Nazism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == Origins == {{see also|Early timeline of Nazism}} The historical roots of Nazism are to be found in various elements of European political culture which were in circulation in the intellectual capitals of the continent, what [[Joachim Fest]] called the "scrapheap of ideas" prevalent at the time.<ref>{{cite book| last = Fest| first = Joachim C.|author-link = Joachim Fest | title = Hitler| location = London| publisher = Weidenfeld & Nicolson| year = 1974| orig-year = 1973| isbn = 978-0-297-76755-8}}</ref>{{sfn|Broszat|1987|p=38}} In ''Hitler and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic'', historian [[Martin Broszat]] points out that <blockquote>[A]lmost all essential elements of ... Nazi ideology were to be found in the radical positions of ideological protest movements [in pre-1914 Germany]. These were: a virulent anti-Semitism, a blood-and-soil ideology, the notion of a master race, [and] the idea of territorial acquisition and settlement in the East. These ideas were embedded in a popular nationalism which was vigorously anti-modernist, anti-humanist and pseudo-religious.{{sfn|Broszat|1987|p=38}}</blockquote> Brought together, the result was an anti-intellectual and politically semi-illiterate ideology lacking cohesion, a product of mass culture which allowed its followers emotional attachment and offered a simplified and easily-digestible world-view based on a political mythology for the masses.{{sfn|Broszat|1987|p=38}} === Völkisch nationalism === {{Main|Völkisch nationalism}} {{See also|German Question|German nationalism|Pan-Germanism|Unification of Germany|Völkisch movement}} [[File:Johann Gottlieb Fichte.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]], considered one of the fathers of [[German nationalism]]]] Adolf Hitler himself along with other members of the [[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]] (German: ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'', NSDAP) in the [[Weimar Republic]] (1918â1933) were greatly influenced by several 19th- and early 20th-century thinkers and proponents of philosophical, onto-epistemic, and theoretical perspectives on [[ecological anthropology]], [[scientific racism]], [[Holism in science|holistic science]], and [[organicism]] regarding the constitution of [[complex systems]] and theorization of organic-racial societies.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harrington |first=Anne |year=2021 |title=Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler |chapter=Chapter Six: Life Science, Nazi Wholeness, and the "Machine" in Germany's Midst |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780691218083-009/pdf |location=[[Princeton, New Jersey]] |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |doi=10.1515/9780691218083-009 |page=175 |isbn=978-0-691-21808-3 |jstor=j.ctv14163kf.11 |s2cid=162490363 |quote=When Hans Shemm in 1935 declared National Socialism to be "politically applied biology," things began to look up, not only for [[Holism in science|holism]], but for the [[life sciences]] in general. After all, if the good National Socialist citizen was now seen as the man or woman who understood and revered what were called "Life's laws," then it seemed clear that the life scientists had a major role to play in defining a National Socialist educational program that would transmit the essence of these laws to every family in every village in the country. [...] So much seemed familiar: the calls among the [[Nazi Party|National Socialists]] to return to authentic "German" values and "ways of knowing," to "overcome" the materialism and mechanism of the "West" and the "Jewish-international lie" of scientific objectivity; the use of traditional ''volkisch'' tropes that spoke of the [[German people]] (''Volk'') as a mystical, pseudobiological whole and the state as an "organism" in which the individual was subsumed in the whole ("You are nothing, your Volk is everything"); the condemnation of [[Jews]] as an alien force representing chaos, mechanism, and inauthenticity. [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] himself had even used the stock imagery of conservative holism in ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' when he spoke of the democratic state as "a dead mechanism which only lays claim to existence for its own sake" and contrasted this with his vision of statehood for Germany in which "there must be formed a living organism with the exclusive aim of serving a higher idea."}}</ref><ref name="Deichmann 2020">{{cite journal |last=Deichmann |first=Ute |date=2020 |title=Science and political ideology: The example of Nazi Germany |url=https://www.redalyc.org/journal/5117/511767145001/html/ |journal=MĂštode Science Studies Journal |publisher=[[Universitat de ValĂšncia]] |volume=10 |issue=Science and Nazism. The unconfessed collaboration of scientists with National Socialism |pages=129â137 |doi=10.7203/metode.10.13657 |issn=2174-9221 |s2cid=203335127 |quote=Although in their basic framework [[Nazi racial theories|Nazi anti-Semitic and racist ideology]] and [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|policies]] were not grounded in science, scientists not only supported them in various ways, but also took advantage of them, for example by using the new possibilities of unethical experimentation in humans that these ideologies provided. Scientistsâ complicity with Nazi ideology and politics does, however, not mean that all sciences in [[Nazi Germany]] were ideologically tainted. I argue, rather, that despite the fact that some areas of science continued at high levels, science in Nazi Germany was most negatively affected not by the imposition of Nazi ideology on the conduct of science but by the enactment of legal measures that ensured the [[Racial segregation#Nazi Germany|expulsion of Jewish scientists]]. The [[anti-Semitism]] of young faculty and students was particularly virulent. Moreover, I show that scientists supported Nazi ideologies and policies not only through so-called reductionist science such as [[Nazi eugenics|eugenics and race-hygiene]], but also by promoting organicist and holistic ideologies of the racial state. [...] The ideology of leading Nazi party ideologues was strongly influenced by the [[Völkisch movement|Volkish movement]] which, in the wake of the writings of philosopher [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]] and other nineteenth century authors, promoted the idea of ''Volk'' (people) as an organic unity. They did not base their virulent anti-Semitism and racism on anthropological concepts.