Nazism Political Party

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.