Nazism is the ideology of extreme nationalism that occurred in Germany between 1933 and 1945. After the First World War, the Weimar Republic was proclaimed in Germany, so called because the democratic Constitution was approved in this city, by virtue of which, the previous government of the Kaiser or emperor was replaced by a president, elected for 7 years. The new president was the socialist worker Federico Ebert, elected in 1919, succeeded by Marshal Pablo Von Hindenburg.
1. Causes of Nazism.
During the new republican regime, an attempt was made to recover Germany from the ruin in which it found itself. However, the situation worsened. In this period the conditions for the emergence of Nazism were created. Those conditions were political, economic and social.
a. Political Conditions.
German right-wingers and nationalists accused the new government of having accepted the disastrous Treaty of Versailles .
On the other hand, the influence of the Russian revolution of 1917 caused a series of communist uprisings that were put down.
b. Economic conditions.
Germany was unable to pay the compensation for the war (33 million dollars), which was imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The value of the mark began to decline against the dollar, from 1/84 in March 1920 to 1/350,000 in July 1923. The economic depression of 1929, which affected the entire capitalist world, further accentuated the crisis. .
c. Social Conditions.
The impoverishment, ruin and unemployment of millions of German workers, generated a climate of growing discontent and intense social unrest.
2. Adolf Hitler, Leader of Nazism.
The German people attributed the failure to the democratic system and in these difficult circumstances National Socialism was born and strengthened. (Nazism), whose driver was Adolf Hitler.
Hitler was the son of an Austrian customs officer. He was born in Brau-nau on April 20, 1889. He lived darkly and miserably in Vienna and Munich. During the war he was wounded twice and was providentially saved from death, being promoted to corporal in the infantry:his qualities as an orator were extraordinary, despite his poor and scarce culture.
In 1919, he founded the Socialist German Workers' Party, known as the Nazi Party, in Bavaria . Due to its authoritarianism and violence to impose its ideas, generating fanaticism, the party was gaining supporters, becoming the strongest political organization in Germany.
On November 9, 1923 he organized a coup in Munich, with which he intended to start the national revolution in collaboration with other organizations with the same goal, like Mussolini's Fasci, they had marched on Rome, together with the nationalists and the help of the army. The movement stifled, Hitler was imprisoned in a fortress for several months, during which time he wrote the first volume of «My Struggle« (Mein Kampf), which contains the ideological foundations of his party. In 1925, he reorganized his party, which had been dissolved by the authorities after the failed coup.
Little by little, in the years to come, he was gaining followers. Thanks to the economic crisis that attracted millions of desperate Germans to his cause and to the expert organization and propaganda action that no other party could emulate; to its violence and dynamism; to the attack of the republican government; to the mobilization of the masses, in merit of which, Hitler obtained an amazing success. Precisely in 1934, on the death of President Hindenburg, he was designated as his successor, with the title of Führer (chief), achieving absolute and undisputed control of the entire country.
3. Hitler's doctrine.
The National Socialist German Workers' Party adopted as its symbol and flag the swastika, a swastika, placed within a white circle, surrounded by a red field. His doctrine is contained in the book "My Struggle" considered as the bible of National Socialism and whose basic ideas are:
a. The superiority of the Aryan race , which had been preserved pure only in Germany. This justified the superiority of the German people and their obligation to conquer the world.
b. The Aryan race must be purified in other towns as in France, and this could only be achieved by removing the Jewish blood, which had polluted and degraded it. Later he had experiences in concentration camps and in crematorium ovens.
c. How the German Aryans had been humiliated , by the inferior peoples, who had imposed the Treaty of Versailles , the regrouping of all Germans was necessary, in a great kingdom (Great Reich) and, for this purpose, the "vital space", flebensraum, had to be conquered.
d. The living space was conceived as a large territory outside of Germany , similar to the one they had 6 centuries ago, “enough for the next 100 years”, and submitted, in the form of a protectorate, to Germany. Within this "New Europe" the Scandinavian, Dutch, Flemish and British peoples would receive better treatment, because they spoke Germanic languages and had more Aryan blood.
4. Organization and Actions of Nazism
To put these ideas into practice, Nazism undertook the following actions:
a. The army was destined to serve only the National Socialist movement and, at the same time, it was quickly rearmed.
b. The governments of the different states were adjusted to the line of the movement and many of them lost the powers they had had for centuries.
c. They dissolved the unions and arrested their leaders. In its place, the “German Labor Front” was reestablished. , to whose entity all employers and employees had to affiliate. The aim was to preserve industrial peace and promote forms of social security.
d. All parties were dissolved:the Social Democrats, the Centrist, the People's Party and the Bavarian People's Party. The National Socialist party was recognized as the only party . Any attempt to organize a different party would be punished by imprisonment or other penalties. Germany was a one-party state .
and. Cultural life came to be controlled with the establishment of a national chamber of culture, which had sections for fine arts, music, theater, literature, radio, cinema, and the press. Anyone who carried out any of these activities was obliged to join, except Jews and enemies of the regime, who were thus deprived of their way of life.
F. People opposed to the regime could meet clandestinely in small groups, and even then they risked immediate arrest by the SS (Protection Squad) police force, and the Gestapo and their confinement in a concentration camp where horrific acts occurred that they were the most effective weapons of the dictatorship.