|doi-access=free |hdl=10550/89369 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Anker |first=Peder |year=2021 |title=Imperial Ecology: Environmental Order in the British Empire, 1895â1945 |chapter=The Politics of Holism, Ecology, and Human Rights |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.4159/9780674020221-008/pdf |location=[[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] and [[London]] |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |doi=10.4159/9780674020221-008 |page=157 |isbn=978-0-674-02022-1 |s2cid=142173094 |quote=The paradoxical character of the politics of holism is the theme of this chapter, which focuses on the mutually shaping relationship between [[John William Bews]], [[J. F. V. Phillips|John Phillips]], and the [[White South Africans|South African]] politician [[Jan Christian Smuts]]. Smuts was a promoter of international peace and understanding through the League of Nations, but also a defender of [[Racial discrimination|racial suppression]] and [[white supremacy]] in his own country. His politics, I will argue, were fully consistent with his holistic philosophy of science. Smuts was guided by the efforts of ecologists such as Bews and Phillips, who provided him with a day-to-day update of the latest advances in scientific knowledge of natural laws governing ''[[Homo sapiens]]''. A substantial part of this chapter will thus return to their research on human ecology to explore the mutual field of inspiration linking them and Smuts. Two aspects of this human ecological research were particularly important: the human gradualism or ecological âsuccessionâ of human personalities researched by Bews, and the concept of an ecological biotic community explored by Phillips. Smuts transformed this research into a policy of racial gradualism that respected local ways of life in different (biotic) communities, a policy he tried to morally sanctify and promote as author of the famous [[Preamble to the United Nations Charter|1945 Preamble of the United Nation Charter]] about human rights.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-last=Scheid |author-first=Volker |date=June 2016 |chapter=Chapter 3: Holism, Chinese Medicine, and Systems Ideologies: Rewriting the Past to Imagine the Future |chapter-url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK379258/ |editor1-last=Whitehead |editor1-first=A. |editor2-last=Woods |editor2-first=A. |editor3-last=Atkinson |editor3-first=S. |editor4-last=Macnaughton |editor4-first=J. |editor5-last=Richards |editor5-first=J. |title=The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities |volume=1 |location=[[Edinburgh]] |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] |doi=10.3366/edinburgh/9781474400046.003.0003 |isbn=978-1-4744-0004-6 |id=Bookshelf ID:NBK379258 |s2cid=13333626 |url=https://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=fulltext&uiLanguage=en&rid=27082 |via=[[NCBI]] |quote='''Common Roots: Holism Before and During the Interwar Years''': This chapter cannot explore in detail the complex entanglements between these different notions of holism, or how they reflect Germany's troubled path towards modernity. My starting point, instead, is the [[Interwar period|interwar years]]. By then, holism had become an important resource for people across Europe, the US and beyondâbut once again specifically in Germanyâfor dealing with what [[Max Weber]], in 1918, had famously analysed as a widely felt [[disenchantment]] with the [[Modern era|modern world]]. The very word âholismâ (as opposed to ideas or practices designated as such today), as well as related words like âemergenceâ or âorganicismâ, date from this time. It was coined in 1926 by Jan Smuts to describe a perceived tendency of evolutionary processes towards the formation of wholes, granting these wholes a special onto-epistemic significance that parts lack. This was cultural holism now underpinned by evolutionary science and deployed by Smuts not only as a tool for grasping the coming into being of the world but also as an ideological justification for the development of [[Apartheid]] in [[South Africa]]. In [[Weimar Germany]] and then [[Nazi Germany|under Nazism]], holistic science became a mainstream academic endeavour, once more intermingling cultural politics and serious scientific research. Holistic perspectives also became popular in the interwar years among academics and the wider public throughout the UK and US. In France, it was associated with [[Vitalism|vitalist philosophies]] and the emergence of neo-Hippocratic thinking in medicine, manifesting the unease many people felt about the shifts that biomedicine was undergoing at the time.}}</ref> In particular, one of the most significant ideological influences on the Nazis was the 19th-century [[German nationalism|German nationalist]] philosopher [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]], whose works had served as an inspiration to Hitler and other Nazi Party members, and whose ideas were implemented among the philosophical and ideological foundations of Nazi-oriented [[Völkisch nationalism|''Völkisch'' nationalism]].<ref name="Deichmann 2020"/> Fichte's works served as an inspiration to Hitler and other Nazi Party members, including [[Dietrich Eckart]] and [[Arnold Fanck]].