38 Facts About Nazism

1.

The later related term "neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War.

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2.

Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system.

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3.

Nazism subscribed to pseudo-scientific theories of a racial hierarchy and social Darwinism, identifying the Germans as a part of what the Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race.

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4.

Nazism rejected the Marxist concepts of class conflict and universal equality, opposed cosmopolitan internationalism, and sought to convince all parts of the new German society to subordinate their personal interests to the "common good", accepting political interests as the main priority of economic organisation, which tended to match the general outlook of collectivism or communitarianism rather than economic socialism.

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5.

Nazism did not refer to herself as a "Nazi", even though she was writing well after World War II.

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6.

Far-right themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate other people and purge society of supposed inferior elements.

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7.

Adolf Hitler and other proponents denied that Nazism was either left-wing or right-wing: instead, they officially portrayed Nazism as a syncretic movement.

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8.

Nazism expressed opposition to communism and egalitarian forms of socialism, arguing that inequality and hierarchy are beneficial to the nation.

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9.

Nazism believed that communism was invented by the Jews to weaken nations by promoting class struggle.

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10.

Historical roots of Nazism are to be found in various elements of European political culture which were in circulation in the intellectual capitals of the continent, what Joachim Fest called the "scrapheap of ideas" prevalent at the time.

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11.

Nazism believed that the "Spirit of 1914" manifested itself in the concept of the "People's League of National Socialism".

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12.

Nazism believed that the "young" German nation as an imperial power would inherit the legacy of Ancient Rome, lead a restoration of value in "blood" and instinct, while the ideals of rationalism would be revealed as absurd.

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13.

Nazism prescribed war as a necessity by saying: "War is the eternal form of higher human existence and states exist for war: they are the expression of the will to war".

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14.

Nazism denounced Marxism for seeking to train the proletariat to "expropriate the expropriator", the capitalist and then to let them live a life of leisure on this expropriation.

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15.

Nazism claimed that "Marxism is the capitalism of the working class" and not true socialism.

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16.

Nazism rejected reactionary conservatism while proposing a new state that he coined the "Third Reich", which would unite all classes under authoritarian rule.

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17.

Hitler spoke of Nazism being indebted to the success of Fascism's rise to power in Italy.

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18.

Nazism held racial theories based upon a belief in the existence of an Aryan master race that was superior to all other races.

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19.

Many people in cities still had memories of rural-urban migration—Tooze thus explains that the Nazis obsessions with agrarianism were not an atavistic gloss on a modern industrial nation but a consequence of the fact that Nazism was the product of a society still in economic transition.

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20.

Nazism claimed that ancient Greek culture was developed by Nordic peoples due to paintings of the time which showed Greeks who were tall, light-skinned, light-eyed, blond-haired people.

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21.

Nazism said that the Roman Empire was developed by the Italics who were related to the Celts who were a Nordic people.

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22.

Nazism believed that the vanishing of the Nordic component of the populations in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome led to their downfall.

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23.

Nazism claimed that the rise of the Russian Empire was due to its leadership by people of Norman descent.

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24.

Nazism described the rise of Anglo-Saxon societies in North America, South Africa and Australia as being the result of the Nordic heritage of Anglo-Saxons.

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25.

Nazism concluded these points by saying: "Everywhere Nordic creative power has built mighty empires with high-minded ideas, and to this very day Aryan languages and cultural values are spread over a large part of the world, though the creative Nordic blood has long since vanished in many places".

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26.

Nazism claimed that the Near Eastern race had been "bred not so much for the conquest and exploitation of nature as it had been for the conquest and exploitation of people".

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27.

Nazism rejected the Marxist concept of class conflict, and it praised both German capitalists and German workers as essential to the Volksgemeinschaft.

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28.

Historian Michael Burleigh claims that Nazism used Christianity for political purposes, but such use required that "fundamental tenets were stripped out, but the remaining diffuse religious emotionality had its uses".

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29.

Historian Roger Griffin rejects the claim that Nazism was primarily pagan, noting that although there were some influential neo-paganists in the Nazi Party, such as Heinrich Himmler and Alfred Rosenberg, they represented a minority and their views did not influence Nazi ideology beyond its use for symbolism.

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30.

Nazism argued that they should support him in establishing a dictatorship because "private enterprise cannot be maintained in the age of democracy" and because democracy would allegedly lead to communism.

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31.

Nazism promised to destroy the German left and the trade unions, without any mention of anti-Jewish policies or foreign conquests.

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32.

Nazism rejected class conflict-based socialism and economic egalitarianism, favouring instead a stratified economy with social classes based on merit and talent, retaining private property and the creation of national solidarity that transcends class distinction.

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33.

Nazism believed that international free trade would lead to global domination by the British Empire and the United States, which he believed were controlled by Jewish bankers in Wall Street and the City of London.

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34.

Nazism even hoped for a time that Britain could be swayed into an alliance with Germany on the basis of a shared economic rivalry with the United States.

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35.

Nazism argued that the United States and the United Kingdom only benefitted from free trade because they had already conquered substantial internal markets through British colonial conquests and American westward expansion.

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36.

Contrary to many interpretations of Nazism, which tend to view it as a reactionary movement, as, in the words of Thomas Mann, an "explosion of antiquarianism", intent on turning Germany into a pastoral folk community of thatched cottages and happy peasants, the general thrust of the movement, despite archaisms, was futuristic.

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37.

Nazism was instead focused on rebuilding the military and reorienting the economy to provide the rearmament necessary for invasion of the countries to the east of Germany, especially Poland and Russia, to get the Lebensraum he believed was necessary to the survival of the Aryan race.

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38.

Nonetheless, movements which self-identify as National Socialist or which are described as adhering to Nazism continue to exist on the fringes of politics in many western societies.

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