We explain what Nazism was, how it emerged, its characteristics and its relationship with fascism. Also, what was the Holocaust.

What was Nazism?
Nazism or National Socialism (in German Nationalsozialismus) was a German far-right political and ideological movement. It was promoted by the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), also called the Nazi Party, and its leader, Adolf Hitler. It was the German variant of fascism that emerged in Italy in 1919.
The ideology of Nazism combined a project of economic growth with reactionary values, a nationalist and totalitarian policy and extreme racism that was directed especially against the Jews. Nazism He came to power in 1933 and set out to establish a third German empire (the so-called Third Reich) which triggered the Second World War (1939-1945).
With Nazism in power, Germany quickly became a dictatorship and militarized society. A single-party regime was built placed all political power in Adolf Hitler who was called Führer (“guide” or “leader”). Through an elaborate propaganda apparatus, Hitler was presented as the leader destined to recover Germany's former lost glory.
The racism of Nazi ideology supported the existence of superior races (the “Aryan race”) and inferior or Untermenschen (like Jews, Gypsies or Slavs). This led to justifying the violence deployed against Jews and other social sectors, accused of being responsible for the economic difficulties that Germany was going through in the 1930s.
In this way, measures were undertaken for the forced deportation or confinement in concentration camps of European Jews and other social groups. During World War II, a plan for the systematic extermination of these populations was put into practice. After the German defeat in the war, the Nazi regime ceased to exist.
Key points
- Nazism was a far-right German political movement led by Adolf Hitler who ruled Germany between 1933 and 1945.
- Its ideology was nationalist, militarist and racist, and gave rise to a totalitarian regime that annulled freedoms and promoted the cult of the personality of the leader.
- Nazism promoted military expansionism that caused World War II in 1939 but was defeated in 1945 and Hitler took his own life.
- He applied the so-called “final solution” that led to the extermination of millions of Jews and other social groups (what is currently known as the Holocaust or Shoá).
Characteristics of Nazism
Nazism had the following main characteristics: it was a nationalist political movement led by Adolf Hitler that opposed liberalism and communism; established a totalitarian regime in Germany between 1933 and 1945; promoted undemocratic policies, persecuted political opposition and annulled civil liberties; He developed a racist speech that raised the superiority of the “Aryan race” and led to organizing a plan to exterminate the Jewish population called the “final solution”; and promoted a militarist policy aimed at conquering the Lebensraum (“living space”) in Eastern Europe, which triggered World War II.
- It was an anti-democratic, militaristic movement, racist and nationalist which was organized vertically under the figure of its charismatic leader, Adolf Hitler, and established a totalitarian regime in Germany starting in 1933.
- He opposed both liberalism and communism and promoted a strong State that intervened in the economy and maintained absolute control over society.
- He presented as enemies of Germany the Marxism and all forms of socialism or anarchism, as well as the traditional bourgeoisie and citizens of Jewish origin whom he presented as an “inferior race”, as a symbol of usury and as part of a global conspiracy against Germany (what is often characterized as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory).
- The Nazi State was organized as a repressive, single-party police regime which annulled freedoms, persecuted the political opposition and exercised violence against social groups that it considered enemies of the nation: Jews, communists, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, among others. Many of them were confined in concentration camps and forced to perform forced labor.
- The foreign policy of Nazism was based on the idea of the conquest of “living space” (Lebensraum) which was considered necessary for the German people to overcome their economic difficulties and achieve the destiny of greatness to which they were supposed to be destined. To this end, the annexation of the neighboring territories of Eastern Europe was promoted with the intention of repopulating them with the German population after expelling their traditional inhabitants. This policy caused World War II, specifically after the German invasion of Poland in 1939.
- The Nazis considered the German people to belong to the “Aryan race,” which they identified as a “superior race.” and they viewed other populations such as European Jews (including Germans of Jewish origin) as belonging to an “inferior race.” They also judged “racial mixing” as a threat to the racial purity of the German people. This racist ideology was used as a justification for the anti-Jewish violence of Nazism and the extermination plan that was called the “final solution.”
Rise of Nazism