<ref name="Deichmann 2020"/>{{sfn|Ryback|2010|pp=129â130}} In ''Speeches to the German Nation'' (1808), written amid the [[First French Empire]]'s occupation of Berlin during the [[Napoleonic Wars]], Fichte called for a German national revolution against the [[French Imperial Army (1804â1815)|French Imperial Army]] occupiers, making passionate public speeches, arming his students for battle against the French and stressing the need for action by the German nation so it could free itself.{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=129}} Fichte's German nationalism was populist and opposed to traditional elites, spoke of the need for a "People's War" (''Volkskrieg'') and put forth concepts similar to those which the Nazis adopted.{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=129}} Fichte promoted German [[exceptionalism]] and stressed the need for the German nation to purify itself (including purging the [[German language]] of French words, a policy that the Nazis undertook upon their rise to power).{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=129}} Another important figure in pre-Nazi ''völkisch'' thinking was [[Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl]], whose workâ''Land und Leute'' (''Land and People'', written between 1857 and 1863)âcollectively tied the organic German Volk to its native landscape and nature, a pairing which stood in stark opposition to the mechanical and materialistic civilisation which was then developing as a result of [[industrialisation]].<ref>George L. Mosse, ''The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich'' (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1964), pp. 19â23.</ref> Geographers [[Friedrich Ratzel]] and [[Karl Haushofer]] borrowed from Riehl's work as did Nazi ideologues Alfred Rosenberg and [[Paul Schultze-Naumburg]], both of whom employed some of Riehl's philosophy in arguing that "each nation-state was an organism that required a particular living space in order to survive".<ref>Thomas Lekan and Thomas Zeller, "Introduction: The Landscape of German Environmental History", in ''Germany's Nature: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental History'', edited by Thomas Lekan and Thomas Zeller (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), p. 3.</ref> Riehl's influence is overtly discernible in the ''[[Blut und Boden]]'' (''Blood and Soil'') philosophy introduced by [[Oswald Spengler]], which the Nazi agriculturalist Walther DarrĂ© and other prominent Nazis adopted.<ref>The Nazi concept of ''[[Lebensraum]]'' has connections with this idea, with German farmers being rooted to their soil, needing more of it for the expansion of the German Volkâwhereas the Jew is precisely the opposite, nomadic and urban by nature. See: Roderick Stackelberg, ''The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany'' (New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 259.</ref><ref>Additional evidence of Riehl's legacy can be seen in the Riehl Prize, ''Die Volkskunde als Wissenschaft'' (Folklore as Science) which was awarded in 1935 by the Nazis. See: George L. Mosse, ''The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich'' (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1964), p. 23. Applicants for the Riehl prize had stipulations that included only being of Aryan blood, and no evidence of membership in any Marxist parties or any organisation that stood against National Socialism. See: Hermann Stroback, "Folklore and Fascism before and around 1933," in ''The Nazification of an Academic Discipline: Folklore in the Third Reich'', edited by James R Dow and Hannjost Lixfeld (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 62â63.</ref> ''Völkisch'' nationalism denounced soulless [[materialism]], [[individualism]] and [[secularised]] [[Urban area|urban]] industrial society, while advocating a "superior" society based on ethnic German "folk" culture and German "blood".<ref name="encyclopedia7" /> It denounced foreigners and foreign ideas and declared that Jews, [[Freemasonry|Freemasons]] and others were "traitors to the nation" and unworthy of inclusion.<ref name="constructing"/> ''Völkisch'' nationalism saw the world in terms of [[natural law]] and [[romanticism]] and it viewed societies as organic, extolling the virtues of [[rural]] life, condemning the neglect of tradition and the decay of morals, denounced the destruction of the natural environment and condemned "cosmopolitan" cultures such as Jews and Romani.<ref name="Jonathan Olsen 1999, p. 62"/> The first party that attempted to combine nationalism and socialism was the [[German Workers' Party (Austria-Hungary)|(Austria-Hungary) German Workers' Party]], which predominantly aimed to solve the conflict between the Austrian Germans and the Czechs in the multi-ethnic [[Austrian Empire]], then part of [[Austria-Hungary]].<ref>Andrew Gladding Whiteside, Austrian National Socialism before 1918, (1962), pp. 1â3</ref> In 1896 the German politician Friedrich Naumann formed the National-Social Association which aimed to combine German nationalism and a non-Marxist form of socialism together; the attempt turned out to be futile and the idea of linking nationalism with socialism quickly became equated with antisemites, extreme German nationalists and the ''völkisch'' movement in general.{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|p=135}} [[File:VonSchoenerer.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Georg Ritter von Schönerer]], a major exponent of Pan-Germanism in Austria]] During the era of the [[German Empire]], ''völkisch'' nationalism was overshadowed by both Prussian patriotism and the federalist tradition of its various component states.<ref name="Nina Witoszek 2002. pp. 89-90"/> The events of World War I, including the end of the Prussian monarchy in Germany, resulted in a surge of revolutionary ''völkisch'' nationalism.<ref name="witoszek"/> The Nazis supported such revolutionary ''völkisch'' nationalist policies<ref name="Nina Witoszek 2002. pp. 89-90"/> and they claimed that their ideology was influenced by the leadership and policies of [[Chancellor of Germany|German Chancellor]] [[Otto von Bismarck]], who was instrumental in founding the German Empire.