Nazi Idealogy

Nazi Ideology

Nazism was never a coherent or uniform ideology » (Griffin). Judjment on the true nature of Nazi ideology is always diffuclt to make and easy to change, for this reason one can not affirm one of the above statements to be true, nor can one say that one of them is wrong, they are both right in one sense, wrong in another, all depending from which angle one looks at them. Nazi ideology was born out of the need to attract the widest range of people from the widest range of backrounds thus creating a diverse and contradicting ideology as the
25 points prove. At the same time Hitler created an ideology that he not only believed in but that also proved capable of achieving his personal ambitions. One of the difficulties in analysing Nazi ideology is distinguishing between real ideas that influenced political and economic theory and the propaganda distributed to the public. Many historians think of Nazi ideology as purely Fascist even as the model of Fascism while others tend to suggest that Nazism went a step further than Fascism : « [they] believed that the decadence was not only political and cultural, but biological and racial ».

One could argue that Nazi ideology was an« essentiely new, racist & destructive philosophy ». One of the aspects of Nazi ideology which mark it as « new » is the presence of «ecstatic invocations of the spirit of modern technological warfare ». The Nazi military tradition was not a relic of the past, it was modern and its style was purely and soely Nazi. It also called for industrialisation and advance in science: two features of a society wishing to modernise itself. Nazi ideology was most certainly racist, in it’s 25 points, the rights of
Jews and other minority groups is dealt with in considerable detail so that the fourth point concludes with « Therefore no Jew can be considered to be a fellow German », it’s purpose was not as some people argue to affirm the superiority of the German people but to suppress all Jews for the sole reason of their religion, this is the definition of racism and can only be viewed as such. As a philosophy, the dominant side of Nazism was its destructive element: it’s campaign against decadent art, it’s goal to destroy all literature which did not agree with, it’s views and foremost and uttermost the clinical elimination of all those whose lives were deemed ‘not worth living’ or who were classed as ‘subhuman’.

There was much diversity and contrast in Nazi ideology but can one call it « confused » ? It certainly adopted views that could be considered opposite however this seems to have been calculated by
Hitler to attract the largest number of people possible. When one looks at Nazi ideology one can see very different sources for the different points that are made thus we see völkish nostalgia for the values of a pre-urban, pre-Christian idyll and at the same time we feel the incredible presence of the spirit of modern technological warfare. While there were calls for the regeneration of peasantry there were also celebrations of industrial renovations, and at the same time there were strains of anti-capitalist socialism and stress for the need for new elites. One could both see mystical even supernatural notions and studies of human and natural sciences. There was also a very primitive and mythical side to Nazism such as during their flame torch night, which brought on in most Germans a furious pride of being German and a Nazi. One can also prove that Hitler attempted to turn back the clock by the fact that he called his empire the « Third Reich ».

However, the real aim of Nazism was not to turn back the clock or provide the German people with a new philosophy, its sole goal was to provide Hitler the means to fulfill his own personal goals of a German
Empire which like his ideology was neither totally new nor a vestige of the past. Nazism was shaped to please a wide range of people, in it one can find traces of socialism to attract the urban proletariat, promises of economic recovery and protection from the communist for the upper class and farmers and laws which favour capitalism for the middle class. Therefore one can not really say that the ideology presented in the 25 points demonstrate the Nazis real views if they have any past ‘the Third Reich’ and their hatred of Jews. The Nazis did have some firm notions, they were obsessed with the decadence of liberalism, the threat posed to recovery by its Marxist alternative and the need for a national rebirth, a reawakening, a new order. These
‘firm’ notions are the fascist aspect of Nazism.

Both of the statements can be argued to provide a convincing judgment of the true nature of Nazi ideology however the first one suggests a truer or at least a less wrong version of it. However, Nazism did have some truly firm notions which constituted its fascist side obssessed with rebirth and war as Nazi leader Rosenberg proves when he writes :
« A new age of German mysticism has dawned, the myth of blood and the myth of the free soul are awakening to new and conscious life ».
(Rosenberg, Nazi leader in The myth of the twentieth Century).