred to carry out even the most inhuman orders without hesitation and with utter callousness, and were taught that such behaviour was an expression of courage and heroism.
The Outbreak of War and the Politics of Racism
Hitler unleashed the war in 1939, which was to be more than a means of realising the Nazi dream of the German master race's empire in Eastern Europe. The legal vacuum created by the war and the opportunity the war provided for mass killing were used by the Nazi leaders in the pursuit of their racist, Social-Darwinist, and Volkisch-political aims. This was evidenced by the Euthanasia Program (the killing of mental patients), the destruction of the Polish intelligentsia, the liquidation of Soviet commissars, and, above all, the planned extermination of the Jews of Europe. The extraordinary powers wielded by the Nazis and the Nazi police in the occupied Eastern territories made it possible to put into operation, especially in Poland, thsecluded extermination camps where the "Final Solution" of the "Jewish question" was carried out: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and others - place-names that have been burned for all time into the moral memory of mankind. Large parts of the German population were more dedicated to Hitler as a charismatic person than to the content of Nazi ideology, as was demonstrated by the reaction to the abortive attempt on Hitler's life on July 20, 1944. When Hitler took his own life on April 30, 1945, he also, for all practical purposes, extinguished the existence of National Socialism. Without Hitler, and in the face of the total fiasco of his policies, National Socialism disappeared from the public scene in Germany almost overnight, much to the astonishment of contemporary observers in other parts of the world.