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|p=150}} The Nazis declared that they were dedicated to continuing the process of creating a unified German [[nation state]] that Bismarck had begun and desired to achieve.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|p=149}} While Hitler was supportive of Bismarck's creation of the German Empire, he was critical of Bismarck's moderate domestic policies.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|p=54}} On the issue of Bismarck's support of a ''[[Kleindeutschland]]'' ("Lesser Germany", excluding Austria) versus the Pan-German ''[[German question#Later influence|GroĂdeutschland]]'' ("Greater Germany") which the Nazis advocated, Hitler stated that Bismarck's attainment of ''Kleindeutschland'' was the "highest achievement" Bismarck could have achieved "within the limits possible at that time".{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|pp=54, 131}} In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler presented himself as a "second Bismarck".{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|p=131}} During his youth in Austria, Hitler was politically influenced by Austrian Pan-Germanist proponent [[Georg Ritter von Schönerer]], who advocated radical [[German nationalism in Austria|German nationalism]], antisemitism, [[anti-Catholicism]], [[anti-Slavic sentiment]] and anti-Habsburg views.<ref name="nicholls236237"/> From von Schönerer and his followers, Hitler adopted for the Nazi movement the ''Heil'' greeting, the ''FĂŒhrer'' title and the model of absolute party leadership.<ref name="nicholls236237"/> Hitler was also impressed by the [[Populism|populist]] antisemitism and the anti-liberal bourgeois agitation of [[Karl Lueger]], who as the mayor of Vienna during Hitler's time in the city used a rabble-rousing style of oratory that appealed to the wider masses.<ref name="nicholls159160"/> Unlike von Schönerer, Lueger was not a German nationalist and instead was a pro-Catholic Habsburg supporter and only used German nationalist notions occasionally for his own agenda.<ref name="nicholls159160"/> Although Hitler praised both Lueger and Schönerer, he criticised the former for not applying a racial doctrine against the Jews and Slavs.<ref>{{cite book|author=Brigitte Hamann|title=Hitler's Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man|year=2010|publisher=Tauris Parke Paperbacks|isbn=978-1-84885-277-8|page=302}}</ref> === Racial theories and antisemitism === {{main|Nazism and race}} [[File:Arthur de Gobineau.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Arthur de Gobineau]], one of the key inventors of the theory of the "[[Aryan race]]"]] The concept of the [[Aryan race]], which the Nazis promoted, stems from racial theories asserting that Europeans are the descendants of Indo-Iranian settlers, people of ancient [[India]] and ancient [[Iran|Persia]].<ref name="autogenerated6"/> Proponents of this theory based their assertion on the fact that words in European languages and words in Indo-Iranian languages have similar pronunciations and meanings.<ref name=autogenerated6 /> [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] argued that the Germanic peoples held close racial connections to the ancient Indians and the ancient Persians, who he claimed were advanced peoples that possessed a great capacity for wisdom, nobility, restraint and science.<ref name=autogenerated6/> Contemporaries of Herder used the concept of the Aryan race to draw a distinction between what they deemed to be "high and noble" Aryan culture versus that of "parasitic" Semitic culture.<ref name=autogenerated6/> Notions of [[white supremacy]] and Aryan racial superiority were combined in the 19th century, with white supremacists maintaining the belief that certain groups of [[white people]] were members of an Aryan "master race" that is superior to other races and particularly superior to the Semitic race, which they associated with "cultural sterility".<ref name=autogenerated6 /> [[Arthur de Gobineau]], a French racial theorist and aristocrat, blamed the fall of the ''[[ancien rĂ©gime]]'' in France on racial degeneracy caused by [[Miscegenation|racial intermixing]], which he argued had destroyed the purity of the Aryan race, a term which he only reserved for Germanic people.<ref name="autogenerated8"/><ref>A. J. Woodman. ''The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus'', 2009, p. 294: "The white race was defined as beautiful, honourable and destined to rule; within it the Aryans are '{{lang|fr|cette illustre famille humaine, la plus noble}}'." Originally a linguistic term synonymous with Indo-European, '[[Aryan]]' became, not least because of the Essai, the designation of a race, which Gobineau specified was 'la race germanique'</ref> Gobineau's theories, which attracted a strong following in Germany,<ref name=autogenerated8 /> emphasised the existence of an irreconcilable [[polarity in international relations|polarity]] between Aryan ([[Germanic culture|Germanic]]) and [[Jewish culture]]s.<ref name=autogenerated6/> [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 119-1600-06, Houston Stewart Chamberlain.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]], whose book ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' would prove to be a seminal work in the history of German nationalism]] Aryan [[mysticism]] claimed that [[Christianity]] originated in Aryan religious traditions, and that Jews had usurped the legend from Aryans.<ref name=autogenerated6 /> [[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]], an English-born German proponent of racial theory, supported notions of Germanic supremacy and antisemitism in Germany.