In his book
The Hitler State (
Der Staat Hitlers), historian
Martin Broszat writes: ...National Socialism was not primarily an ideological and programmatic, but a
charismatic movement, whose ideology was incorporated in the Führer, Hitler, and which would have lost all its power to integrate without him. ... [T]he abstract, utopian and vague National Socialistic ideology only achieved what reality and certainty it had through the medium of Hitler. Thus, analysis of the ideology of Nazism is usually descriptive, as it was not generated from first principles, but was the result of numerous factors, including Hitler's personal views, parts of the
25-point plan, the general goals of the
völkische and nationalist movements, and conflicts between party functionaries who battled "to win [Hitler] over to their respective interpretations of [National Socialism]." Once the party had been purged of divergent influences such as
Strasserism, Hitler was accepted by its leadership as the "supreme authority to rule on ideological matters". Nazi ideology was based on a bio-geo-political "
Weltanschauung" (
worldview), advocating territorial expansionism to cultivate what it viewed as a "purified and homogeneous
Aryan population." Nazi regime policies were shaped by the integration of
biopolitics and
geopolitics within the
Hitlerian worldview, amalgamating spatial theory, practice, and imagination with biopolitics. In Hitlerism, the concepts of space and
race existed in tension, forming a distinct bio-geo-political framework at the core of the Nazi project. This ideology viewed German territorial conquests and extermination of those ethnic groups it dehumanised as "
untermensch" as part of a biopolitical process to establish an ideal German community.
Nationalism and racialism Nazism emphasised German nationalism, including
irredentism and
expansionism. Nazism held racial theories based upon a belief in the existence of an Aryan master race, superior to all other races. The Nazis emphasised the existence of conflict between the Aryan race and others—particularly Jews, whom the Nazis viewed as a mixed race that had infiltrated multiple societies and was responsible for exploitation and repression of the Aryan race. The Nazis also categorised
Slavs as
Untermensch (sub-human). Wolfgang Bialas argues the Nazis' sense of morality could be described as a form of procedural
virtue ethics, as it demanded
unconditional obedience to absolute virtues, with the attitude of social engineering and replaced common sense intuitions with an ideological catalogue of virtues and commands. The ideal Nazi new man was to be race-conscious, and an ideologically-dedicated warrior, who committed actions for the sake of the German race, while convinced he was acting morally. The Nazis believed an individual could only develop their capabilities and individual characteristics within the framework of the individual's racial membership; the race one belonged to determined whether or not one was worthy of moral care. The Christian concept of
self-denial was replaced with the idea of self-assertion towards those deemed inferior. Natural selection and the struggle for existence were declared by the Nazis to be the most divine laws; peoples and individuals deemed inferior were said to be incapable of surviving without those deemed superior, yet by doing so they imposed a burden on the superior. Natural selection was deemed to favour the strong over the weak and the Nazis deemed that protecting those declared inferior was preventing nature from taking its course; those incapable of asserting themselves were viewed as doomed to annihilation, with the right to life being granted only to those who could survive on their own.
