The Nazism or national-socialisme is the political Idéologie NSDAP, political party appeared in Germany in 1919. Its definition remains problematic. In particular, the question of knowing if the Nazism is a development of the Fascisme or a single phenomenon in the history is always open. One of the notorious singularities of the Nazi regime is to have based its doctrines of State on the Racisme. The Anti-semitism and the Anticommunisme of the Nazi regime lead as of 1933 to the opening of the first concentration camps in Germany, a policy which will nothing but do develop during the following years (Shoah).

Presentation

“Nazism” is the contraction of “national-socialisme” ( German Nationalsozialismus in , which dissociates “international socialism”). The term “socialism national” had already been launched in France by Maurice Barrès, to define its political position (Nationalisme, Socialisme and Antisémitisme) equivalent to that of the Nazis in its principles, but not having been translated into acts.

The doctrines main road-Socialist were exposed for the first time in public the February 24th 1920 with the Hofbräuhaus of Munich by Adolf Hitler. But it is in 1925 that Adolf Hitler makes publish Mein Kampf ( My Combat ), its autobiography, which exposes its Idéologie and its program. Mein Kampf will become the book of reference of the Nazism.

The Nazism constitutes the political Idéologie Parti national-Socialist the German workers (NSDAP, National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ), single party authorized in Germany since the summer 1933 until the fall of the Third Reich the May 8th 1945.

This nationalist party aimed at gathering all the countries and territories Germanophone S, to dominate the remainder of the world. It justified its claims by pleading the membership of the Germans to a “  race supérieure  ”, the “  race indo-européenne  ” or “  aryenne  ”, from which all the geniuses from the Humanité would have resulted, and with the profit of which all the Peuple S wishing to survive should be inclined.

One of the characteristics, clearly evoked in Mein Kampf , is the automatic appeal with the force. For Hitler, the diplomacy or the negotiation is only lures.

The Nazi party added to its program a socialist dimension registered in its heading, in the Drapeau with dominant red which it imposed on the Germany (in Mein Kampf, Hitler justifies however the choice of the Rouge by the concern only of not leaving the monopoly of this burning color to the Communist party), and in the doctrines. Thus at their beginnings the Nazis recommend the abolition of the private property with the image of the Communiste S. The socializing tendency of the doctrines of the Nazism was the object of serious dissensions between the leaders of the party. At its beginnings, Joseph Goebbels thus qualified the Nazism of “ national Bolchévisme ”. Fine policy, Hitler was led by Pragmatisme and political Opportunisme, to accept the financings of Industriel S worried by the rise of the Communisme and to give up certain claims.

The Nazism is a totalitarian ideology , i.e. seeking to dominate and control all the aspects of the life of the Citoyen S, embrigadés as of the Enfance in all kinds of associations controlled by the party which they were intended to serve: Napolas, Youths hitlériennes, Association of the German young girls, Association of the German women, Association of the Germans from abroad, Popular help of the Nazi party, Help of Winter of the German people.

The Nazi regime, very near to the Fascism, of which it took the totalitarian character that this one initiated, ensured the worship of the chief and the respect of the doctrines of the party by the systematic use of the Violence. For this purpose the mode, ordered by the sole party had an political police of State at phenomenal power, the Gestapo ( Geheime Staatspolizei ), of a service of a gigantic nature, and of a Milice deprived, SA then the S , which were transformed with the come to power of Hitler into army of terror.

The doctrines Nazi were based on a racial classification of the men according to the artificial criterion of the quality of their Sang. It thus encouraged to treat the men of the races known as lower like cattle, even like vermin, and thus pushed the applications of the Antisémitisme in its most extreme consequences on all the history of humanity. However, it did not save either the Slavic ones, the Asian ones, the Blacks, classified with low in the scale of the Race S, right before the Jews.

The Idéologie Nazi of the Surhomme was in particular inspired by the Pangermanisme, goodwills of many bunches mystico-policies of which the Société of Thulé.

The Aryan ones

The Nazi S used the term of Aryen to define the human Race which they considered purest, higher and noblest, which was called by certain scientists of this time Scandinavian race . The intellectuals Nazis claimed that this theory would have been confirmed by the History, the practical experiment, and the single features of Aryan (in particular the fair hair and blue eyes). The majority of the current scientists denounce this racist theory.

Objectives

The Nazism preaches the superiority of the “Aryan race” on all the other human “races”.