<ref name="autogenerated8"/> Chamberlain's work, ''[[The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century]]'' (1899), praised Germanic peoples for their creativity and idealism while asserting that the Germanic spirit was threatened by a "Jewish" spirit of selfishness and [[materialism]].<ref name=autogenerated8 /> Chamberlain used his thesis to promote [[Monarchism|monarchical]] [[conservatism]] while denouncing [[democracy]], [[liberalism]] and [[socialism]].<ref name=autogenerated8 /> The book became popular, especially in Germany.<ref name=autogenerated8 /> Chamberlain stressed a nation's need to maintain its racial purity in order to prevent its degeneration and argued that racial intermingling with Jews should never be permitted.<ref name=autogenerated8 /> In 1923, Chamberlain met Hitler, whom he admired as a leader of the rebirth of the free spirit.<ref name="encyclopedia9"/> [[Madison Grant]]'s work ''[[The Passing of the Great Race]]'' (1916) advocated [[Nordicism]] and proposed that a [[eugenics]] program should be implemented in order to preserve the purity of the Nordic race. After reading the book, Hitler called it "my Bible".<ref>{{cite book |author=Stefan KĂŒhl|title=Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism|year=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-514978-4}}</ref> In Germany, the belief that Jews were economically exploiting Germans became prominent due to the ascendancy of many wealthy Jews into prominent positions upon the [[unification of Germany]] in 1871.<ref name="Brustein207">William Brustein. ''Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust''. Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 207.</ref> From 1871 to the early 20th century, German Jews were overrepresented in Germany's upper and middle classes while they were underrepresented in Germany's lower classes, particularly in the fields of agricultural and industrial labour.<ref name="Brustein210"/> German Jewish financiers and bankers played a key role in fostering Germany's economic growth from 1871 to 1913 and they benefited enormously from this boom. In 1908, amongst the twenty-nine wealthiest German families with aggregate fortunes of up to 55 million marks at the time, five were Jewish and the [[Rothschild family|Rothschilds]] were the second wealthiest German family.<ref>William Brustein. ''Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust''. Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 207, 209.</ref> The predominance of Jews in Germany's banking, commerce and industry sectors during this time period was very high, even though Jews were estimated to account for only 1% of the population of Germany.<ref name="Brustein207"/> The overrepresentation of Jews in these areas fuelled resentment among non-Jewish Germans during periods of economic crisis.<ref name="Brustein210">Brustein, 2003, p. 210.</ref> The 1873 stock market crash and the ensuing depression resulted in a spate of attacks on alleged Jewish economic dominance in Germany and antisemitism increased.<ref name="Brustein210" /> During this time period, in the 1870s, German [[Völkisch movement|''völkisch'' nationalism]] began to adopt antisemitic and racist themes and it was also adopted by a number of radical right political movements.<ref name="witoszek10" /> Radical antisemitism was promoted by prominent advocates of ''völkisch'' nationalism, including [[Eugen Diederichs]], [[Paul de Lagarde]] and [[Julius Langbehn]].<ref name="Jonathan Olsen 1999, p. 62"/> De Lagarde called the Jews a "[[bacillus]], the carriers of decay ... who pollute every national culture ... and destroy all faiths with their materialistic liberalism" and he called for the extermination of the Jews.<ref name="Jack Fischel 1998, p. 5"/> Langbehn called for a war of annihilation against the Jews, and his genocidal policies were later published by the Nazis and given to soldiers on the front during [[World War II]].<ref name="Jack Fischel 1998, p. 5"/> One antisemitic ideologue of the period, [[Friedrich Lange (journalist)|Friedrich Lange]], even used the term "National Socialism" to describe his own anti-capitalist take on the ''völkisch'' nationalist template.<ref>[[Philip Rees]], ''[[Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890]]'', Simon & Schuster, 1990, p. 220</ref> Johann Gottlieb Fichte accused Jews in Germany of having been and inevitably of continuing to be a "state within a state" that threatened German national unity.{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=129}} Fichte promoted two options in order to address this, his first one being the creation of a Jewish state in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] so the Jews could be impelled to leave Europe.{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=130}} His second option was violence against Jews and he said that the goal of the violence would be "to cut off all their heads in one night, and set new ones on their shoulders, which should not contain a single Jewish idea".{{sfn|Ryback|2010|p=130}} ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'' (1912) is an antisemitic forgery created by the secret service of the [[Russian Empire]], the [[Okhrana]]. Many antisemites believed it was real and thus it became widely popular after World War I.<ref name="stackelberg"/> ''The Protocols'' claimed that there was a secret international Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.<ref name="kershaw"/> Hitler had been introduced to ''The Protocols'' by [[Alfred Rosenberg]] and from 1920 onwards he focused his attacks by claiming that [[Judaism]] and Marxism were directly connected, that Jews and [[Bolsheviks]] were one and the same and that Marxism was a Jewish ideology-this became known as "[[Jewish Bolshevism]]".<ref name="dictator"/> Hitler believed that ''The Protocols'' were authentic.