Nazi Germany - Legacy

Legacy

Starting with the Nuremberg Trials of 1945–46, in which top Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes (and executed or given long prison terms), Hitler, Nazism, and (by the 1960s) the Holocaust became symbols of evil in the modern world. For the 21st century, Newman and Erber (2002) reported, "The Nazis have become one of the most widely recognized images of modern evil. Throughout most of the world today, the concept of evil can readily be evoked by displaying almost any cue reminiscent of Nazism, such as the swastika, the name of any of the principal Nazis, or their garb or affectations...." There is a high level of historical interest in the popular media as well as in academic world. Evans says it, "exerts an almost universal appeal because its murderous racism stands as a warning to the whole of humanity."

The end of Nazi Germany also saw the rise in unpopularity of related aggressive manifestations of nationalism in Germany such as Pan-Germanism and the Völkisch movement which had previously been significant political ideas there, and in other parts of Europe, before World War II. Those that remain are largely fringe movements.