Nazism

The term "National Socialism" has been used in self-description by a number of different political groups and ideologies, some of which have no connection with the Nazis; see National socialism (disambiguation).

Nazism was the ideology held by the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, commonly called NSDAP or the Nazi Party), which was led by its "Führer", Adolf Hitler. The word Nazism is most often used in connection with the dictatorship of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 (the "Third Reich"), and it is derived from the term National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus, often abbreviated NS). Adherents of Nazism held that the Aryan race were superior to other races, and they promoted Germanic racial supremacy and a strong, centrally governed state. Nazism has been outlawed in modern Germany, yet small remnants and revivalists, known as "Neo-Nazis", continue to operate in Germany and abroad.

Originally, Nazi was invented by analogy to Sozi (a common and slightly pejorative abbreviation for socialists in Germany). The original Nazis from the era of the Third Reich probably never referred to themselves as "Nazis" and generally always as "National Socialists", since Nazi was most commonly used as a pejorative term. Currently some Neo-Nazis also use it to describe themselves.

There is a very close relationship between Nazism and Fascism. Since the term Nazism is normally used to refer to the ideology and policies of Nazi Germany alone, while Fascism is used in a broader sense, to refer to a wider political movement that exists or existed in many countries, Nazism is often classified as a particular version of Fascism.

Ideological theory

According to Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler developed his political theories after carefully observing the policies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was born as a citizen of the Empire, and believed that ethnic and linguistic diversity had weakened it. Further, he saw democracy as a destabilizing force, because it placed power in the hands of ethnic minorities, who he claimed "weakened and destabilize" the Empire, by dividing it against itself.

The Nazi rationale was heavily invested in the militarist belief that great nations grow from military power, which in turn grows "naturally" from "rational, civilized cultures." Hitler's calls appealed to disgruntled German Nationalists, eager to save face for the failure of World War I, and to salvage the militaristic nationalist mindset of that previous era. After Austria's and Germany's defeat of World War I, many Germans still had heartfelt ties to the goal of creating a greater Germany, and thought that the use of military force to achieve it was necessary.

Many placed the blame for Germany's misfortunes on those, such as Jews and communists, whom they perceived, in one way or another, to have sabotaged the goal of national victory, by obtaining a stranglehold on the national economy, and using the nation's own resources to control and corrupt it.

Hitler's Nazi theory claimed that non-Slavic white peoples of Scandinavian and Teutonic descent make up the Aryan race, which is a master race, superior to all other races, and which founded and gave knowledge to all of the greatest civilizations of the ancient Central Asia and the Mediterranean. Alfred Rosenberg's racial philosophy wholly embraced the Aryan Invasion Theory, which traced Aryan peoples in ancient Iran invading the Indus Valley Civilization of India, and carrying with them great knowledge and science that had been preserved from the antediluvian world. This "antediluvian world" referred to Thule, the theoretical pre-Flood/Ice Age origin of the Aryan race, and is often tied to Atlantis theories. Most of the leadership and the founders of the Nazi Party was made of members of "Thule Gesselschaft" (the Thule Society), who romanticized the Aryan race through theology and ritual.

Hitler also claimed that a nation is the highest creation of a race, and great nations (literally large nations) were the creation of homogenous populations of great races, working together. These nations developed cultures that naturally grew from races with "natural good health, and aggressive, intelligent, courageous traits." The weakest nations, Hitler said, were those of impure or mongrel races, because they have divided, quarrelling, and therefore weak cultures. Worst of all were seen to be the parasitic Untermensch (Subhumans), mainly Jews, but also Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and so called anti-socials, all of whom were considered lebensunwertes Leben (Life-unworthy life) owing to their perceived deficiency and inferiority, as well as their wandering, nationless invasions ("the International Jew"). The persecution of homosexuals as part of the Holocaust has seen increasing scholarly attention since the 1990s.