<ref name="dictator11"/> During his life in [[Vienna]] between 1907 and 1913, Hitler became fervently [[Anti-Slavic sentiment|anti-Slavic]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nazism |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Nazisma |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240228205817/https://www.britannica.com/event/Nazism |archive-date=28 February 2024 |website=Britannica}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Pinkus |first=Oscar |title=The War Aims and Strategies of Adolf Hitler |publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc. |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-7864-2054-4 |pages=27}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Davies |first=Norman |title=Europe: A History |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1997 |isbn=0-19-820171-0 |location=New York, USA |pages=850}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Housden |first=Martyn |title=Hitler: Study of a Revolutionary? |publisher=Routledge |year=2000 |isbn=0-415-16359-5 |location=29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001, USA |pages=32 |chapter=2: Ideologue}}</ref> Prior to the Nazi ascension to power, Hitler often blamed moral degradation on ''[[Rassenschande]]'' ("racial defilement"), a way to assure his followers of his continuing antisemitism, which had been toned down for popular consumption.<ref name="Koonz2005">{{cite book|author=Claudia Koonz|author-link=Claudia Koonz|title=The Nazi Conscience|year=2005|publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-01842-6}}</ref> Prior to the induction of the Nuremberg Race Laws in 1935 by the Nazis, many German nationalists such as [[Roland Freisler]] strongly supported laws to ban ''Rassenschande'' between Aryans and Jews as racial treason.<ref name="Koonz2005"/> Even before the laws were officially passed, the Nazis banned sexual relations and marriages between party members and Jews.<ref name="Weikart2009">{{cite book|author=Richard Weikart|title=Hitler's Ethic|url=https://archive.org/details/hitlersethicnazi00weik|url-access=limited|year=2009|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-0-230-62398-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/hitlersethicnazi00weik/page/n156 142]}}</ref> Party members found guilty of ''Rassenschande'' were severely punished; some party members were even sentenced to death.<ref name="Gordon1984">{{cite book|author=Sarah Ann Gordon|title=Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Question"|year=1984|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-10162-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/hitlergermansjew0000gord/page/265 265]|url=https://archive.org/details/hitlergermansjew0000gord/page/265}}</ref> The Nazis claimed that Bismarck was unable to complete German national unification because Jews had infiltrated the German parliament and they claimed that their abolition of parliament had ended this obstacle to unification.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2007|p=150}} Using the [[stab-in-the-back myth]], the Nazis accused Jewsâand other populations who it considered non-Germanâof possessing extra-national loyalties, thereby exacerbating German [[antisemitism]] about the ''[[Jewish question|Judenfrage]]'' (the Jewish Question), the [[Far-right politics|far-right]] political [[Antisemitic canard|canard]] which was popular when the ethnic ''völkisch'' movement and its politics of [[Romantic nationalism]] for establishing a ''[[German question#Later influence|GroĂdeutschland]]'' was strong.<ref name=PostWWIAntisemitism/><ref name="JFrage"/> Nazism's racial policy positions may have developed from the views of important biologists of the 19th century, including French [[biologist]] [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck]], through [[Ernst Haeckel]]'s idealist version of [[Lamarckism]] and the father of [[genetics]], German [[Botany|botanist]] [[Gregor Mendel]].<ref name="Peter J. Bowler 1989. pp. 304-305"/> Haeckel's works were later condemned by the Nazis as inappropriate for "National-Socialist formation and education in the Third Reich". This may have been because of his "[[Monism|monist]]" [[Atheism|atheistic]], [[Materialism|materialist]] philosophy, which the Nazis disliked, along with his friendliness to Jews, opposition to militarism and support altruism, with one Nazi official calling for them to be banned.<ref name="Robert J. Richards 2008. pp. 7-8"/> Unlike Darwinian theory, Lamarckian theory officially ranked races in a hierarchy of evolution from [[ape]]s while Darwinian theory did not grade races in a hierarchy of higher or lower evolution from apes, but simply stated that all humans as a whole had progressed in their evolution from apes.<ref name="Peter J. Bowler 1989. pp. 304-305"/> Many Lamarckians viewed "lower" races as having been exposed to debilitating conditions for too long for any significant "improvement" of their condition to take place in the near future.<ref name="evolution"/> Haeckel used Lamarckian theory to describe the existence of interracial struggle and put races on a hierarchy of evolution, ranging from wholly human to [[Untermensch|subhuman]].<ref name="Peter J. Bowler 1989. pp. 304-305"/> [[Mendelian inheritance]], or Mendelism, was supported by the Nazis, as well as by mainstream eugenicists of the time. The Mendelian theory of inheritance declared that genetic traits and attributes were passed from one generation to another.<ref name="university14"/> Eugenicists used Mendelian inheritance theory to demonstrate the transfer of biological illness and impairments from parents to children, including mental disability, whereas others also used Mendelian theory to demonstrate the inheritance of social traits, with racialists claiming a racial nature behind certain general traits such as inventiveness or criminal behaviour.