Nazism

"National Socialist" and "Nazi" redirect here. For the political party which existed from 1920 to 1945, see Nazi Party.

Nazism (German: Nationalsozialismus) is a far-right and fascist ideology developed by Adolf Hitler and other members of the NSDAP which holds that "Aryan" Germans are the most superior race, while people such as Jews, gays, and Slavs are inferior. While Nazis in Nazi Germany allied with non-Aryans such as Italians and Japanese, this was merely for support and Nazis did not consider Italians and Japanese to be superior.

Neo-Nazism, a general term for revival groups of the Nazi ideology, is prevalent in both Europe and the United States. It abandons the idea of the Aryan German and replaces it with generic White supremacy.

Development and origins

German esotericism

Nazi ideology and iconography owes a major debt to the anti-Semitic and nationalist esoteric movement which was common among German reactionaries since the 19th century, including among "proto-fascist" paramilitary groups such as the Freikorps. By the time the Nazis began employing the swastika as their symbol, the association in Europe between the swastika and esoteric reactionism had already become well-established; in Finland, for example, where the national military used the seemingly innocuous symbol in at least some form until the 21st century, it had in fact originated in 1918 with the Swedish fascist Eric von Rosen.

"Aryan" ideology

The use of the term "Aryan" in Nazi racial theories descends ultimately from an unscientific interpretation of the Proto-Indo-European linguistic hypothesis. The linguistic theory posits, based on extensive linguistic evidence, that many languages and cultures of Eurasia, including English, German, Latin, Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit, originate from one linguistic-cultural group who lived during the Bronze Age. In the 19th century, this was construed by racial theorists such as Arthur de Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain to mean that these groups had all originated with one conquering, superior ethnic group or "race". Given that the autonym "Arya" appears in both Sanskrit and Old Persian to refer to the descendants of this group, this name was assumed to be the original culture's true name. According to the Nazi version of this theory, white-skinned "Aryan" invaders subjugated the Dravidian-speaking natives of India and ruled them as the original Brahmin class, producing in the meantime outstanding works of Indian culture such as the Vedas, but eventually interbred with their dark-skinned inferiors and fell into obscurity.