Article Outline
National Socialism
, commonly called Nazism, German political movement initiated in 1920 with the organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,
or NSDAP), also called the Nazi Party. The movement culminated in the establishment of the Third Reich, the totalitarian German state led by the dictator
Adolf Hitler
from 1933 to 1945.
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Origins and Rise of Nazism
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National Socialism was similar in many respects to Italian fascism (
see
Fascism
). The roots of National Socialism, however, were peculiarly German, grounded, for example, in the Prussian tradition of military authoritarianism and expansion; in the German romantic tradition of hostility to rationalism, liberalism, and democracy; in various racist doctrines according to which the Nordic peoples, as so-called pure Aryans, were not only physically superior to other races, but were the carriers of a superior morality and culture; and in certain philosophical traditions that idealized the state or exalted the superior individual and exempted such a person from conventional restraints.
The theorists and planners of National Socialism included General
Karl Ernst Haushofer
, a German geographer who exercised much influence in German foreign affairs. The German editor and party leader
Alfred Rosenberg
formulated Nazi racial theories on the basis of the work of the Anglo-German writer
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
. To the German financier
Hjalmar Schacht
fell the task of formulating and carrying out much economic and banking policy, and the German architect and party leader Albert Speer was a major figure in overseeing the economy just before the end of
World War II
(1939-1945).
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Effects of World War I
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The immediate origins of National Socialism are to be found in the consequences of the German defeat in
World War I
(1914-1918). Under the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles
,
Germany
was charged with sole responsibility for the war, stripped of its colonial empire, and forced to pay heavy reparations. German political and economic life was seriously disrupted as a result of the treaty. Severe inflation, which reached its climax in 1923, all but destroyed the German middle class, leaving many of its impoverished and despairing members vulnerable to the appeals of radical political groups that sprang up in the postwar years. Only a few years after some measure of economic stability and progress had been achieved, the worldwide economic crisis that began in 1929 plunged Germany into an apparently hopeless depression. During these years the democratic
Weimar Republic
was subjected to increasing attack from both left and right. The republic proved unable to cope effectively with the desperate condition of the country. By 1933 the majority of German voters supported one or the other of the two major totalitarian parties, the Communist and the National Socialist.
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The National Socialist Party
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The National Socialist Party originated in the German Workers' Party, formed in Munich in 1919. At the time that Hitler joined it in 1919, the German Workers' Party had a nominal membership of about 25, only 6 of whom were active in its discussions and lecture activities. Shortly after joining, Hitler became a leader of the group. At the first mass meeting of the German Workers' Party, held in Munich on February 24, 1920, Hitler read the party program, which he had partly written; this consisted of 25 points comprising a mixture of exaggerated nationalistic demands, corruptions of socialist ideas, and racist and anti-Semitic doctrines. As the essential conditions for the realization of its aims, the party declared in point 25 of the program: “For modern society, a colossus with feet of clay, we shall create an unprecedented centralization which will unite all powers in the hands of the government. We shall create a hierarchical constitution, which will mechanically govern all movements of individuals.”