The role of homosexuals in the Nazi Party is considered anecdotal by most historians. Some tiny groups, like the International Committee for Holocaust Truth, and authors Scott Lively and Kevin E. Abrams in The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, (ISBN 0964760932), argue that many homosexuals were involved in the inner circle of the Nazi party: Ernst Röhm of the SA (whose execution was thinly rationalized as being based on his homosexuality), Horst Wessel, Max Bielas, and others. This perspective is denounced as hateful propaganda by most human rights associations and groups, stirring heated debates and accusations of censorship and "hate-speech" from both sides. Most historians and scholars of fascism do not take the work of Lively and Abrams seriously, and dismiss it as part of a Christian Right campaign against gay rights. Conversely, some Nazi supporters argue that such claims are simply more attempts to discredit Nazi ideology.

Non-Jews of Slavic descent were also seen as culturally inferior {the Nazis regarded them as inferior to Aryans in culture and lifestyle}, but only marginally parasitic, because they had their own land and nations, though many of them lived in German countries such as Austria, which Hitler saw as an ethnic invasion of Germanic Lebensraum by foreign populations who would have incentive to force Austria's loyalty to their lands of ethnic and cultural origin.

According to Nazism, it is an obvious mistake to permit or encourage multilingualism and multiculturalism within a nation. Fundamental to the Nazi goal was the unification of all German-speaking peoples, "unjustly" divided into different Nation States. Hitler claimed that nations that could not defend their territory did not deserve it. Slave races he thought of as less worthy to exist than "master races." In particular, if a master race should require room to live (Lebensraum), he thought such a race should have the right to displace the inferior indigenous races. Hitler draws parallels between Lebensraum and the American ethnic cleansing and relocation policies towards the Native Americans, which he saw as key to the success of the US. Hitler had always admired the Americans for their treatment of the Indians, and considered America to be a shining example of what Germany's ambitions should be. Hitler often compared his Lebensraum policies to the Manifest Destiny policy of the United States, in which the ultimate destiny of the American people was to expand west and defeat the Indians.

"Races without homelands," Hitler proclaimed, were "parasitic races," and the richer the members of a "parasitic race" were, the more "virulent" the parasitism was thought to be. A "master race" could therefore, according to the Nazi doctrine, easily strengthen itself by eliminating "parasitic races" from its homeland. This was the given rationalization for the Nazis' later oppression and elimination of Jews and Gypsies in what is known as the Holocaust. Hitler and his living space doctrine found immense popularity among the German population. The Wehrmacht Waffen-SS and other German soldiers as well as civilian paramilitary groups in occupied territories were responsible for the deaths of an estimated eleven million men, women, and children in concentration camps, prisoner-of-war camps, labor camps, and death camps such as Auschwitz.

Hitler extended his rationalizations into religious doctrine, claiming that those who agreed with and taught his "truths," were "true" or "master" religions, because they would "create mastery" by avoiding comforting lies. Those that preach love and tolerance, "in contravention to the facts," were said to be "slave" or "false" religions. The man who recognizes these "truths," Hitler continued, was said to be a "natural leader," and those who deny it were said to be "natural slaves." "Slaves," especially intelligent ones he claimed, were always attempting to hinder masters by promoting false religious and political doctrines. Many Nazis thus regarded Christianity as a cowardly creed founded deliberately by Jews, and hoped to see it replaced with a reborn Germanic paganism based partly on Norse myth and partly on the principles of National Socialism.

The ideological roots which became German "National Socialism" were based on numerous sources in European history, drawing especially from Romantic 19th Century idealism, and from a biological reading of Friedrich Nietzsche's thoughts on "breeding upwards" toward the goal of an Übermensch (Superhuman). Hitler was an avid reader and received ideas that were later to influence Nazism from traceable publications, such as those of the Germanenorden (Germanic Order) or the Thule society. He also adopted many populist ideas such as limiting profits, abolishing rents and generously increasing social benefits - but only for Germans.

Hitler's theories were not only attractive to Germans. People in positions of wealth and power in other nations are said to have seen them as beneficial. Examples are Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and Eugene Schueller, founder of L'Oréal. Nevertheless, the support for these theories was highest among the general population of Germany.

Nazi mysticism

Nazi mysticism is a term used to describe a philosophical undercurrent of Nazism; it denotes the combination of Nazism with occultism, esotericism, cryptohistory, and/or the paranormal. Heinrich Himmler was one of the few Nazi leaders to show a strong interest in such matters.