Irredentism and expansionism from
central Poland, 1939 At the core of Nazi ideology was the bio-geo-political project to acquire
Lebensraum ("living space") through territorial conquests. The German Nazi Party supported German irredentist claims to Austria,
Alsace-Lorraine, the
Sudetenland, and the
Polish Corridor. A key policy of the German Nazi Party was
Lebensraum for the German nation based on claims Germany was facing an overpopulation crisis and expansion was needed to end overpopulation within existing territory, and provide resources necessary for its people's well-being. The party publicly promoted the expansion of Germany into territories held by the Soviet Union. In
Mein Kampf, Hitler stated that
Lebensraum would be acquired in Eastern Europe, especially Russia. In his early years as leader, Hitler claimed he would be willing to accept friendly relations with Russia on the tactical condition that Russia agree to return to the borders established by the German–Russian
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk from 1918, which gave large territories held by Russia to German control in exchange for peace. From 1921 to 1922, Hitler called for the achievement of
Lebensraum, involving a territorially-reduced Russia, as well as supporting
Russian nationalists in overthrowing the
Bolsheviks and establishing a new
White Russian government. Hitler planned for the "surplus" Russian population living west of the Urals to be deported to the east of them. Adam Tooze explains that Hitler believed Lebensraum was vital to securing American-style consumer affluence for the German people. In this light, Tooze argues that the view the regime faced a "
guns or butter" contrast is mistaken. While it is true that resources were diverted from civilian consumption to military production, Tooze explains that at a strategic level "guns were ultimately viewed as a means to obtaining more butter". While the Nazi pre-occupation with agrarian living and food production are often seen as a sign of their backwardness, Tooze explains this was in fact a driving issue in European society for at least the last two centuries. The issue of how European societies should respond to the new
global economy in food was a major issue facing Europe in the early 20th century. Agrarian life in Europe was incredibly common—in the early 1930s, over 9 million Germans (a third of the workforce) still worked in agriculture and many not working in it still had allotments or otherwise grew their food. Tooze estimates half the German population in the 1930s was living in towns and villages with populations under 20,000. Many in cities still had memories of rural-urban migration—Tooze thus explains that Nazis' obsession with agrarianism was not an atavistic gloss on a modern industrial nation, but a consequence of the fact that Nazism was the product of a society still in economic transition. '' (expansion of Germany east to the Ural Mountains), that is shown on the upper right side of the map as a brown diagonal line. The Nazis obsession with food production was a consequence of the First World War. While Europe was able to avert famine with international imports, blockades brought the issue of
food security back into politics, the
Allied blockade of Germany in and after World War I did not cause a famine, but chronic malnutrition killed about 600,000 people in Germany and Austria. The economic crises of the interwar period meant most Germans had memories of acute hunger. Thus Tooze concludes the Nazis' obsession with acquiring land was not a case of "turning back the clock", but a refusal to accept that the result of the distribution of land, resources and population, after the imperialist wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, should be accepted as final. While the victors of the First World War had suitable agricultural land to population ratios, large empires, or both, meaning the issue of living space was closed, the Nazis, knowing Germany lacked either, refused to accept Germany's place as a medium-sized workshop dependent on imported food. The conquest of
Lebensraum was an initial step towards the final Nazi goal of complete German global hegemony.
Rudolf Hess relayed to
Walter Hewel Hitler's belief that
world peace could only be acquired "when one power, the
racially best one, has attained uncontested supremacy". When this control would be achieved, this power could then set up for itself a world police and assure itself "the necessary living space. [...] The lower races will have to restrict themselves accordingly". It viewed Aryans as being in conflict with a mixed race people, the Jews, whom the Nazis identified as a dangerous enemy. It also viewed several other peoples as dangerous to the Aryan race. To preserve the perceived racial purity of the Aryans, race laws were introduced in 1935, known as the Nuremberg Laws. At first these prevented sexual relations and marriages between Germans and Jews, and later extended to the "
Gypsies,
Negroes, and their bastard offspring", who were described as of "alien blood". Such relations between Aryans (cf.
Aryan certificate) and non-Aryans were now punishable under the race laws as
Rassenschande or "race defilement". and blacks. To maintain the "purity and strength" of the Aryan race, the Nazis eventually sought to
exterminate Jews, Romani, Slavs and the
physically and
mentally disabled. The ideological justification for
euthanasia was Hitler's view of
Sparta as the original
völkisch state and he praised Sparta's dispassionate destruction of congenitally-deformed infants to maintain racial purity. The Nazis began to implement "racial hygiene" policies as soon as they came to power. The 1933 "
Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring" prescribed compulsory sterilisation for people with a range of conditions which were thought to be hereditary, such as
