National socialism

National Socialism, abbreviated to Nazism, is a fascist ideology developed by Adolf Hitler. Nazism is based on pseudoscientific racism of favoring an "Aryan" race to unite the German people and antisemitism to distract the working class. Nazism also incorporated anticommunism.

Nazism was the official state ideology in the Third German Reich.

Nomenclature

Use of 'socialism'

National Socialism is not a socialist ideology, despite the noun being Socialism. Hitler used the term socialism as a popular and effective slogan to push Nazism to the German people. Hitler was against socialism (as the means of production) and Marxism.

Pro-Aryan racism

Hitler incorrectly claimed that people of an Aryan race are the sole pioneers of human society and kept humanity alive. This claim contradicts with the Marxist theory of societal progression.

All that we admire in the world to-day, its science, its art, its technical developments and discoveries, are the products of the creative activities of a few peoples, and it may be true that their first beginnings must be attributed to one race. The maintenance of civilization is wholly dependent on such peoples. Should they perish, all that makes this earth beautiful will descend with them into the grave.

— Adolf Hitler, My Struggle (German: Mein Kampf) (p. 225).

Every manifestation of human culture, every product of art, science and technical skill, which we see before our eyes to-day, is almost exclusively the product of the Aryan creative power. This very fact fully justifies the conclusion that it was the Aryan alone who founded a superior type of humanity; therefore he represents the architype of what we understand by the term: MAN.… Should he be forced to disappear, a profound darkness will descend on the earth; within a few thousand years human culture will vanish and the world will become a desert.

— Adolf Hitler, My Struggle (German: Mein Kampf) (p. 226).

Anti-semitism

See main article: Antisemitism

Hitler describes Semites not as a religious community, but instead as a race. He formed an unfounded conspiracy theory that Jews use their language to cloak their "inner thoughts" and used Esperanto as an example.

On this first and fundamental lie, the purpose of which is to make people believe that Jewry is not a nation but a religion, other lies are subsequently based. One of those further lies, for example, is in connection with the language spoken by the Jew. For him language is not an instrument for the expression of his inner thoughts but rather a means of cloaking them. When talking French his thoughts are Jewish and when writing German rhymes he only gives expression to the character of his own race.

As long as the Jew has not succeeded in mastering other peoples he is forced to speak their language whether he likes it or not. But the moment that the world would become the slave of the Jew it would have to learn some other language (Esperanto, for example) so that by this means the Jew could dominate all the more easily.

— Adolf Hitler, My Struggle: 'CHAPTER XI: RACE AND PEOPLE' (German: Mein Kampf) (p. 240).

Anti-communism

Hitler believed that Jews were responsible for the creation of Marxism and frequently used the term Judeo-Bolshevism. In 1926, he claimed that Lenin killed and starved 30 million people. During the Second World War, Hitler said the same about Stalin and said he, "exercised the most cruel tyranny of all times".

See also

• Neo-Nazism
• Italian fascism
• Alt-Right
• Holocaust

References