What it names “Aryan race” is in fact an at the same time morphological, cultural and religious concept. “True the” Aryan one is that which is physically close to the Germanic gun. The common belief makes correspond this “Aryan race” to the image of a pale, fair man with the blue eyes and of Germanic culture. Actually, the criteria, although restricted, were appreciably broader (in particular on the level of the colors of the eyes and the hair).

According to Hitler, this Aryan race is the single source of all progress of Humanity. Only those which have a trace of Aryan blood can have genius. The other races do nothing but even imitate, like the Jews, to despoil or destroy the human genius.

For this reason, the Aryan race must preserve the purity of its blood to concentrate the human genius in a race which will dominate the world.

For the survival of Humanity, the Nazis must eliminate the lower races which by polluting the human genetics, bring it to its loss.

The Nazis thus classified the populations according to what they invited the “races to educate” (Latin for example), “races to be reduced in constraint” (the Slavic ones, the Asian ones, Blacks) and “races to be exterminated” (people of confession or Jewish ascent and the people Tzigane).

Means used

They sterilized or imprisoned also those which they regarded as patients, or those which were regarded as reached hereditary diseases (Cécité, Alcoolisme, Schizophrénie, etc), or mental diseases, by being based on a particular reading of the eugenic theories of the British Francis Galton (cf Eugénisme under the Nazism).

After having conquered the absolute capacity, the Nazis eliminated according to systematic processes and by concentric circles between 5 and 6 million Jews (in particular, but not only, using gas chambers, certain diseases such as the Typhus were extremely fatal) as well as many Tziganes, between 500.000 and 1 million of which 23  000 were listed in the only camp of Auschwitz. They sterilized also 400  000 Germans and imprisoned all the opponents with the capacity in concentration camps.

The extermination of the Jews is called the Shoah, which means “Hebrew catastrophe”.

Hierarchy of the races

The doctrines Nazi establish a hierarchy of the races which one can summarize of the kind:

  1. the Aryan ones, regarded as a higher race, must dominate the other races. They are the Germanic and Scandinavian people.

  2. free people (tolerated races). They are composed, on the one hand, other people of Western Europe (Latin - French, Spaniards, Italians - British, etc) and, on the other hand, of the Japanese. They remain very high in the hierarchy of the races but must be dominated by the Aryan ones.
  3. races of slaves. They are Slavic, the Africans and the Asian others that the Japanese. They are human beings but they must be reduced in slavery to serve the higher races.
  4. the Untermensch in , literally submen. They are the Jews and the Tziganes. They are regarded as lower races and vermin having to be destroyed.

Distinction between Fascism and Nazism

Two interpretations in the historians:
  • the Nazism is a specific, primarily racist totalitarian system and anti-semite;
  • the Nazism is a variety (among others) of Fascism.

The terms Fascism and totalitarianism often rest on fuzzy definitions. They remain badly defined and there is no consensus of historians on their use. Of aucuns challenge them completely.

In the beginning, the purpose of Fascism was the construction of a strong State, bases of a new Empire, true ultimate “goal”, whereas the Nazism saw in the State the “means” of putting in work the racial policy and of world domination of the German nation. The fascist died for the Italy, the Nazi for the Aryan race . The Second world war is thus not a conflict of nations, following the example first, but a conflict of visions of the world .

In practice, Mussolini locked up and persecuted its opponents, but did not devote to a policy extermination of a particular category, distinguished on cultural and religious bases.

While the system Nazi massacred per million the individuals by organizing a system of deportations of the " indésirables". Initially and mainly the Jews, which all were to be eliminated, adult like children. Hitler had issued that all were to disappear under the terms of a purification from planned Europe " scientifiquement" , i.e. with arguments pseudo-scientists, racial theories, and by mobilizing all average the techniques. One aimed their elimination, not their reduction as enemies. Other social groups underwent the deportations and persecutions: Communists and other Marxists, Tziganes, mentally handicapped persons, “associaux”, homosexual, catholic, Protestant, Witnesses of Jéhovah… The Death camps such Auschwitz, Treblinka, Maïdanek, were built or transformed at ends of exterminations.

The concept of State totalitarian is forged by the large philosopher and theorist of Italian Fascism, Giovanni Gentile, which wrote the texts of Mussolini having theoretical contents. The totalitarian State must take the control of the very whole company and all its sectors, until making disappear this one, included in the State, become " total". One cannot thus exclude Fascism from the system of the totalitarian States, which he invents on the contrary. Fascism is born in Italy, with the seizure of power by Mussolini (Walk on Rome, 1922) invents a novel mode of State precisely, in practice and in theory. It makes of it the theory and carries out it in order to constitute an Empire, supposed to make reappear the Roman Empire.