schizophrenia,
epilepsy,
Huntington's chorea and "
imbecility". Sterilization was also mandated for chronic
alcoholism and other forms of
social deviance. An estimated 360,000 people were sterilised between 1933-39. Although some Nazis suggested the programme should be extended to people with physical disabilities, such ideas had to be expressed carefully, given some Nazis had physical disabilities, such as Joseph Goebbels, who had a deformed right leg. '' envisaged the deportation, extermination, Germanization and enslavement of all or most
Poles,
Czechs,
Ukrainians,
Belarusians and
Russians. Nazi racial theorist
Hans F. K. Günther argued European peoples were divided into five races:
Nordic,
Mediterranean,
Dinaric,
Alpine and
East Baltic. Hitler read
Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes, which influenced his racial policy. Gunther believed Slavs belonged to an "Eastern race" and warned against Germans mixing with them. The Nazis described Jews as being a racially mixed group of primarily
Near Eastern and
Oriental racial types. Because such racial groups were concentrated outside Europe, the Nazis claimed Jews were "racially alien" to all European peoples and did not have deep racial roots in Europe. Hitler's conception of the Aryan
Herrenvolk (
master race) excluded most Slavs from Central and Eastern Europe. They were regarded as a race disinclined to a higher form of
civilisation, which was under an instinctive force that reverted them back to nature. The Nazis regarded Slavs as having dangerous Jewish and Asiatic, meaning
Mongol, influences. Because of this, the Nazis declared Slavs to be
Untermenschen ("subhumans"). Nazi anthropologists attempted to scientifically prove the historical admixture of the Slavs who lived further East and Günther regarded the Slavs as being primarily Nordic centuries ago, but had mixed with non-Nordics. Exceptions were made for a few Slavs who the Nazis saw as descended from German settlers and therefore fit to be Germanised and considered part of the Aryan master race. Hitler described Slavs as "a mass of born slaves who feel the need for a master". Himmler classified Slavs as "bestial
untermenschen" and Jews as the "decisive leader of the
Untermenschen". These ideas were fervently advocated through
Nazi propaganda, which indoctrinated many Germans. "
Der Untermenschen", a racist brochure published by the SS in 1942, is an infamous piece of
anti-Slavic propaganda. The Nazi notion of Slavs as inferior served as a legitimisation of their desire to create
Lebensraum, where millions of Germans would be moved into conquered territories, while the Slavic inhabitants were to be annihilated, removed or enslaved. Nazi Germany's policy changed towards Slavs in response to manpower shortages, forcing it to allow Slavs to serve in its military within the occupied territories, despite the fact they were considered "subhuman". Hitler declared racial conflict against Jews was necessary to save Germany from suffering under them, and he dismissed concerns: We may be inhumane, but if we rescue Germany we have achieved the greatest deed in the world. We may work injustice, but if we rescue Germany then we have removed the greatest injustice in the world. We may be immoral, but if our people is rescued we have opened the way for morality. Nazism rejected the Marxist concept of
class conflict, and it praised both German capitalists and German workers as essential to the
Volksgemeinschaft. Social classes would continue to exist, but there would be no conflict between them. Hitler said that "the capitalists have worked their way to the top through their capacity, and as the basis of this selection, which again only proves their higher race, they have a right to lead." German business leaders co-operated in the Nazi rise to power and received benefits from the Nazi state after it was established, including high profits and state-sanctioned monopolies. Celebrations and symbolism were used to encourage those engaged in physical labour, with leading National Socialists praising the "honour of labour", which fostered a sense of community (
Gemeinschaft) for the German people and promoted solidarity towards the Nazi cause. To win workers away from Marxism,
Nazi propaganda sometimes presented its expansionist foreign policy as a "class struggle between nations." In 1922, Hitler disparaged other nationalist and
racialist parties as disconnected from the populace, especially working-class young people: Nevertheless, the Nazis' voter base consisted mainly of farmers and the middle class, including groups such as Weimar government officials, teachers, doctors, clerks, self-employed businessmen, salesmen, retired officers, engineers, and students. Their demands included lower taxes, higher prices for food, restrictions on department stores and consumer co-operatives, and reductions in social services and wages. The need to maintain their support made it difficult for the Nazis to appeal to the working class, which often had opposite demands. From 1928, the Nazis' growth into a large political movement was dependent on middle class support, and on the public perception that it "promised to side with the middle classes and to confront the economic and political power of the working class." The financial collapse of the