Nazism emerged in Germany during the Weimar Republic established after the German defeat in the First World War. The signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919 had subjected Germany to a series of humiliating political and economic conditions, including the payment of costly war reparations.
Resentment, discontent, precarious living conditions and the feeling of having been betrayed by traditional politicians were some of the feelings that manifested themselves in German society and that Adolf Hitler sought to represent.
Furthermore, since the beginning of the 20th century, a strong pan-German sentiment (aimed at uniting all peoples of Germanic origin into a single nation) had taken root in the Germanic populations of Europe, inside and outside Germany. Many longed to build a powerful nation that would unite them, or as Hitler himself later proposed, “a Reich that will last a thousand years.”
Thus, in 1919, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), whose nationalist preaching had captivated him, and he became one of its leaders and greatest speakers. He then reformed the party, which was renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), and Hitler began to be called Fuehrer and began a race to conquer political power.
In the midst of a climate of general crisis for which the Social Democrats, who had a prominent presence in the Weimar Republic, were blamed, In 1921, the Nazis created their own shock troops, the SA (Sturmabteilung), also known as “brown shirts,” with which they held parades, controlled party rallies, and intimidated their opponents.
In 1923, Hitler attempted a coup in Munich, influenced by the success of Mussolini's March on Rome in Italy, but failed and was imprisoned. During his years in prison he began to write his book “My Struggle.” in which he exposed his political ideas and his racist doctrine.
The Nazi regime
When the Great Depression broke out in 1929, the Nazi Party began to grow in popularity. With the help of other political actors such as the conservative Franz von Papen, who mistakenly saw in Hitler a person whom he could manipulate, the Nazi Party entered into the management of the State and Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933 which gave him control of the executive branch.
A few days later, the Reichstag (German parliament) building was set on fire by an attack and this led to a decree that abolished some fundamental rights of the Constitution and allowed political opponents to be arrested en masse. Then legislative elections were held that gave 44% of the votes to Nazism and this allowed Hitler to obtain approval of the Enabling Law.
The Enabling Act of 1933 gave Hitler dictatorial powers and allowed him henceforth to govern without the control of parliament. Soon after, all opposition political parties were banned.
In 1934 the “night of the long knives” took place (Night of the Messer), in which the SS (parapolice troops) and the Gestapo (secret police) murdered and detained political leaders inside and outside the Nazi Party, especially those whose loyalty was doubted.
Through this purge, Hitler consolidated his absolute control of the party and all state structures. The final steps towards totalitarian dictatorship took place after the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934.
Hitler called a plebiscite in which he proposed that the powers of the president be transferred to the chancellor and obtained 90% approval, so Hitler began to concentrate all power in himself. Shortly after, he began his expansionist campaign to expand the borders of the Third Reich which caused the start of World War II in 1939.
The Holocaust

Today it is known as the Holocaust (in Hebrew Shoah“catastrophe”) to what the Nazis at the time called the “final solution” (Endlösung) of the Jewish problem in Europe. It was about a systematic, large-scale plan for the extermination of the Jews who inhabited the countries occupied by the German army during World War II.
This genocide took place between 1941 and the end of the war in 1945 and was carried out mainly in extermination camps that had gas chambers and industrial crematoriums. It cost the lives of around six million people that is, two thirds of the Jewish population of Europe.
Additionally, millions of Poles, Gypsies, people with physical or intellectual disabilities, homosexuals, and Soviet prisoners of war were executed throughout a network of concentration and forced labor camps.
The Holocaust It is considered the largest genocide of the 20th century and one of the greatest in the history of humanity.
Nazism and fascism

Nazism and fascism were related phenomena. Both were extreme, radical and anti-democratic political trends that emerged in Europe in the interwar period. However, Fascism was born first, created by Benito Mussolini in Italy in 1919 and Nazism later emerged in Germany, inspired by the success of Italian fascism.
The term “fascists” is often used to group together various political movements related to each other (such as Italian fascism, German Nazism and Spanish Falangism).
The Italian fascists adhered to militaristic, anti-communist, anti-liberal and imperialist values similar to those of German Nazism. They got their name from the Latin term fascestranslatable as “does”, which referred to a symbol of authority of the ancient Romans. Its objective was to stop the advance of communism, restore the glory of the Roman Empire to Italy and appropriate the African colonies of its European rivals.
Fall of Nazism
Nazism met its end in early 1945, when the German Third Reich was defeated by the combined armies of the Soviet Union and the Western Allies (United States and the United Kingdom).
With Soviet troops on the outskirts of Berlin, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker on April 30, 1945 followed by other Nazi leaders. On the other hand, many senior military leaders of the Third Reich were captured and tried by an international tribunal in the Nuremberg Trials between 1945 and 1946.
Continue with: World Wars
References
- Britannica, Encyclopaedia (2023). Nazism. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
- Evans, R.J. (2007). The Third Reich in power. Peninsula.
- Evans, R.J. (2017). The arrival of the Third Reich. Peninsula.
- Soucy, R. (2023). fascism Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (sf). The Nazi regime. Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/