Nazi Ideology and Government.
Ideology
What did the Nazis believe in:
- Nationalism
- Anti-Semitism
- Social-Darwinism
- Anti-Democracy – All powerful leader
- Lebensraum
- Anti-Capitalist
- Anti-Communist
Inspired By:
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Nietzsche – Wrote “A daring and ruler race is building itself up...the aim should be to prepare a new set of values for a particularly strong kind of man...this man and his elite around him will become ‘Lords of the Earth.’ Hitler saw himself and his party as the ‘superman’ that Nietzsche talked about. When Nieztsche talked about this ‘superman’ he envisioned no one special people, least of all the Germans, but to the ideologists of National Socialism the basic idea of this was so close to their own conception of the ideal German that they appropriated it without regard for the main tenants of Nietzsche’s writing. Nazi ideologists stole two basic ideas from Nietzsche to use in there own Weltanschauung, or ideology, 1) the concept of a superman and 2) contempt for Christianity.
“Nazi mythmakers utilised Nietzsche’s ideas out of context to bolster their own ideology.” Snyder. - The Teutonic Order – the Teutonic Knights of the Middle Ages struggled against slaves to get land in the east. Hitler and before him, Kaiser Wilhelm paid particular credit to their history.
- Social Darwinism – Had a profound and long lasting affect on the mind of Adolf Hitler. He expressed its ideas in his own, Mein Kampf, and he made it the theme of many of his speeches. The ideas were always the same, nature teaches us that it is governed by the principle of selection; victory goes to the strong; nature knows nothing of humanitarianism. Hitler at first used social Darwinism to intensify hatred for the Jews and eventually projected a Final Solution to eliminated the altogether.
- Hegal – believed that the State was everything. He also argued that ‘war was a great purifier – restoring the ethical health of the people.’ These ideas are clearly borrowed for the message of National Socialism.
- Treitschke – Professor of history at Berlin University stated that ‘war is not only a practical necessity...the concept of state implies the concept of war, for the essence of the state is power.” A Hegal follower, Treitschke’s work was read by Hitler and linked in nicely with his own feelings on the future of the state.
- Haushofer – his geopolitical theories were the backbone of Hitler’s belief in Lebensraum. Haushofer said that ‘The ruling master race itself was to be organised into an authoritarian pyramid, at the apex of which should stand an infallible leader. From the degenerate Slavs the Germans would wrest Lebensraum.’