white collar middle-class of the 1920s figured significantly in their support of Nazism. H.L. Ansbacher argues working-class soldiers had the most faith in Hitler out of any occupational group. The Nazis established a norm that every worker should be semi-skilled, which was not simply rhetorical. The number of men leaving school, to work as unskilled labourers, fell from 200,000 in 1934 to 30,000 in 1939. For many working-class families, the 1930s and 40s were a time of social mobility; not by moving into the middle class, but within the blue-collar skill hierarchy. The experience of workers varied considerably. Workers' wages did not increase much during Nazi rule, as the government feared wage-price inflation, and thus wage growth was limited. Prices for food and clothing rose, though costs for heating, rent and light decreased. Skilled workers were in shortage from 1936, meaning workers who engaged in vocational training could get higher wages. Benefits provided by the Labour Front were positively received, even if workers did not always believe propaganda about the
Volksgemeinschaft. Workers welcomed opportunities for employment after the harsh years of the Depression, creating a belief that the Nazis had removed the insecurity of unemployment. Workers who remained discontented risked the
Gestapo's informants. Ultimately, the Nazis faced a conflict between their rearmament program, which required sacrifices from workers (longer hours and a lower standard of living), versus a need to maintain the confidence of the working class. Hitler was sympathetic to the view that stressed taking further measures for rearmament, but did not fully implement them, to avoid alienating the working class. While the Nazis had substantial support amongst the middle-class, they often attacked traditional middle-class values and Hitler personally held contempt for them. This was because the traditional image of the middle class was one that was obsessed with status, material attainment and quiet, comfortable living, in opposition to the Nazi ideal of a New Man. The New Man was envisioned as a heroic figure who rejected a materialistic and private life, for a public life and pervasive sense of duty, willing to sacrifice everything for the nation. Despite the Nazis' contempt for these values, they were able to secure millions of middle-class votes. Hermann Beck argues that while some of the middle-class dismissed this as mere rhetoric, many others agreed with the Nazis. The defeat of 1918, and failures of Weimar, caused many middle-class Germans to question their own identity, thinking their values to be anachronisms and agreeing these were no longer viable. While this rhetoric would become less frequent after 1933, due to the increased emphasis on the
volksgemeinschaft, its ideas would not disappear until the Nazis' overthrow. The Nazis instead emphasised that the middle-class must become
staatsbürger, a publicly active and involved citizen, rather than a selfish, materialistic
spießbürger, only interested in private life.
Sex and gender Nazi ideology advocated excluding women from politics and confining them to the spheres of "
Kinder, Küche, Kirche" (Children, Kitchen, Church). Many women enthusiastically supported the regime, but formed internal hierarchies. Hitler's opinion was that while other eras of history had experienced the development and liberation of the female mind, the National Socialist goal was singular: it wished for them to produce children. Hitler remarked about women that "with every child that she brings into the world, she fights her battle for the nation. The man stands up for the
Volk, exactly as the woman stands up for the family". Proto-natalist programs offered favourable loans and grants to newlyweds, and encouraged them to give birth by providing additional incentives.
Contraception was discouraged for racially-valuable women and
abortion was forbidden by law, including prison for women who sought them, and doctors who performed them, whereas abortion for racially "undesirable" persons was encouraged. While unmarried until the end of the regime, Hitler often made excuses about his busy life hindering any chance for marriage. Among National Socialist ideologues, marriage was valued not for moral considerations, but because it provided an optimal breeding environment. Himmler reportedly told a confidant that when he established the
Lebensborn program, an organisation that would dramatically increase the birth rate of "Aryan" children through extramarital relations between women classified as racially pure and their male equals, he had only the purest male "conception assistants" in mind. Since the Nazis extended the
Rassenschande ("race defilement") law to all foreigners at the beginning of the war, pamphlets were issued to German women which ordered them to avoid sex with foreign workers brought to Germany and view these workers as a danger to their blood. Although the law was applicable to both genders, German women were punished more severely for having sex with foreign
forced labourers. The Nazis issued the
Polish decrees in March 1940 which contained regulations concerning the Polish forced labourers (
Zivilarbeiter) brought to Germany. One regulation stated that any Pole "who has sex...with a German man or woman, or approaches them in any other improper manner, will be punished by death". After the decrees were enacted, Himmler stated: The Nazis issued similar regulations against 'Eastern Workers'
(Ostarbeiter), including imposition of the death penalty if they engaged in sex with German persons. Heydrich issued a decree in 1942, which declared that: sex between a German woman and Russian worker or prisoner of war, would result in the Russian man being punished with death. Another decree stated any "unauthorised" sex would result in the death penalty. Because the
Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour did not permit capital punishment for race defilement, special courts were convened to allow the death penalty to be imposed. Women accused of race defilement were marched through the streets with their head shaven and placards detailing their crimes around their necks and those convicted of race defilement were sent to concentration camps. The
League of German Girls, the girls' wing of the Nazi party, instructed girls to avoid race defilement.