Key elements of the Nazi ideology

• National Socialist Program
• Racism
  • Especially anti-Semitism, which eventually culminated in the Holocaust.
  • The creation of a Herrenrasse (Master Race = by the Lebensborn (Fountain of Life; A department in the Third Reich)
  • Anti-Slavism
  • Belief in the superiority of the White, Germanic, Aryan or Nordic races.
• Euthanasia and Eugenics with respect to "Racial Hygiene"
• Anti-Marxism, Anti-Communism, Anti-Bolshevism
• The rejection of democracy, with as a consequence the ending the existence of political parties, labour unions, and free press.
• Führerprinzip (Leader Principle) Belief in the leader (Responsibility up the ranks, and authority down the ranks.)
• Strong show of local culture.
• Social Darwinism
• Defense of Blood and Soil (German: "Blut und Boden" - represented by the red and black colors in the Nazi flag)
• "Lebensraumpolitik", "Lebensraum im Osten" (The creation of more living space for Germans in the east)
• Related to Fascism

Nazism and romanticism

According to Bertrand Russell, Nazism comes from a different tradition from that of either liberalism or Marixsm. Thus, to understand values of Nazism, it is necessary to explore this connection, without trivializing the movement as it was in its peak years in the 1930s and dismissing it as a little more than racism.

Many historians say that the anti-Semitic element, which did not exist in the sister fascism movements in Italy and Spain, was adopted by Hitler to gain popularity for the movement, as anti-Semitic prejudice, was very common among the masses in the German Empire at that time. Likewise, anti-Semitism fit very well with the Dolchstosslegende (betrayal myth) which blamed "non-German" Germans for the loss of WW I. Historians universally accept that Nazism's mass acceptance depended upon nationalistic and anti-immigrant (i.e. anti-Semitic) appeals, and a patriotic flattery toward the wounded collective pride of defeated WW I veterans. Others have focused on anti-Semitism (rather than the general anti-immigration) claiming it to have been central to Hitler's Weltanschauung, or world view.

Many see strong connections to the values of Nazism and the irrationalist tradition of the romantic movement of the early 19th century. Strength, passion, frank declarations of feelings, and deep devotion to family and community were valued by the Nazis though first expressed by many Romantic artists, musicians, and writers. German romanticism in particular expressed these values. For instance, Hitler identified closely with the music of Richard Wagner (a noted anti-Semite, author of Das Judenthum in der Musik, and idol to the young Hitler). Wagner's most important operas, the Ring cycle, express Aryanist ideals, contain what some people interpret as anti-Semitic caricatures, and celebrate traditional Norse Aryan folklore and values.

The idealisation of tradition, folklore, classical thought, the leadership of Frederick the Great, their rejection of the liberalism of the Weimar Republic and the decision to call the German state the Third Reich (which hearkens back to the medieval First Reich and the pre-Weimar Second Reich) has led many to regard the Nazis as reactionary.

Ideological competition

Nazism and Communism emerged as two serious contenders for power in Germany after the First World War, particularly as the Weimar Republic became increasingly unstable.

What became the Nazi movement arose out of resistance to the Bolshevik-inspired insurgencies that occurred in Germany in the aftermath of the First World War. The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused a great deal of excitement and interest in the Leninist version of Marxism and caused many socialists to adopt revolutionary principles. The 1918-1919 Munich Soviet and the 1919 Spartacist uprising in Berlin were both manifestations of this. The Freikorps, a loosely organised paramilitary group (essentially a militia of former World War I soldiers) was used to crush both these uprisings and many leaders of the Freikorps, including Ernst Röhm, later became leaders in the Nazi party.

Capitalists and conservatives in Germany feared that a takeover by the Communists was inevitable and did not trust the democratic parties of the Weimar Republic to be able to resist a communist revolution. Increasing numbers of capitalists began looking to the nationalist movements as a bulwark against Bolshevism. After Mussolini's fascists took power in Italy in 1922, fascism presented itself as a realistic option for opposing "Communism", particularly given Mussolini's success in crushing the Communist and anarchist movements which had destabilised Italy with a wave of strikes and factory occupations after the First World War. Fascist parties formed in numerous European countries.

