Nazism is a form of fascism (national socialism) that incorporates anti-Semitism, anti-communism, anti-capitalism, and ethnic nationalism. Nazism originated with Anton Drexler and Adolf Hitler's German National Socialist Workers' Party (NSDAP, or Nazi Party) in the years following World War I, and it became a popular belief among Great War veterans of the freikorps and German nationalists. Nazism was opposed to both capitalism and communism, and it became popular due to its rejection of the two major forms of government. Nazism was a unique form of fascism, advocating racial superiority, and it made its way into the Americas as the German-American Bund in the United States and the National Socialist Movement of Chile. Following World War II, Nazism's legacy was nearly wiped out, but surviving Nazis fled to Latin America and kept the ideas alive, with some later returning to Germany.
Although the Nazi ideology was only officially present in Nazi Germany, far-right groups and people continue to support its broader national socialist beliefs, leading to continued anti-Semitism and more ethnic nationalism. Today, several motorcycle gangs, the Aryan Brotherhood gang, the Azov Battalion and Right Sector in Ukraine, and the Dayar Mongol party of Mongolia are all adherents to the core concepts of Nazism, albeit modified to be the nationalism of their own respective countries.
Tenets[]
From 1933 to 1945, Adolf Hitler led Nazi Germany as a totalitarian leader, uniting the country of Germany with promises of revenge against the Triple Entente for the defeat in World War I and with guarantees that the economy would recover under his rule. His (very controversial) tenets were:
- Germans were the purest of the Aryan race and were therefore the master race.
- Jews were all greedy, evil, and manipulators, and they were responsible for stabbing the German Empire in the back during World War I (many of the delegates to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles - a major embarrassment for Germany - were Jewish), as well as leading the Soviet Union and the West against Germany.
- Individuals should serve the interests of the State and the race rather than pursuing their own interests and happiness.
- Communism and capitalism were both flawed systems, and totalitarianism was better than democracy.
- Class equality, class struggle, and international solidarity were all bad, and private property and privately-owned businesses should be maintained for the Aryans.
- Germans should unite as "national comrades" against "foreign peoples" (i.e. Jews, Romani, Slavs, etc.)