Transgender people
had a variety of experiences depending on whether they were considered "Aryan" or capable of useful work. Historians have noted transgender people were targeted by the Nazis through legislation and sent to concentration camps.
Opposition to homosexuality After the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler promoted Himmler and the SS, who then zealously suppressed homosexuality by saying: "We must exterminate these people root and branch ... the homosexual must be eliminated". In 1936, Himmler established the "
Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung der Homosexualität und Abtreibung" ("Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion"). As concentration camp prisoners, homosexual men were forced to wear
pink triangle badges.
Religion organisation celebrating Luther Day in Berlin in 1933. A speech is given by Bishop Hossenfelder. , the
Catholic Church's
nuncio to Germany The
Nazi Party Programme of 1920 guaranteed freedom for all religious denominations which were not hostile to the State and endorsed
Positive Christianity, in order to combat "the Jewish-materialist spirit". Hitler claimed the New Testament included distortions by
Paul the Apostle, who Hitler described as a "mass-murderer turned saint". Polish priests came en masse to Auschwitz. Catholic resistance groups like those around
Roman Karl Scholz were persecuted. While Catholic resistance was often anti-war and passive, there are examples of active combating National Socialism. The group around the priest
Heinrich Maier approached the American secret service and provided them with plans and location sketches of
V-2 rockets,
Tiger tanks,
Messerschmitt Bf 109 and
Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet and their production sites, so the Allies could successfully bomb them. After the war, their history was often forgotten, also because they acted against the express instructions of their church authorities.
Michael Burleigh claims Nazism used Christianity for political purposes, such use required that "fundamental tenets were stripped out, but the remaining diffuse religious emotionality had its uses". Nazi theorists and politicians blamed economic failures on political causes like the influence of Marxism on the workforce, the exploitative machinations of what they called international Jewry and the vindictiveness of western leaders'
reparation demands. Instead of traditional economic incentives, the Nazis offered political solutions, such as the elimination of
trade unions, rearmament and biological politics. Work programs designed to establish full employment for the population were instituted once the Nazis seized power. Hitler encouraged national projects like construction of the
Autobahn highway system and the introduction of an affordable 'people's car' (
Volkswagen). The Nazis also bolstered the economy through the business and employment generated by rearmament. They benefited from the first post-Depression upswing, and this combined with their public works projects, job-procurement and subsidised home repair programmes reduced unemployment by 40% in one year. This development tempered the unfavourable psychological climate caused by the economic crisis and encouraged Germans to march in step with the regime. Nazi economic policies were in many respects a continuation of those from the
German National People's Party, a
national-conservative party and the Nazis' coalition partner. While other capitalist countries strove for increased
state ownership of industry during this period, the Nazis transferred
public ownership into the
private sector and handed over some
public services to private organizations, mostly affiliated with the Party. It was an intentional policy with multiple objectives, rather than ideologically driven, and was used as a tool to enhance support for the government and party. According to
Richard Overy, the Nazi
war economy was a
mixed economy that combined
free markets with
central planning, and he described it as being somewhere between the
command economy of the USSR and the
capitalist system of the US. The Nazis continued the policies introduced by the conservative government of
Kurt von Schleicher in 1932 to combat the Depression. Upon being appointed Chancellor in 1933, Hitler appointed
Hjalmar Schacht, a former member of the
German Democratic Party, as President of the
Reichsbank and later Minister of Economics in 1934. Hitler's main priority was rearmament and buildup of the military in preparation for a war to conquer
Lebensraum in the East. The policies of Schacht created a scheme for deficit financing, in which capital projects were paid for with the issuance of promissory notes called
Mefo bills, which could be traded by companies with each other. This was particularly useful in allowing Germany to rearm because the Mefo bills were not