Many historians, such as Ian Kershaw and Joachim Fest, argue that Hitler's Nazis were one of numerous nationalist and increasingly fascistic groups that existed in Germany and contended for leadership of the anti-Communist movement and, eventually, of the German state. Further, they assert that fascism and its German variant, National Socialism, became the successful challengers to Communism because they were able to both appeal to the establishment as a bulwark against Bolshevism and appeal to the working class base, particularly the growing underclass of unemployed and unemployable and growingly impoverished middle class elements who were becoming declassed (the lumpenproletariat). The Nazis' use of pro-labor rhetoric appealed to those disaffected with capitalism while presenting a political and economic model that divested "Soviet socialism" of elements which were dangerous to capitalism, such as the concept of class struggle, "the dictatorship of the proletariat" or worker control of the means of production.

Support of anti-Communists for Fascism and Nazism

Various right-wing politicians and political parties in Europe welcomed the rise of fascism and the Nazis out of an intense aversion towards Communism. According to them, Hitler was the savior of Western civilization and of capitalism against Bolshevism. Among these supporters in the 1920s and early 1930s was the Conservative Party in Britain. During the later 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis were supported by the Falange movement in Spain, and by political and military figures who would form the government of Vichy France. A Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism (LVF) and other anti-Soviet fighting formations were formed.

The British Conservative party and the right-wing parties in France appeased the Nazi regime in the mid- and late-1930s, even though they had begun to criticise its totalitarianism. Some contemporary commentators suggested that these parties did in fact still support the Nazis. Important reasons behind this appeasement included, first, the erroneous assumption that Hitler had no desire to precipitate another world war, and second, when the rebirth of the German military could no longer be ignored, a well-founded concern that neither Britain nor France was yet ready to fight an all-out war against Germany.

Nazism and Anglo-Saxons

Hitler admired the British Empire as a shining example of expansionist Germanic genius. Racist theories had been developed in Britain and elsewhere during the 19th century to justify European imperial power. Nordicism and Aryanism arose from these developments. Especially important was the idea that North Europeans represented the highest branch of the Aryan peoples, who had in ancient times extended into India and created Indian culture (see Aryan invasion theory). Such Racist imperialist theories justified the idea that some races were innately superior, born to rule, while others were parasitic or inferior "savages." These concepts were taken to an ultimately genocidal conclusion by the Nazis.

File:Naziswastika.png

The Nazi Party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). Black, white and red were in fact the colors of the old North German Confederation flag (invented by Otto von Bismarck, based on the Prussian colors black and white, blended with the red and white of the medieval Hanse cities). In 1871, with the foundation of the German Reich, the flag of the North German Confederation became the German Reichsflagge (Reich's flag). Black, white and red subsequently became the colors of the nationalists (e.g. during World War I and the Weimar Republic).

In his early years Hitler also greatly admired the United States of America. In Mein Kampf, he praised the United States for its race-based anti-immigration laws and for the subordination of the "inferior" black population. According to Hitler, America was a successful nation because it kept itself "pure" of "lesser races." However, as war approached, his view of the United States became more negative and he believed that Germany would have an easy victory over the United States precisely because the United States, in his later estimation, had become a mongrel nation, calling it "half Judaised, half Negrified".

Economic practice

Nazi economic practice concerned itself with immediate domestic issues and separately with ideological conceptions of international economics.

Domestic economic policy was narrowly concerned with three major goals:

• Elimination of unemployment
• Elimination of hyperinflation
• Expansion of production of consumer goods to improve middle- and lower-class living standards.

All of these policy goals were intended to address the perceived shortcomings of the Weimar Republic and to solidify domestic support for the party. In this, the party was very successful. Between 1933 and 1936 the German GNP increased by an average annual rate of 9.5 percent, and the rate for industry alone rose by 17.2 percent.

This expansion propelled the German economy out of a deep depression and into full employment in less than four years. Public consumption during the same period increased by 18.7%, while private consumption increased by 3.6% annually. However, as this production was primarily consumptive rather than productive (make-work projects, expansion of the war-fighting machine, initiation of conscription to remove working age males from the labor force), inflationary pressures began to rear their head again, although not to the highs of the Weimar Republic. These economic pressures, combined with the war-fighting machine created in the expansion (and concomitant pressures for its use), has led some to conclude that a European war was inevitable. (See Causes of war.)

