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The rise of nazism
The rise of nazism
Program of the national socialist german workers party
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From about 1920–1945, the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, commonly abbreviated Nazi, was a political party which held nationalist and racist ideologies. Emphasising a great deal on military and complete totalitarianism, the Nazi Party sent a wave of unrest through all of Europe. While the party ushered in what was thought to be a new Germany with its Third Reich, many Nazi values were questionable. With a lasting political impact, the Nazis caused quite the stir before, during, and after the second World War.
The party itself was formed from much smaller German groups that centered around socialist ideologies during the 1910’s. After World War I, two major political contenders were present in Germany: Nazism and Communism (Shirer 33-34). The Nazi movement, along with its small group supporters, rose out of Bolshevik resistance. Unsteady and untrusting Germans fearing Communist takeover turned to nationalist movements, mainly Nazism, as a bulwark against Bolshevism. The Russian Revolution of 1917 inspired many socialists to have interest in the new Marxism, and many adopted such revolutionary principles (Nazism.net). These early uprisings lead to a major behemoth of a party.
After Adolf Hitler’s release from prison in 1924, he managed to transform the Nazi party from a relatively loose organization to a political powerhouse, while making himself supreme ruler. The Wall Street Market crash of 1929 and subsequent world-wide economic depression brought Nazism the push forward it needed. Ridden with unemployment and a collapsed economy, Germans were hungry for a leader (Forman 53). Hitler’s Nazis were in perfect position to strike—and did just that. The nationalists were quick to find a scapegoat. Throwing the blame to ...
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...schools with the Hitler Youth program, established the Nuremberg Laws along with other programs promoting and enacting anti-semitism, and relentlessly punished those considered non-Aryan or impure. Nazism and Nazi Germany collapsed with the dramatic suicide of Hitler, but its clear impact remains quite visible on today’s society. Nazism will forever be kept in retrospect as the ultimate deadly concoction of racist and socialist ideals, all while respecting those defiled by the cruel acts of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party members.
Works Cited
Forman, James D. Nazism. New York: Franklin Watts, 1978. Print.
Koonz, Claudia. The Nazi Conscience. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003. Print.
Nazism.net. n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.
Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. Print.
The main political changes that the Nazi Party or the NSDAP endured during the period of November, 1923 until January 1933 was its rise from a small extreme right party to a major political force. It is vitally important that the reasons behind this rise to power also be examined, to explain why the NSDAP was able to rise to the top. However first a perspective on the Nazi party itself is necessary to account for the changing political fortunes of the Nazi Party.
In 1920 Hitler joined the National Socialist German Workers Party or the Nazi party. With his excellent speakin...
Gottfried, Ted, and Stephen Alcorn. Nazi Germany: The Face of Tyranny. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century, 2000. Print.
Hitler blamed the Jews for the evils of the world. He believed a democracy would lead to communism. Therefore, in Hitler’s eyes, a dictatorship was the only way to save Germany from the threats of communism and Jewish treason. The Program of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was the instrument for the Nazis to convince the German people to put Hitler into power. Point one of the document states, “We demand the union of all Germans in a great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.” 1 This point explicates the Nazi proposition that Germany will only contain German citizens and also, that these citizens would display his or her self-determination towards Germany to the fullest.
Benz, Wolfgang, A Concise History of the Third Reich (University of California Press, California; 2007)
Treitschke, Heinrich. “History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century and Historical and Political Writings.” The Human Record. By Alfred J. Andrea and James H. Overfield. Vol. 2. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2011. 2 vols. 292-295.
The National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly known as the Nazi party, originated during the 1920s. Formerly, the Nazi Party’s main purpose was to abolish communism. However, ...
t is 1919 in Germany. The Army's political department commands a young man named Adolf Hitler to investigate a group called the "German Workers' Party." Hitler ends up joining the group and takes over organization of the party's propaganda (Christy's sec. 15). The party is renamed the Nazi Party, and they adopt a flag with a swastika as their symbol. Hitler quits the army enabling him to devote more time to his party.
