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The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party, was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party, existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremist German nationalist, racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against communist uprisings in post–World War I Germany. The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti–big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes. The party had little popular support until the Great Depression, when worsening living standards and widespread unemployment drove Germans into political extremism.
The German Labour Front was the national labour organization of the Nazi Party, which replaced the various independent trade unions in Germany during the process of Gleichschaltung or Nazification.
Diplomatic history deals with the history of international relations between states. Diplomatic history can be different from international relations in that the former can concern itself with the foreign policy of one state while the latter deals with relations between two or more states. Diplomatic history tends to be more concerned with the history of diplomacy, but international relations concern more with current events and creating a model intended to shed explanatory light on international politics.
Richard James Overy is a British historian who has published on the history of World War II and Nazi Germany. In 2007, as The Times editor of Complete History of the World, he chose the 50 key dates of world history.
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The causes of World War II have been given considerable attention by historians. The immediate precipitating event was the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany made by Britain and France, but many other prior events have been suggested as ultimate causes. Primary themes in historical analysis of the war's origins include the political takeover of Germany in 1933 by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party; Japanese militarism against China, which led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the Second Sino-Japanese War; Italian aggression against Ethiopia, which led to the Second Italo-Ethiopian War; Soviet Union desire to reconquer old territory of Russian Empire, which led to the Soviet invasion of Poland, the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, the occupation of the Baltic states and the Winter War.
As a political term, social imperialism is the political ideology of people, parties, or nations that are, according to Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, "socialist in words, imperialist in deeds". Some academics use this phrase to refer to governments that engage in imperialism meant to preserve the domestic social peace.
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Historians and other scholars disagree on the question of whether a specifically fascist type of economic policy can be said to exist. David Baker argues that there is an identifiable economic system in fascism that is distinct from those advocated by other ideologies, comprising essential characteristics that fascist nations shared. Payne, Paxton, Sternhell et al. argue that while fascist economies share some similarities, there is no distinctive form of fascist economic organization. Gerald Feldman and Timothy Mason argue that fascism is distinguished by an absence of coherent economic ideology and an absence of serious economic thinking. They state that the decisions taken by fascist leaders cannot be explained within a logical economic framework.
Nazi Germany was an overwhelmingly Christian nation. A census in May 1939, six years into the Nazi era after the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia into Germany, indicates that 54% of the population considered itself Protestant, 41% considered itself Catholic, 3.5% self-identified as Gottgläubig, and 1.5% as "atheist". Protestants were over-represented in the Nazi Party's membership and electorate, and Catholics were under-represented.
Like many other nations at the time, Germany suffered the economic effects of the Great Depression, with unemployment soaring after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he introduced policies aimed at improving the economy. The changes included privatization of state owned industries, import tariffs, and an attempt to achieve autarky. Weekly earnings increased by 19% in real terms from 1933 to 1939, but this was largely due to employees working longer hours, while the hourly wage rates remained close to the lowest levels reached during the Great Depression. In addition, reduced foreign trade meant rationing of consumer goods like poultry, fruit, and clothing for many Germans.
Historians, political scientists and philosophers have studied Nazism with a specific focus on its religious and pseudo-religious aspects. It has been debated whether Nazism would constitute a political religion, and there has also been research on the millenarian, messianic, and occult or esoteric aspects of Nazism.
Nazism, formally National Socialism, is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitler Fascism and Hitlerism. The later related term "neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War when the Third Reich collapsed.
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Footnotes
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Perry 1999, p. 780.
- 1 2 Blackbourn 1990, p. 3.
- 1 2 Nolan 1997, p. 244.
- ↑ Blackbourn 1990, p. 3; Perry 1999, p. 780.
- 1 2 Kershaw 2000, pp. 49–50.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kershaw 2000, p. 50.
- ↑ Kallis 2000, pp. 6–7.
- ↑ Kallis 2000, p. 7.
- 1 2 Kallis 2000, p. 165.
- 1 2 Kershaw 2000, p. 88.
- 1 2 Kallis 2000, pp. 165–166.
- ↑ Kallis 2000, p. 166.
- ↑ Kallis 2000, p. 151.
- 1 2 Mason & Overy 1997, p. 102.
- ↑ Overy 1999, pp. 117–118.
- ↑ Overy 1999, p. 108.
- ↑ Mason 1989, pp. 8–10.
- ↑ Mason 1989, pp. 12–15.
- ↑ Mason 1989, p. 18.
- ↑ Mason 1989, pp. 18–19.
- ↑ Mason 1993, p. 260.
Bibliography
- Blackbourn, David (1990). "Tim Mason". Past & Present (128): 3–6. doi:10.1093/past/128.1.3. ISSN 1477-464X. JSTOR 651006.
- Kallis, Aristotle (2000). Fascist Ideology. London: Routledge.
- Kershaw, Ian (2000). The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. London: Arnold.
- Mason, Tim (1989). "Intention and Explanation: A Current Controversy About the Interpretation of National Socialism". In Marrus, Michael R. (ed.). The Nazi Holocaust. Part 3: The "Final Solution"; The Implementation of Mass Murder. Vol. 1. Westport, Connecticut: Meckler. pp. 3–20.
- ——— (1993). "Whatever Happened to 'Fascism'?". In Childers, Thomas; Caplan, Jane (eds.). Reevaluating the Third Reich. New York: Holmes & Meier. pp. 253–263.
- Mason, Tim; Overy, R. J. (1997). "Debate: Germany, 'Domestic Crisis' and the War in 1939". In Finney, Patrick (ed.). The Origins of The Second World War. London: Arnold.
- Nolan, Mary (1997). "Tim Mason and German Fascism". History Workshop Journal (44): 243–248. doi:10.1093/hwj/1997.44.243. ISSN 1477-4569. JSTOR 4289531.
- Overy, Richard (1999). "Germany, 'Domestic Crisis' and War in 1939". In Leitz, Christian (ed.). The Third Reich. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Perry, Matt (1999). "Mason, Tim". In Boyd, Kelly (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing. Vol. 2. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing. pp. 780–781. doi: 10.4324/9780203825556 . ISBN 978-1-884964-33-6.