Some economists argue that the expansion of the German economy between 1933 and 1936 was not the result of the Nazi party, but rather the consequence of economic policies of the prior Weimar Republic which had begun to have an effect. In addition, it has been pointed out that while it is often popularly believed that the Nazis ended hyperinflation, the end of hyperinflation preceded the Nazis by several years.

Internationally, the Nazi party believed that an international banking cabal was behind the global depression of the 1930s. The control of this cabal was identified with the ethnic group known as Jews, providing another link in their ideological motivation for the destruction of that group in the Holocaust. However, broadly speaking, the existence of large international banking or merchant banking organizations was well known at this time. Many of these banking organizations were able to exert influence upon nation states by extension or withholding of credit. This influence is not limited to the small states that preceded the creation of the German Empire as a nation state in the 1870s, but is noted in most major histories of all European powers from the 16th century onward.

It is important to note that the Nazi Party's conception of international economics was very limited. As the National Socialist in the name NSDAP suggests, the party's primary motivation was to incorporate previously international resources into the Reich by force, rather than by trade (compare to the international socialism as practiced by the Soviet Union and the COMECON trade organization). This made international economic theory a supporting factor in the political ideology rather than a core plank of the platform as it is in most modern political parties.

In an economic sense, Nazism and Fascism are related. Nazism shares many economic features with Fascism, featuring complete government control of finance and investment (allocation of credit), industry, and agriculture. Yet in both of these systems, corporate power and market based systems for providing price information still existed.

Rather than the state requiring goods from industrial enterprises and allocating raw materials required for their production (as in socialist/communist systems), the state paid for these goods. This allows price to play an essential role in providing information as to relative scarcity of materials, or the capital requirements in technology or labor (including education, as in skilled labor) inputs to produce a manufactured good. Additionally, the unionist (strictly speaking, syndicalist) veneer placed on corporate labor relations was another major point of agreement. Both the German and Italian fascist political parties began as unionist labor movements, and grew into totalitarian dictatorships. This idea was maintained throughout their time in power, with state control used as a means to eliminate the assumed conflict between management labor relations.

Effects

These theories were used to justify a totalitarian political agenda of racial hatred and suppression using all the means of the state, and suppressing dissent.

Like other fascist regimes, the Nazi regime emphasized anti-communism and the leader principle (Führerprinzip), a key element of fascist ideology in which the ruler is deemed to embody the political movement and the nation. Unlike other fascist ideologies, Nazism was virulently racist. Some of the manifestations of Nazi racism were:

• Anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust
• Ethnic nationalism, including the notion of Germanic people's status as the Herrenvolk ("master race") and Übermensch
• A belief in the need to purify the German race through eugenics - this culminated in the involuntary euthanasia of disabled people and the compulsory sterilization of people with mental deficiencies or illnesses perceived as hereditary

Anti-clericalism was also part of Nazi ideology, although it was never acted on as the Nazis often used the church to justify their stance and included many Christian symbols in the Third Reich.

Backlash effects

Perhaps the primary intellectual effect has been that Nazi doctrines discredited the attempt to use biology to explain or influence social issues, for at least two generations after Nazi Germany's brief existence.

The Nazi descendants have been mute in the post-war democracies, with some exceptions, when interviewed by psychologists and historians. In Norway, a group of descendants have taken the official stigmatizing appellation "Nazi children" in order to break the silence and to protest against the continuous demonization of their families. Some historical revisionists disseminate propaganda which minimizes the Holocaust and other Nazi acts, and attempts to put a positive spin on the policies of the Nazi regime and the events which occurred under it. These revisionists are often, however, either aligned with, or in the employ of, neo-Nazis, and this fact itself often casts suspicion on their beliefs.

People and history

File:Hitler walking out of Brown House after 1930 elections.jpg

Hitler walking out of Brown House after 1930 elections

The most prominent Nazi was Adolf Hitler, who ruled Nazi Germany from 30 January 1933 until his suicide on 30 April 1945, led the German Reich into World War II. Under Hitler, ethnic nationalism and racism were joined together through an ideology of militarism to serve his goals.

After the war, many prominent Nazis were convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials.