In the year 1929 their was a large depression in the country of Germany. This depression was made up of power struggle and economic distress. The people of Germany no longer trusted the democratic government that they once knew. This allowed Adolf Hitler, the great speaker that he was, to persuade the German people to bring him and his Nazi party into power. Adolf Hitler approached the German people speaking of nationalism which was very much needed after World War I. Not only did he need the...
The rise of National Socialism in post-WWI Germany is an understandable reaction to the problems of the Versailles Peace Treaty, considering the German attitudes and beliefs at the time. These attitudes and beliefs were the result of generations of Prussian militarism, extreme racist nationalism, and, most importantly, the failure of the Treaty of Versailles signed in June of 1919. The rise of the Nazi party, and their extremist National Socialist doctrine appealed directly to these attitudes and beliefs that permeated Germany society after the first World War.
The Web. 05 May 2014. The “History Learning Site”. Propaganda in Nazi Germany.
The main purpose of the book was to emphasize how far fear of Hitler’s power, motivation to create a powerful Germany, and loyalty to the cause took Germany during the Third Reich. During the Third Reich, Germany was able to successfully conquer all of Eastern Europe and many parts of Western Europe, mainly by incentive. Because of the peoples’ desires and aspirations to succeed, civilians and soldiers alike were equally willing to sacrifice luxuries and accept harsh realities for the fate of their country. Without that driving force, the Germans would have given up on Hitler and Nazism, believing their plan of a powerful Germany...
The debate as to whether Hitler was a ‘weak dictator’ or ‘Master of the Third Reich’ is one that has been contested by historians of Nazi Germany for many years and lies at the centre of the Intentionalist – Structuralist debate. On the one hand, historians such as Bullock, Bracher, Jackel and Hildebrand regard Hitler’s personality, ideology and will as the central locomotive in the Third Reich. Others, such as Broszat, Mason and Mommsen argue that the regime evolved out from pressures and circumstances rather than from Hitler’s intentions. They emphasise the institutional anarchy of the regime as being the result of Hitler’s ‘weak’ leadership. The most convincing standpoint is the synthesis of the two schools, which acknowledges both Hitler’s centrality in explaining the essence of Nazi rule but also external forces that influenced Hitler’s decision making. In this sense, Hitler was not a weak dictator as he possessed supreme authority but as Kershaw maintains, neither was he ‘Master of the Third Reich’ because he did not exercise unrestricted power.
Historians are often divided into categories in regard to dealing with Nazi Germany foreign policy and its relation to Hitler: 'intentionalist', and 'structuralist'. The intentionalist interpretation focuses on Hitler's own steerage of Nazi foreign policy in accordance with a clear, concise 'programme' planned long in advance. The 'structuralist' approach puts forth the idea that Hitler seized opportunities as they came, radicalizing the foreign policies of the Nazi regime in response. Structuralists reject the idea of a specific Hitlerian ideological 'programme', and instead argue for an emphasis on expansion no clear aims or objectives, and radicalized with the dynamism of the Nazi movement. With Nazi ideology and circumstances in Germany after World War I influencing Nazi foreign policy, the general goals this foreign policy prescribed to included revision of Versailles, the attainment of Lebensraum, or 'living space', and German racial domination. These foreign policy goals are seen through an examination of the actions the Nazi government took in response to events as they happened while in power, and also through Hitler's own ideology expressed in his writings such as Mein Kempf. This synthesis of ideology and social structure in Germany as the determinants of foreign policy therefore can be most appropriately approached by attributing Nazi foreign policy to a combination as both 'intentionalist' and 'structuralist' aims. Nazi foreign policy radicalized with their successes and was affected by Hitler pragmatically seizing opportunities to increase Nazi power, but also was based on early a consistent ideological programme espoused by Hitler from early on.
Manson, K J. Second Edition, Republic to Reich: A History of Germany 1918-1945, McGraw Hill 2003