Ultranationalism: Nazi Germany and Big Bold Letters

We often see people “take it to the next level” in things they do, even on a daily basis. Imagine two people defending their school; let’s say a student from Sir John and one from St. Pats. Both are trying to convince the other that their school is the better, and each student gives reason for believing as much. Now imagine one of the students saying “My school is better because it just is. Your school is horrible and no one likes it because it isn’t St. Pats. And St. Pats is just better, you guys should just shut down your school because it’s dumb and isn’t just like St. Pats.” Would that student be justified? No, not so. They seem to have so much pride in St. Pats that they abandon all actual reason, and just become devout in character because they’re so convinced that St. Pats is the better school, almost blind faith in it, because they lose grasp of the reasons they actually have to love their school. This situation is comparable to ultranationalism. Both students start out with a strong sense of nationalism, which is devotion or patriotism to ones owns nation, or in this case; school. Although in this situation it isn’t a pressing conflict that will come to death or genocide, but sometimes it does. When people begin feeling ultranationalistic loyalties they may result in becoming violent, or begin feeling strong emotions of resentment towards other countries. Although it is important to have some sort of nationalistic loyalty, so that one can experience a true feeling of belonging within one’s own nation, however, it is important to be sure that these loyalties don’t become ultranationalistic because it often leads to racism, and in some cases violence towards members of other nations. A few examples of this are the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide of 1915, and the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The Holocaust is the most famous act of ultranationalism, as well as the largest genocide ever to have been reported in history. Upwards of six million Jewish people were killed in over twenty different countries, simply for being Jewish. Although the Nazis focused mainly on the Jewish population, they killed many other minorities, such as homosexuals, and people with disabilities. Although this is not considered part of the “Holocaust” many scholars believe it should be. Their targets may have been different, but both slaughters share the same motive; to destroy what isn’t the same. Hitler had “the perfect race” envisioned, a race built strictly from German origin. Nazi Germany felt so much pride for its country, heritage and culture that it felt as if it had the right to decide that all Jewish people were to be terminated. The Contempt that Nazi Germany had toward the Jewish community was instigated very much by Adolf Hitler. After Nazi Germany developed a full blown hatred for the Jewish culture, a major tool they used to fuel that hatred within Germany was propaganda. In the weekly newspaper called Der Stürmer or “The Attacker” at the bottom of the front page of each issue, in big bold letters, the paper had written on it “The Jews are our misfortune!” The influence of the newspaper was vast and far reaching, selling almost half a million copies weekly. The Nazis had no real reason to feel such contempt for the Jewish people. The Nazis felt that Germany, and Germans, and really anything German was superior simply because it was German. Anything and everything else was inferior and otherwise useless. Although there was necessary trade to be done with some countries, the goal was never over looked. There may not have been obvious contempt towards some nationalities, but they would have presumably been victim to Hitler’s insanity eventually. There wasn’t enough room in the world for the Nazis to live peacefully with anyone else simply because anyone else implies that Nazis have something to assert their superiority over, which eventually leads to contempt and eradication. This is a great example as to why nationalism can lead to ultranationalism. Hitler gave his people a sense of nationalism, but after continuing to do so he gave some people a god persona, and once this started forming an ultranationalistic group was simple. He fed his people lies, and gave them all a sense of ultranationalism by constantly degrading the value of Jewish life, which ultimately led to the biggest genocide our kind has ever seen. Another example of nationalism leading to ultranationalism is the Armenian genocide of 1915. The Armenian Genocide was planned and carried out by Turks who were attempting to eliminate all the Ottoman Empire’s Armenians. 1.5 million Armenians were killed and 500, 000 were taken from their homes and were deported. To this day, Turkey still denies that the Genocide even took place, claiming that the Armenians simply died of starvation.