A few scattered people, mostly not from Germany, converted to Nazism during or after World War II and contributed to further development of the ideology, especially in a spiritual or esoteric direction: Savitri Devi of India, Miguel Serrano of Chile, George Lincoln Rockwell of the United States.

Nazism in relation to other concepts

See the article Nazism in relation to other concepts for Nazism's relation to:

• Religion
• Fascism
• Socialism
• Race

The role of the nation

File:CWswastika.png

Nazi sacred symbol – the swastika or gamma cross

The Nazi symbol is the right-facing swastika.

The Nazi state was founded upon a racially defined "German Volk". This is a central concept of Mein Kampf, symbolized by the motto Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer (one people, one empire, one leader). The Nazi relationship between the Volk and the state was called the Volksgemeinschaft—a concept that defined a communal duty of citizens in service to the Reich. The term "National Socialism," arguably derives from this citizen-nation relationship, whereby the term socialism is invoked (despite the fact that socialism is traditionally defined as "the public ownership over the means of production") and is meant to be realized through the communal duty of the Volk to the Reich or German nation, the collective cause for which production is presumably in service of. The Reich, in turn, was a virulently nationalist ideology, a tendency which decisively defined its organizational thrust and overall immediate and long-term aims. In practice, the Nazis argued, this notion served to bring forth a nation-state as the locus and embodiment of the people's collective will, bound by the Volksgemeinschaft as both an ideal and an operating instrument, geared to serve the interests of the German people.

In comparison, many socialist ideologies oppose the idea of nations, which they see as artificial divisions that support the status quo and oppression. They argue that one crucial consequence of national divisions is that they lead to wars of aggression, waged for the interest of the ruling class.

Factors which promoted the success of Nazism

An important question about National Socialism is that of which factors promoted its success, not only in Germany, but also in other European countries (in the 1930s and early 1940s Nazi-type movements could be found in Sweden, Britain, Italy, Spain and even in the US) in the twenties and thirties of the last century? These factors may have included:

• Economic devastation all over Europe after WWI
• Lack of orientation of many people after the breakdown of monarchy in many European countries.
• A perception that there was a disproportionate number of Jews in the German bourgeoisie (or upper class).
• Perceived Jewish involvement in war profiteering during WWI
• Appeal of socialism or socialist rhetoric to the German working class
• Humiliation of Germany at the Treaty of Versailles, and the widespread belief that the German military were not defeated on the battlefield but "stabbed in the back" by her politicians
• Rejection of Communism and the perception that Communism was Jewish-inspired and Jewish -led movements; hence the Nazi use of the term Judeo-Bolshevik
• The Wall Street Crash of 1929
• Hitler's choice of taking power through legal political means rather than a violent coup after the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch
• Massive socialist governmental programs

Nazi / Third Reich terminology in popular culture

The multiple atrocities and extremist ideology that the Nazis followed have made them notorious in popular discourse as well as history. The term "Nazi" has become a genericised term of abuse. So have other Third Reich terms like "Führer" (often spelled "fuhrer" or less often, but more correctly, "fuehrer" in English-speaking countries), "Fascist", "Gestapo" (short for Geheime Staatspolizei, or Secret State Police in English), "uber/ueber" (from Übermensch, superior person, Aryan as opposite to Untermensch) or "Hitler". The terms are used to describe any people or behaviours that are viewed as thuggish, overly authoritarian, or extremist.

In the context of the Western World, Nazi or fascist is also sometimes used by (generally Left-wing) opposition to malign political groups (such as the French Front National) advocating restrictive measures on immigration, or strong law enforcement powers. It is sometimes used by other left-wing groups and individuals in the United States and other countries as a type of insult, used broadly against anyone they perceive as disagreeing with their beliefs or opposed to them; conservatives or anyone who is not left-wing. Variations on this theme in the US can include calling someone a "goose-stepper" or a "brownshirt."

Critics of Israel have recently taken to using comparisons with the Nazis in describing its treatment of Palestinians, particularly with regards to Israel's separation barrier on the West Bank. Some regard this as anti-Semitic.

The terms are also used to describe anyone or anything seen as strict or doctrinaire. Phrases like "Grammar Nazi", "Feminazi", "Open Source Nazi", and "ubergeek" are examples of those in use in the USA. These uses are offensive to some, as the controversy in the popular press over the Seinfeld "Soup Nazi" episode indicates, but still the terms are used so frequently as to inspire "Godwin's law".