<ref name="friedlander"/> ==== Use of the American racist model ==== Hitler and other Nazi legal theorists were inspired by America's [[institutional racism]] and saw it as the model to follow. In particular, they saw it as a model for the expansion of territory and the elimination of indigenous inhabitants therefrom, for [[Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era|laws denying full citizenship for African Americans]], which they wanted to implement also against Jews, and for [[Immigration Act of 1924|racist immigration laws]] banning some races. In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler extolled America as the only contemporary example of a country with racist ("völkisch") citizenship statutes in the 1920s, and Nazi lawyers made use of the American models in crafting laws for Nazi Germany.<ref name="Whitman"/> U.S. citizenship laws and [[Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States|anti-miscegenation laws]] directly inspired the two principal [[Nuremberg Laws]]âthe Citizenship Law and the Blood Law.<ref name="Whitman">{{cite book|last1=Whitman|first1=James Q.|title=Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law|date=2017|publisher=Princeton University Press|pages=37â47}}</ref> === Response to World War I and Italian Fascism === During World War I, German sociologist [[Johann Plenge]] spoke of the rise of a "National Socialism" in Germany within what he termed the "[[Spirit of 1914|ideas of 1914]]" that were a declaration of war against the "ideas of 1789" (the [[French Revolution]]).<ref name="Martin Kitchen 2006, p. 205"/> According to Plenge, the "ideas of 1789" which included the rights of man, democracy, individualism and liberalism were being rejected in favour of "the ideas of 1914" which included the "German values" of duty, discipline, law and order.<ref name="Martin Kitchen 2006, p. 205" /> Plenge believed that ethnic solidarity (''[[Volksgemeinschaft]]'') would replace class division and that "racial comrades" would unite to create a socialist society in the struggle of "proletarian" Germany against "capitalist" Britain.<ref name="Martin Kitchen 2006, p. 205" /> He believed that the "Spirit of 1914" manifested itself in the concept of the "People's League of National Socialism".<ref name="Bernd-RĂŒdiger HĂŒppauf 1997, p. 92" /> This National Socialism was a form of [[state socialism]] that rejected the "idea of boundless freedom" and promoted an economy that would serve the whole of Germany under the leadership of the state.<ref name="Bernd-RĂŒdiger HĂŒppauf 1997, p. 92" /> This National Socialism was opposed to capitalism due to the components that were against "the national interest" of Germany, but insisted that National Socialism would strive for greater efficiency in the economy.<ref name="Bernd-RĂŒdiger HĂŒppauf 1997, p. 92" /> Plenge advocated an authoritarian, rational ruling elite to develop National Socialism through a hierarchical [[Technocracy|technocratic]] state,<ref name="Thomas RohkrĂ€mer 2007, p. 130" /> and his ideas were part of the basis of Nazism.<ref name="Martin Kitchen 2006, p. 205"/> [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R06610, Oswald Spengler.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Oswald Spengler]], a philosopher of history]] [[Oswald Spengler]], a German cultural philosopher, was a major influence on Nazism, although after 1933 he became alienated from Nazism and was later condemned by the Nazis for criticising Adolf Hitler.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> Spengler's conception of national socialism and a number of his political views were shared by the Nazis and the [[Conservative Revolutionary movement]].<ref name=autogenerated7 /> Spengler's views were also popular amongst [[Italian fascism|Italian Fascists]], including [[Benito Mussolini]].<ref name="encyclopedia15"/> Spengler's book ''[[The Decline of the West]]'' (1918), written during the final months of World War I, addressed the supposed [[decadence]] of modern European civilisation, which he claimed was caused by atomising and irreligious individualisation and [[cosmopolitanism]].<ref name=autogenerated16/> Spengler's major thesis was that a law of historical development of cultures existed involving a cycle of birth, maturity, ageing and death when it reaches its final form of civilisation.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> Upon reaching the point of civilisation, a culture will lose its creative capacity and succumb to [[decadence]] until the emergence of "[[barbarian]]s" creates a new epoch.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> Spengler considered the [[Western world]] as having succumbed to decadence of intellect, money, cosmopolitan urban life, irreligious life, [[wikt:Atomization|atomised]] [[individualism|individualisation]] and believed that it was at the end of its biological and "spiritual" fertility.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> He believed that the "young" German nation as an imperial power would inherit the legacy of [[Ancient Rome]], lead a restoration of value in "[[Bloodline|blood]]" and instinct, while the ideals of rationalism would be revealed as absurd.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> Spengler's notions of "Prussian socialism" as described in his book ''[[Preussentum und Sozialismus]]'' ("Prussiandom and Socialism", 1919), influenced Nazism and the [[Conservative Revolutionary movement]].<ref name=autogenerated7/> Spengler wrote: "The meaning of socialism is that life is controlled not by the opposition between rich and poor, but by the rank that achievement and talent bestow. That is ''our'' freedom, freedom from the economic despotism of the individual".<ref name="autogenerated7"/> Spengler adopted the anti-English ideas addressed by Plenge and Sombart during World War I that condemned [[Liberalism in the United Kingdom|English liberalism]] and [[Westminster system|English parliamentarianism]] while advocating a national socialism that was free from [[Marxism]] and that would connect the individual to the state through [[Corporatism|corporatist]] organisation.<ref name="autogenerated16"/> Spengler claimed that socialistic Prussian characteristics existed across Germany, including creativity, discipline, concern for the greater good, productivity and self-sacrifice.