Reichsmarks and did not appear in the federal budget, so they helped conceal rearmament. Hitler said that "the future of Germany depends exclusively and only on the reconstruction of the Wehrmacht. All other tasks must cede precedence to the task of rearmament." This policy was implemented immediately, with military expenditures quickly growing larger than civilian work-creation programs. As early as June 1933, military spending for the year was budgeted to be three times larger than spending on civilian work-creation measures in 1932 and 1933 combined. Germany increased its military spending faster than any other state in peacetime, with military spending rising from 1 to 10 per cent of national income in the first two years of the regime. Eventually, it reached 75 per cent by 1944. In spite of their rhetoric condemning
big business prior to their rise to power, the Nazis quickly entered into a partnership with business from as early as February 1933. After his appointment as Chancellor but before gaining dictatorial powers, Hitler made a personal appeal to business leaders to help fund the Nazi Party for the crucial months to follow. He argued they should support establishing a dictatorship because "private enterprise cannot be maintained in the age of democracy" and because democracy would allegedly lead to communism. He promised to destroy the German left, including trade unions, without mention of anti-Jewish policies or foreign conquests. In the following weeks, the Party received contributions from 17 different business groups, the largest from
IG Farben and
Deutsche Bank. Adam Tooze writes that business leaders were "willing partners in the destruction of political pluralism in Germany". In exchange, owners and managers of businesses were granted unprecedented powers to control their workforce,
collective bargaining was abolished and wages frozen at a relatively low level. Profits rose rapidly, as did corporate investment. The Nazis privatised public properties and services, only increasing economic state control through regulations. Agrarian policies were important to the Nazis, as they corresponded not just to the economy, but their geopolitical conception of
Lebensraum. For Hitler, the acquisition of land and soil was important in moulding the economy. To tie farmers to their land, selling it was prohibited. Farm ownership remained private, but business monopoly rights were granted to marketing boards to control production and prices with a quota system. The Hereditary Farm Law of 1933 established a cartel structure under a government body known as the
Reichsnährstand (RNST) which determined "everything[,] from what seeds and fertilizers were used to how land was inherited". While economic progress had its role in appeasing Germans, the Nazis did not believe economic solutions were sufficient to thrust Germany onto the stage as a world power. The Nazis sought to secure an economic revival accompanied by massive military spending for rearmament, especially later through the implementation of the
Four Year Plan, which consolidated their rule and firmly secured a command relationship between the arms industry and government. Between 1933-39, military expenditures were upwards of 82 billion Reichsmarks and represented 23% of Germany's economy as the Nazis mobilised their people and economy for war.
Anti-communism The Nazis claimed that communism was dangerous to the well-being of nations because of its intention to dissolve
private property, its support of
class conflict, its aggression against the
middle class, its hostility towards small business and its
atheism. He believed "the notion of equality was a sin against nature." Nazism upheld the "natural inequality of men," including inequality between races and within races. The Nazi state aimed to advance those individuals with special talents or intelligence, so they could rule over the masses. Nazi ideology relied on elitism and the (leadership principle), arguing elite minorities should assume leadership over the majority, and be organised according to a "hierarchy of talent", with a single leader—the
Führer—at the top. The held that each member of the hierarchy owed absolute obedience to those above him and should hold absolute power over those below him. During the 1920s, Hitler urged disparate Nazi factions to unite in opposition to
Jewish Bolshevism. In 1930, Hitler said: "Our adopted term 'Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxist Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not". In the 1920s and early 1930s, Communists and Nazis fought each other in
street violence, with Nazi paramilitary organisations being opposed by the Communist
Red Front and
Anti-Fascist Action. After the beginning of the Depression, Communists and Nazis saw their share of the vote increase. While the Nazis formed alliances with other parties of the right, the Communists refused to form an alliance with the
Social Democratic Party of Germany, the largest party of the left. After the Nazis came to power, they banned the Communist Party under the allegation it was preparing for revolution and had caused the
Reichstag fire. Four thousand KPD officials were arrested in February 1933, and by the end of the year 130,000 communists had been sent to
Nazi concentration camps.
