Nazi Ideology And The Nazi Party Essay

The beginning of the Nazi Party can be traced back to 1919, just a year after the end of World War 1. Beginning with a group of unemployed soldiers unhappy about the Treaty of Versailles, the group quickly spiraled into a mass movement. In 1921, a former army veteran by the name of Adolf Hitler joined the association and quickly became the group's leader. Hitler soon began gaining new members as he went throughout the country advocating anti-semitism ideas and the idea that Germany would continue to suffer, unless their was a total revolution of German life where Jews and communists were eliminated. His ideas caught the attention of many, especially young, economically disadvantaged Germans, as they saw this as a chance to gain more than they ever had

The Totalitarian Aspects of Nazi Germany The government of Nazi Germany was a fascist, totalitarian state. They ruled in Germany ever since Hitler became chancellor in 1933, to 1945. Totalitarianism was a form of government in which the state involves itself in all facts of society, including the daily life of its citizens. It penetrates and controls all aspects of public and private life, through the state's use of propaganda, terror and technology.

Hitler believed that propaganda from the allies was the main reason that the Germans lost during World War I and felt that this form of warfare needed to be a primary tool in modern warfare. He spoke of this belief in his book Mein Kampf well before the start of the second World War. Hitler felt that the public needed to be inundated with the ideology of the state at all times and through all mediums (Jowett and O'Donnell 2). "To do this," he said "everything from child's story-book to the last newspaper, every theater, every cinema and every advertisement must be brought into the service of this single mission" (qt. in Qualter ix). This onslaught of propaganda led to the Holocaust by leaving no other option open to the German people

Hitler’s rise to power was the result of many factors, but Hitler’s ability to take advantage of Germany’s poor leadership and economical and political conditions was the most significant factor. His ability to manipulate the media and the German public whilst taking advantage of Germany’s poor leadership resulted in both the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler and the nazi party. During the early 1920s, Germany was struggling with economic instability and political uncertainty. Germany, after being defeated in the Great War, was forced to sign the unforgiving treaty of Versailles, which the Weimar Republic was held responsible for. This brought forward feelings of fear, anger and

The Change of the Treatment of the Nazis from 1939-1945 On January 20th 1942 an important meeting took place where fifteen high-ranking Nazi party and governmental leaders gathered for an important meeting that lasted around 90 minutes. The meeting was known as the wannsee conference and the purpose was to discuss "the final solution". This involved many different strategies to help get rid of the Jews in Europe. After the conference the number of killings in the streets increased, deportation and mass murders escalated within a month of the conference taking place, all centers were ready for murder.

Nazi propaganda played an important role in the Holocaust, the extermination of millions based on race, religion, and ethnicity. It successfully secured the acquiescence of the general public to the crimes committed by the Nazis. The Nazi Party used their control of the media to fuel anti-Semitic belief and to persuade Germans to support the Nazi cause throughout the Holocaust and World War II.

Germany was believed to be the cause of World War one, which made other European countries want to severely hurt Germany’s military and economy so that Germany couldn’t achieve future aggressions. The peace treaty called the Treaty of Versailles did just that. On June 28, 1919, the major powers in Europe, other than Germany, negotiated Germany’s punishment for the war. Germany’s military was limited to 100,000 men, they lost many of their colonies, they were forced to disarm their troops from the Rhineland, and worst of all they were forced to pay for all of the destruction caused by the war, which totaled to about 40 billion dollars. The Treaty of Versailles crushed Germany; they were weak and desperate, until Nazi Germany came to power.

At the foundation of Nazi ideology is a strict adherence to the racial purification of the ‘Aryan race.’ Nazi propagandists and racial fanatics created ways to limit the rights of people who were deemed racially inferior; the majority of such policies focused on solving the ‘Jewish Problem.’ In an effort to increase pressures on the Jewish population of Europe, the Nazi regime imposed laws and edicts to remove any legal rights of Jewish citizens. In order to purify the German race, the Nazi regime went a step further and implemented legislation to separate the Jewish and Aryan populations; a separation of these groups would provide a quicker way to racial purification. In the mid-1930s, laws, like the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, were enacted to inhibit marriage and sexual relations between people of Jewish and Aryan descent. This particular law focuses on the purification of German blood, the Jewish-German marriage policy and the display of Reich symbols. Looking at its historical context, however, we see that this law is only a small piece of the Nazi policies focused on the persecution of Jews.