<ref name="university17"/> He prescribed war as a necessity by saying: "War is the eternal form of higher human existence and states exist for war: they are the expression of the will to war".<ref name="university18"/> [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1971-091-20, Kapp-Putsch, Marine-Brigade Erhardt.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.25|The [[Marinebrigade Erhardt]] during the [[Kapp Putsch]] in Berlin, 1920<ref>German Federal Archive image description</ref> (The Marinebrigade Erhardt used the [[swastika]] as its symbol, as seen on their helmets and on the truck, which inspired the Nazi Party to adopt it as the movement's symbol.)]] Spengler's definition of socialism did not advocate a change to property relations.<ref name=autogenerated7/> He denounced Marxism for seeking to train the proletariat to "expropriate the expropriator", the capitalist and then to let them live a life of leisure on this expropriation.<ref name="H. Stuart Hughes 1992, p. 108"/> He claimed that "Marxism is the capitalism of the working class" and not true socialism.<ref name="H. Stuart Hughes 1992, p. 108"/> According to Spengler, true socialism would be in the form of corporatism, stating that "local corporate bodies organised according to the importance of each occupation to the people as a whole; higher representation in stages up to a supreme council of the state; mandates revocable at any time; no organised parties, no professional politicians, no periodic elections".<ref name="transaction"/> [[File:Das Dritte Reich.jpg|thumb|upright|The book ''[[Das Dritte Reich]]'' (1923), translated as "The Third Reich", by [[Arthur Moeller van den Bruck]]]] [[Wilhelm Stapel]], an antisemitic German intellectual, used Spengler's thesis on the cultural confrontation between Jews as whom Spengler described as a [[Magi]]an people versus [[Europeans]] as a [[Faust]]ian people.<ref name="MordecaiKaplan">{{cite book |first=Mordecai M. |last=Kaplan |title=Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life |page=73}}</ref> Stapel described Jews as a landless nomadic people in pursuit of an international culture whereby they can integrate into Western civilisation.<ref name="MordecaiKaplan"/> As such, Stapel claims that Jews have been attracted to "international" versions of socialism, pacifism or capitalism because as a landless people the Jews have transgressed various national cultural boundaries.<ref name="MordecaiKaplan"/> For all of Spengler's influence on the movement, he was opposed to its antisemitism. He wrote in his personal papers "[H]ow much envy of the capability of other people in view of one's lack of it lies hidden in anti-Semitism!" as well as "[W]hen one would rather destroy business and scholarship than see Jews in them, one is an ideologue, i.e., a danger for the nation. Idiotic."<ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Farrenkopf |title=Prophet of Decline: Spengler on World History and Politics|date=June 2001 |pages=237â238|publisher=LSU Press |isbn=9780807127278}}</ref> [[Arthur Moeller van den Bruck]] was initially the dominant figure of the Conservative Revolutionaries influenced Nazism.<ref name="university19"/> He rejected [[reactionary]] conservatism while proposing a new state that he coined the "Third Reich", which would unite all classes under [[authoritarian]] rule.<ref name="macmillan"/> Van den Bruck advocated a combination of the nationalism of the right and the socialism of the left.<ref name="millennial"/> [[Fascism]] was a major influence on Nazism. The seizure of power by Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini in the [[March on Rome]] in 1922 drew admiration by Hitler, who less than a month later had begun to model himself and the [[Nazi Party]] upon Mussolini and the Fascists.{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|p=182}} Hitler presented the Nazis as a form of German fascism.<ref name="Fulda, Bernhard 2009, p. 65"/><ref name="Carlsten, F. L. 1982, p. 80"/> In November 1923, the Nazis attempted a "March on Berlin" modelled after the March on Rome, which resulted in the failed [[Beer Hall Putsch]] in [[Munich]].<ref name="dissolution"/> Hitler spoke of Nazism being indebted to the success of Fascism's rise to power in Italy.<ref name="Hugh R. Trevor-Roper 2008. p10">Hugh R. Trevor-Roper (ed.), Gerhard L. Weinberg (ed.). Hitler's Table Talk 1941â1944: Secret Conversations. Enigma Books, 2008. p. 10</ref> In a private conversation in 1941, Hitler said that "the brown shirt would probably not have existed without the black shirt", the "brown shirt" referring to the [[Sturmabteilung|Nazi militia]] and the "black shirt" referring to the [[Blackshirts|Fascist militia]].<ref name="Hugh R. Trevor-Roper 2008. p10"/> He also said in regards to the 1920s: "If Mussolini had been outdistanced by Marxism, I don't know whether we could have succeeded in holding out. At that period National Socialism was a very fragile growth".<ref name="Hugh R. Trevor-Roper 2008. p10"/> Other Nazisâespecially those at the time associated with the party's more radical wing such as [[Gregor Strasser]], Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmlerârejected [[Italian fascism|Italian Fascism]], accusing it of being too conservative or capitalist.<ref name="university21"/> [[Alfred Rosenberg]] condemned Italian Fascism for being racially confused and having influences from [[Philo-Semitism|philosemitism]].<ref name="stanley"/> Strasser criticised the policy of {{Lang|de|[[FĂŒhrerprinzip]]}} as being created by Mussolini and considered its presence in Nazism as a foreign imported idea.<ref name="Stanley G. Payne 1995, p. 464"/> Throughout the relationship between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, a number of lower-ranking Nazis scornfully viewed fascism as a conservative movement that lacked a full revolutionary potential.<ref name="Stanley G. Payne 1995, p. 464"/> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page