Invention that Hitler will collect and develop, by preparing the war in Europe, with an aim of creating a new European Empire, the " Reich of 1000 ans". The exploitation of the myth of the Jewish danger (world plot in parallel and/or alliance with international Communism) will be taken again. One will systematically diffuse a forgery, manufacture of the secret police of the Tsar, the " Protocol of Wise of Sion " supposed to reveal this " Jewish plot mondial".

What distinguishes the Nazism from Fascism is, not nationalism, racism and anti-semitism, but the fact that the policy Nazi is initially and primarily racist and anti-semite, and the decision for the elimination of the Jews and the recourse, organized in a systematic way, in a plan of extermination. Systematic, technical planning and the organization are a specificity Nazi, belong neither to Italian Fascism, nor specifically, to various Fascisms which appeared in Europe, even if Fascisms will collaborate in the horror Nazi.

Sources of the Nazism

The origins and the sources of inspiration of the Nazism are extremely varied. Thus, shovel-mixes are included in the ideology Nazi:

German nationalist ideologies

  • the idea of the Large Germany borrowed from the liberals of the " Spring of the people " of 1848 and later pangermanists of the XIXeme century.
  • the xenophobe nationalism of the patriots of 1813 like Arndt and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn.
  • the aspiration with a " Christianity allemand" by Paul de Lagarde.
  • protectionist and autarkical tendencies in economy expensive with Fichte and Friedrich List.
  • German neo-paganism by hatred of the Roman Catholicism, especially incarnated by the operas of Richard Wagner true national liturgy.
  • the idea of a German socialism worked out by Werner Sombart and Spengler.

Socialism

See also: National-socialisme and socialism

The question of the relations, even of the relationship existing between national-socialisme and socialism caused polemics since the origin of national-socialisme. Beyond the polemic, this question concerns political science and the history. The question thus was seriously raised since the years 1940 by thinkers like Friedrich Hayek, then Hannah Arendt. It rebounded in contemporary work, like those of Götz Aly, François Furet, Ernst Nolte, or Jean-François Revel.

Philosophical ideas of the XIXe century

The worship of the force is propagated in the universities by Heinrich von Treitschke.

It is wrongly that one attaches Nietzsche to the Nazism. This one did not cease, always with same enthusiasm to express its nausea against the anti-semitism. It is without its knowledge, during its last years of " vie" , patient; that his/her sister for whom it also expressed a great contempt following its marriage with an anti-semite of pure stock; its work adulterated and composed " Will of puissance". It made some what was to become later a weapon of propaganda for the Nazi regime. It have recourse to a true work of falsification, and cutting, going until withdrawing the passages relating to it personally. Also, still today, the writings of Nietzsche are prone to the controversy, often by mécompréhension or doubtful interpretation. The most common criticism referring to the Nazism is that which consists in saying that Nietzsche encouraged with hatred against the Jew, from criticisms which it can make with regard to the priest, " Jews, these people of prêtres". However he condemns here by no means the Jews but well the methods of the priest, it does not matter his origins (cf Genealogy of morals, treated IIIe, for example). With the dock; its idea of the superman; and can in the final analysis be this incredible thought for which the world is not yet ready.

For more information, to refer to this part of the article on the philosopher, about falsifications to which its work could be exposed: falsifications Nazis of the work of Nietzsche.

Let us note finally that the Nazis were not the only ones to falsify the philosophy of Nietzsche. Still today; it lends itself to all interpretations and finds its place in all the speeches, of the caricature to the most total appropriation. By respect, it is essential to clearly take note of the Nietzschéen corpus before any doubtful interpretation.

Racist ideas developed before in Germany

  • the assertion of the superiority of the Aryan people and any interbreeding as degenerator of this one at Gobineau and Houston Chamberlain.
  • eugenic theories of Cowherd of Lapouge.
  • the idea of Germany like last refuge of the Aryan people emitted by Ludwig Geiger and imposed by Karl Penka.
  • the idea anti-semite of “Jews wanting to control the world” (either by Communism, or by capitalism) thesis of the forgery Protocols of Wise of Sion written by Mathieu Golovinski.
  • the social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer giving the right of most extremely to the eradication of weakest like naturalness and applicable to the human society.

The nationalist and racist ideas will be found in the ideas hawked by the movements Völkisch which will flower in Germany at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. While spreading in Germany of the ideas ultra-nationalists and racists, these movements made the bed of National-socialisme.

See too

Some works among which the Nazism drew its roots

Some works of the theorists of IIIeme Reich

(See also Pan-Germanism, German Nihilism, Mysticism Nazi.)

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