Views of capitalism The Nazis argued that
free-market capitalism damages nations due to
international finance and the dominance of disloyal big business, which they considered to be the product of Jewish influences. In
Mein Kampf, Hitler effectively supported
mercantilism in the belief that economic resources should be seized by force, as he believed that
Lebensraum would provide Germany with economically-valuable territories. While claiming to strive for autarky in propaganda, the Nazis crushed existing movements towards self-sufficiency and established extensive capital connections to ready for expansionist war and genocide in alliance with traditional business and
commerce elites. In spite of their anti-capitalist rhetoric in opposition to big business, the Nazis allied with business as soon as they had power by appealing to the fear of communism and promising to destroy the German left and trade unions, eventually purging both more radical and reactionary elements from the party in 1934. Goebbels was strongly opposed to capitalism and communism, viewing them as the "two great pillars of materialism" that were "part of the international Jewish conspiracy for world domination". Nevertheless, he wrote in his diary in 1925 that if he were forced to choose between them, "in the final analysis, it would be better for us to go down with Bolshevism than live in eternal slavery under capitalism". Different local leaders would even promote different political ideas in their units, including "nationalistic, socialistic, anti-Semitic, racist, völkisch, or conservative ideas." There was tension between the SA and Hitler, especially from 1930, as Hitler's "increasingly close association with industrial interests and traditional rightist forces" caused many in the SA to distrust him. The SA regarded Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 as a "first revolution" against the left, and some voices began arguing for a "second revolution" against the right. After engaging in violence against the left in 1933, Röhm's SA began attacks against individuals deemed to be associated with conservative reaction. Hitler saw Röhm's independent actions as violating and possibly threatening his leadership, as well as jeopardising the regime by alienating the conservative President von Hindenburg and the conservative-oriented army. This resulted in Hitler purging Röhm and other radical members of the SA in 1934, during the
Night of the Long Knives. The
Strasserists, led by brothers
Gregor and
Otto Strasser, were another anti-capitalist faction within the Nazis. Being close to Goebbels, they linked their antisemitism and authoritarianism to anti-capitalism. They opposed the
Führerprinzip and argued for a redistribution of wealth, desiring an alliance with the USSR. The group blamed Hitler for betraying the "socialist" part of Nazism, causing rising tensions between Hitler and the brothers. The brothers left the Nazi Party and founded the
Black Front in 1930. In 1933, Hitler banned their party, ending their influence. Gregor was assassinated in 1934 during the
Night of the Long Knives, while Otto fled the country. Hitler declared that "every activity and every need of every individual will be regulated by the collectivity represented by the party" and that "there are no longer any free realms in which the individual belongs to himself". A core objective of the Nazis was the establishment of a
totalitarian state which indoctrinated the population with
ultra-nationalist ideas and violently enforced its ideological worldview upon the society. Himmler justified the establishment of a repressive
police state, in which the security forces could exercise power arbitrarily, by claiming that national security and order should take precedence over the needs of the individual. In a speech in 1933,
Joseph Goebbels stated:"The revolution we have carried out is a total one. It has embraced all areas of public life and transformed them from below. It has completely changed and recast the relationship of people to each other, to the State, and to life itself. It was in fact the breakthrough of a fresh
world-view, which had fought for power in opposition for fourteen years to provide the basis for the German people to develop a new relationship with the State. What has been happening since 30 January is only the visible expression of this revolutionary process." According to
Hannah Arendt, Nazism had an allure as a totalitarian ideology because it helped Germany deal with the aftermath of the First World War and material suffering of the Depression, and brought to order the revolutionary unrest. Instead of the
plurality that existed in
democratic or
parliamentary states, Nazism as a totalitarian system promulgated "clear" solutions to the problems faced by Germany, levied support by de-legitimizing the former government of Weimar and provided a politico-biological pathway to a better future, free from uncertainty. It was the atomised and disaffected masses that Hitler and the party elite pointed in a particular direction and used propaganda to make them into ideological adherents, to bring Nazism to life. While the ideologues of Nazism,
much like those of Stalinism, abhorred democratic governance, their differences are substantial. They had similarly tyrannical leaders, state-controlled economies, repressive police structures, and a common thematic political construction. But they had opposing goals and worldviews, which made them radically different.
Carl Schmitt, a Nazi legal theorist, characterized the "
Führerprinzip" as the ideological foundation of Nazi Germany's "total state". In "
Staat, Bewegung, Volk" (1933), Schmitt wrote: "National Socialism does not think in abstractions and clichés. It is the enemy of all normative and functionalist ways of proceeding. It supports and cultivates every authentic substance of the people wherever it encounters it, in the countryside, in ethnic groups [
Stämme] or classes. It has created the hereditary farm law; saved the peasantry; purged the Civil Service of alien [
fremdgeartet] elements and thus re-stored it as a class. It has the courage to treat unequally what is unequal and enforce necessary differentiations." == Classification: Reactionary or Revolutionary ==