Nazism as an Extension of Nationalism

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Nazism as an Extension of Nationalism

Nazi Germany was the creation of Adolf Hitler, and Nazism was his

movement. It began as a union, known as the 'National Sozialistische

Deustches Arbeiten Partei." It grew to be a powerful political party

under the ruling of Hitler, paving his way to German Chancellor and

President, the undisputed leader of the entire German state. The

concept of Nazism was developed during this course in history. It is a

concept based loosely on an abstract theme of nationalism, interpreted

by Hitler to proclaim his Ayran race as the 'Master Race'. It was

taken to an extreme, however, by Hitler's sadistic genocide of

minority groups within the country, particularly the Jews.

Nationalism is an idea that has been around for eons. It is the theory

of identifying an individual with a nation, of which they hold a great

pride for and are loyal to. It is a belief in your nation. In a

broader sense, a nation needn't be a country, although it commonly is.

The Jews were a nation before they had Israel. A cultural group can be

considered a nation, and historically, some ideas such as Zionism,

Communism and Trotskyism were considered 'nations'. According to

Gellner: "Nationalism is a political principle which maintains that

similarity of culture is the basic social bond." (p.3 Gellner, 1997)

This idea of belonging to a nation creates a unified group, and in

some cases, the sense of the individual can be lost.

Nationalism has been a major driving force of most European historic

events. In the 1800's it helped to rearrange the map of Europe, with

cultural groups under foreign rule revolting, for example: Greece

under Ot...

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...fanaticism of Hitler, as he would relinquish his Aryan beliefs whilst

he used the Japanese to accomplish his overall conquest of the world.

In 1934, Hitler became the Führer of the German state. "One people,

one country, one leader" was the common phrase of the time. From this

moment on, Germany was run by a totalitarian dictator. What may have

begun as nationalist ideas were extremely construed by one of the most

influential people in the history of today's society. Aryan

superiority, anti-Semitism, lebensraum and social Darwinism, all

important ideologies in the Nazism movement came directly from the

basic nationalist ideals of society. The same ideals that unified

Germany, Italy and other countries, and freed the people of various

countries under oppressive rule created the most feared movement in

modern history.

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