Nazism, formally named National Socialism, is the far-right, ultranationalist, racist and totalitarian ideology associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP). It emerged in Germany during Hitler's rise to power and was frequently called Hitlerism. Nazism is a form of fascism that emphasizes pseudo-scientific theories of racial hierarchy which identify ethnic Germans and Nordic Aryans as a master race. 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, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, anti-Slavism, anti-Romani sentiment, scientific racism, 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 Lebensraum, and exclude those deemed either Community Aliens or "inferior" races (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 equality, opposed 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, a renaming Hitler initially opposed. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler outlined his antisemitism, anti-communism, and opposition to representative democracy, proposing instead the Führerprinzip (leader principle). Hitler's objectives involved eastward expansion of German territories, colonization of Eastern Europe, and an alliance with Britain and Italy against the Soviet Union.
The Nazi Party became the largest party in the 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 in January 1933 by President Paul von Hindenburg, with the support of conservative nationalists who believed they could control Hitler. Using the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act, the Nazis established a one-party state and began the Gleichschaltung (Nazification). Under Nazi Germany, Jews, Romani, political opponents and other "undesirable" people were marginalised, imprisoned or murdered. During World War II, millions – including two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population – were exterminated in a genocide known as the Holocaust. After Germany's defeat and the public disclosure of the full extent of the Holocaust, Nazism 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.
The full name of the Nazi Party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German for 'National Socialist German Workers' Party'), and the party 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.
George Sylvester Viereck interviewed Hitler in 1923 for the American Monthly:
"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."
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.
In the 1920s, labour movement opponents of the NSDAP seized on this, and shortened the party's name, Nationalsozialistische, to the dismissive Nazi, to associate the NSDAP with the derogatory use of this term. This was inspired by the earlier use of the abbreviation Sozi for Sozialist (German for 'Socialist'). The first use of the term "Nazi" by the National Socialists themselves occurred in 1926 in a publication by Joseph Goebbels called Der Nazi-Sozi ("The Nazi-Sozi"). There, the term Nazi-Sozi (but not Nazi alone) is used as an abbreviation of "National Socialism".
After the NSDAP's rise to power in the 1930s, terms such as Nazi, Nazi Germany, and Nazi regime were popularised by German exiles, but were not used in Germany. The terms spread into other languages and were brought back to Germany after World War II. The NSDAP briefly adopted Nazi in an attempt to reappropriate it, for example in articles published in the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter under the title Ein Nazi fährt nach Palästina in 1934. However, the Nazis soon gave up and avoided using the term while in power. They typically referred to themselves as "National Socialists" and their movement as "National Socialism".
Position within the political spectrum
The majority of scholars identify Nazism, in both theory and practice, as a form of far-right politics. Far-right themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate, and purge society of supposed inferior elements. 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", a statement which he later applied to those opposed to the Nazi Party in 1926, claiming that "[t]hey tried to paralyze the one party that would have been able to give opposition to this Red pest." At times, Adolf Hitler and other proponents declared that Nazism was a “party of the right” or “the most right-wing party”, but also sometimes denied that Nazism was left or right, and instead portrayed it as syncretic, combining elements from across the political spectrum.
In a 1921 speech, Hitler stated:
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.
The German newspapers General-Anzeiger and Hannoverscher Kurier 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 whilst Paul Löbe was serving as President of the Reichstag:
Who is furthest to the right? Berlin, September 23.