More innocent terms, like "fashion police", also bear some resemblance to Nazi terminology (Gestapo, Secret State Police) as well as references to Police states in general.

It can also be found that German-sounding or German-looking spellings of English words are used to claim superiority in some area, or to create some impression of power or brutality. For example, to give English words a German touch, the letter 'C' is often replaced by 'K', like "kool" or "kommandos". A well known example of "germanization" of names are the names of heavy metal bands like Mötley Crüe, or Motörhead. See Heavy metal umlaut.

Another similar effect can be observed in the usage of typefaces. Some people strongly associate the blackletter typefaces (e.g. fraktur or schwabacher) with Nazi propaganda (although the typeface is much older, and its usage, ironically, was banned by government order in 1941). A less strong association can be observed with the Futura typeface, which today is sometimes described as "germanic" and "muscular".

"Holy sites"

As, especially after World War II, Nazism became for many of its followers a spiritual path akin to a religion, it naturally had some sites of pilgrimage, which one might call "holy sites". Savitri Devi visited many of them during her pilgrimage in 1953.

• Berchtesgaden, home of the Berghof.
• Braunau am Inn, birthplace of Adolf Hitler.
• Feldherrnhalle, site of, the end of, the failed Munich Putsch
• Leonding, where the parents of Adolf Hitler were buried.
• Linz, where Hitler went to school.
• Landsberg am Lech, where Hitler was imprisoned.
• Nuremberg, site of the enormous Nazi rallies.
• Wewelsburg, headquarters of the SS.
• Wunsiedel, burial site of Rudolf Hess.

Devi also visited some sites, as part of her pilgrimage, not directly connected to Nazism, but of Germanic spiritual, or German national significance:

• Externsteine, pre-christian formation
• Hermannsdenkmal, statue of Germany's national hero Arminius the Cheruscan

Source: [1]

Related topics

File:Collinskokie.jpg

National Socialist Party of America leader Frank Collin (seated) announces the group's intention to march through Skokie, Illinois in 1977

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American Neo-Nazis in the news; a Dateline NBC report shows a Neo-Nazi rally in front of Capitol in Washington D.C. in 2004

• Glossary of the Third Reich
• History of Germany
• Social Darwinism
• Nazi Songs
• Nazi symbolism
• Nazi gold
• Consequences of German Nazism
• General Government
• Doublespeak (for a discussion of the semantic implications of words such as Nazi).
• Führerprinzip
• Nazi concentration camp badges
• Nuremberg Trials
• Mysticism in Nazi Germany
• Das Schwarze Korps

For earlier National Socialist movements which merged with Nazism see:

• Austrian National Socialism
• Czech National Socialism
• Nuremburg Party Rallies

For modern Nazism see:

• Nazi-Skinheads
• Neo-Nazism
• Neo-Nazi groups of the United States
• White Power

Bibliography

General

• Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris by Ian Kershaw ISBN 0393320359
• Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis by Ian Kershaw ISBN 0393322521
• The Meaning of Hitler (Not a scholarly reference but an analysis of Hitler's life) by Sebastian Haffner (Harvard University Press, originally published in German language in 1978. ISBN 0-674-55775-1)
• Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer (1969; in English 1970)

Primary sources

• Mein Kampf/My Struggle by Adolf Hitler ISBN 1410102033
• The Myth of the Twentieth Century: An Evaluation of the Spiritual-Intellectual Confrontations of Our Age by Alfred Rosenberg ISBN 0939482444

See also

• Japanese nationalism, Japanese Radical Right-Nationalist Local Ideology from the World War II era to the present days
• Polylogism

External links

• {http://www.shoaheducation.com/nazibeliefs.html Nazi Beliefs}
• Blind Obedience: Fuhrerprinzip and Befehlnotstand
• What Fascism Is & Isn't - with references to both Fascism and Nazism, explaining why they are not Leftist by Glen Yeadon
• "Hitler's Boyhood" - excerpt from contemporary Hitler biography about his boyhood
• German Propaganda Archive
• "The Source of Hitler's Success" - by Ludwig von Mises dated 1940
• Lithuanian National Socialist Party