Nazism

Nazism (German: Nationalsozialismus; English long form National Socialism) was the ideology of the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany. It is a variety of fascism that incorporates biological racism and antisemitism. Nazism used elements of the far-right racist Völkisch German nationalist movement and the anti-communist Freikorps paramilitary culture which fought against the communists in post-World War I Germany. It was designed to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Major elements of Nazism have been described as far-right, such as allowing domination of society by people deemed racially superior, while purging society of people declared inferior which were said to be a threat to national survival.

Nazi philosophy claimed that an Aryan master race was superior to all other races. To maintain what it regarded as the purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to exterminate Jews and Romani, and the physically and mentally disabled. Other groups deemed "degenerate" or "asocial" received exclusionary treatment by the Nazi state and included homosexuals, blacks, Jehovah's Witnesses and political opponents. The Nazis promoted German territorial expansionism to gain Lebensraum ("living space") for German settlers and to bring labor, food and materials into the nation for growth.

Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler had objected to the party's previous leader's decision to use the word "Socialist" in its name as Hitler at the time instead preferred to use "Social Revolutionary". Upon taking over the leadership, Hitler kept the term but defined socialism as meaning a commitment of an individual to a community. Hitler claimed that true socialism does not repudiate private property unlike the claims of Marxism, and claimed that the "Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning" and said that "Communism is not socialism. Marxism is not socialism." Nazism favoured private property, freedom of contract, and promoted the creation of national solidarity that would transcend class differences. The Nazis outlawed strikes by employees and lockouts by employers, because these were regarded a threat to national unity. Instead, the state controlled and approved wage and salary levels.