First of all, the Nazis used false information about Jewish people and utilized negative Jewish stereotypes to legitimize the horrific acts of violence during the Final Solution. The Nazis were evil towards the Jews. Movies, newspapers, and posters were only some of the ways anti-semitic messages were thrown out into the public. A newspaper called Der Sturmer pumped out stories devoted to showing Germans how dirty Jews were (Marcovitz 15). Things like “Jews are immoral, indecent, dishonest, ugly, fat, not human, cannibalistic”, and “Jews eat their children and drink their blood”, were common headlines (Marcovitz 15). Jews were not humans. They were on the same level as bugs and needed to be exterminated from Germany and all of Eastern Europe. Also, stereotypes from 100’s of years ago were still alive and well. Jews were tax collectors a long time ago, and some people still hated them for it. Some people could not let go of old derogatory lies and the Nazis loved this. Hate towards the Jews was stronger than kindness and the Nazis fed off of this. If people saw the propaganda and the heard old stereotypes, then maybe they would hop on board with the Nazis.

The Holocaust is most well-known for the organized and inhumane extermination of more than six million Jews. The death total of the Jews is this most staggering; however, other groups such as Gypsies, Poles, Russians, political groups, Jehovah’s witnesses, and homosexuals were targeted as well (Holocaust Encyclopedia: Introduction to the Holocaust). The initial idea of persecuting select groups of people began with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. In January 1930, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany after winning over its people with powerful and moving speeches. From this point forward, it was a goal for both Hitler and his Nazi Party to rid the world of deemed “inferior” groups of people (Holocaust Encyclopedia: Timeline

Two days after Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany, on the 3rd of September 1939, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation of neutrality and ordered the suspension of munitions sales to all “belligerents” (nations involved in war.) This included its “allies” the British and the French, as they were counted as “belligerent” nations.

The Nazi ideology did not just come out of nowhere. They give credit to the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, who was a peaceful nonbeliever in the overall ideology of religion. He thought that religion was not good, such as Christianity and Judaism equally. So why did the Nazi’s credit Nietzsche with the anti-Semitic views that their party valued? This was the common myth that Nietzsche’s philosophy gave the Nazi party their views about the Jews. Evidence shows that Nietzsche was actually not anti-Semitic at all and thought very highly of the Jews. It was people like his sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and his friend, Richard Wagner, who tried to support German Nationalism and agree with their ways. Looking back into Nietzsche’s upbringings and his works before he had a breakdown, you could see that what he believed in was the opposite of what the Nazi’s

In 1933 Adolf Hitler was chosen as Chancellor of Germany by president Paul von Hindenburg. With this, the Nazi party came to power. Originally called the National Socialist German Workers party (Nazi for short), the Nazi party emphasized how Laissez-faire capitalism, economic liberalism, and democracy failed in government. The National Socialists stressed the importance of the impeccability of the German race. Although they had very determined ideas, The Nazi party began as a relatively small group in 1918. But coming into the 1930’s this was not the case. The widespread use of propaganda and radio broadcasting were instrumental to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party.

In 1920, Hitler and Anton Drexler wrote the 25 points, explaining the main ideas of the party and the principles to bring Germany to his former glory. They were written to appeal to the Nationalists who believed that Germans were the superior race, socialists who wished to assist lower class people and most others who wanted restore Germany and blamed other such as the Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War 1. The points regarded the unification of Germany, self-determination gain back of land and expansions of settlements, destroying the treaty, anti-semitism, anti-foreigner, “member of the race” citizenship, no immigration, everyone must work, division of profits, extension of welfare for

Wailing comes from the room next to yours. Your used to the sound of young children’s cries, but this is something much different. You can hear the woman’s heart being wrenched out by the sound of her cries. Thoughts of kidnappers and other horrors flow through your mind as you stroke the child in your crib. It’s only a matter of time before that woman’s cries become a harmony for your own. That was the price you had to pay to make the new generation in Nazi Germany. They say the next generation is the future of the world. Imagine being offered to be part of that future generation, but knowing that in the process, you would be encouraged to take away the future of a different generation. Most people would say no, as your conscience has developed with freedom of thought and speech. But in Nazi Germany, some people didn’t know better. And those people were children. From a young age, even from the time they were born, these children were conditioned to think that this other generation, the Jews, was evil, and it was necessary to eradicate them. This is the epitome of Anti-Semitism, meaning a “hatred and suspicion of the Jews” (Laqueur 1). They were using children to enhance this ‘hatred’. Nursery Schools like the Lebensborn Project had Aryan women breed with Nazi soldiers to create “perfect” Aryan children. Past that, Anti-Semitic textbooks taught about the superiority of the Aryan race, and skewed the evolutionary ideas of Darwin. After all this it is no surprise these