How Did Fascist Philosophies Contribute to the Holocaust

Definition and Beliefs

Fascism is an ultranationalist, authoritarian political philosophy. Information technology combines elements of nationalism, militarism, economic self-sufficiency, and totalitarianism. It opposes communism, socialism, pluralism, individual rights and equality, and autonomous government.

Fascism places the importance of the nation above all else. The unity of the national community is prioritized above the rights of individuals. This leads to an intense interest in defining which groups vest or do not vest to the national trunk. Fascism is characterized past:

• strident, often exclusionary nationalism
  
• fixation with national decline (real or perceived) and threats to the existence of the national community
• embrace of paramilitarism
  

In fascist states, violence is accepted—even historic—if it serves or advances the national community. For fascists, violence often has a redemptive or purifying quality.

Fascism rejects the practices of representative or liberal democratic government. Information technology holds that these practices interfere with the expression of the national volition. Instead, fascist governments are one-political party states led past an disciplinarian leader who claims to embody the national volition. Fascists ascertain the national will equally advancing the interests of the national community. This usually means:

• protecting or elevating the rights of the national community to a higher place the rights of those seen as alien
  
• removing obstacles to national unity and suppressing those seen as challenging it
• expanding the size and influence of the national state
• ofttimes, also seeking to expand territory through armed conflict

Origins and Evolution of Fascism

Fascism^ane

has its origins in the belatedly nineteenth century. However, it became more defined during the turmoil of World State of war I (1914–1918). Following the war, fascist movements and parties existed beyond Europe and the United States. The Italian fascist motility, nonetheless, was the get-go to formally organize and correspond election. In 1919, Benito Mussolini founded the


Partito Nazionale Fascista


(National Fascist Party), and in 1921, he was elected to the Italian Sleeping accommodation of Deputies. The following year, Mussolini staged the March on Rome. He led thirty,000 armed men through the streets to seize ability as the prime minister of Italy. He established a dictatorship as


il Duce


(“the leader”), with no responsibleness to parliament.

Mussolini’s success inspired other fascist movements beyond Europe. In U.k., Oswald Mosely met with Mussolini before he founded the British Matrimony of Fascists in 1932. In Kingdom of spain, Francisco Franco received back up from Italia during the Castilian Civil State of war. In Frg, Adolf Hitler looked to the March on Rome as a model for the fascist takeover he attempted in the 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch.

Fascism in Frg

Federal republic of germany’south collapse in Earth State of war I led to significant political instability as the new government, the Weimar Democracy, tried to notice its footing. Multiple groups emerged to challenge the Weimar Republic, including several fascist organizations. One of those organizations was the


Deutsche Arbeiterpartei


(High german Workers’ Party), which Hitler joined as a member in 1919. In 1920, Hitler became the head of the party. He renamed it the


Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei


(National Socialist German Workers’ Political party, NSDAP), or the Nazi Party.

Despite the reference to socialism and workers in the party’due south proper noun, Hitler promoted National Socialism every bit the complete contrary of socialism and communism. He promoted it as an ideology devoted to advancing the welfare and power of the German


Volk


(a national or ethnic group defined by its supposed race). The party developed a 25-betoken platform based on nationalism, antisemitism, and expansion. The program besides called for the overturning of the Treaty of Versailles. To accelerate their agenda, the party formed paramilitary units chosen the


Sturmabteilungen


(Stormtroopers, or the SA).

The NSDAP was a small fringe party in Germany in the early on 1920s. In November 1923, the Nazis staged their ain coup effort known equally the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. The insurrection began at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich. The Nazis planned to seize control of the Bavarian state government before marching on Berlin to overthrow the Weimar Republic. They intended to institute a new state based on the unification of the German people, as envisioned in the 25 Points. Unlike Mussolini’due south March on Rome, yet, the Beer Hall Putsch failed. Hitler was arrested and sentenced to 5 years in jail, though he served but 8 months.

The Nazi Country: Putting Fascism into Practice

Post-obit Hitler’s release from jail in 1924, the Nazi Party chose to pursue political power through the elections. In January 1933, Hitler became chancellor. He moved to dismantle the Weimar Republic and build the fascist unmarried-party Third Reich. Following a serial of legal, political, and propaganda maneuvers, the German


Reichstag


passed the Enabling Deed on March 24, 1933. The Enabling Act became the cornerstone of Hitler’s dictatorship and destroyed parliamentary democracy in Germany. It allowed Hitler to enact laws without the approval of parliament or Reich President von Hindenburg. By July 1933, Hitler had banned all political parties other than the NSDAP. Every bit the


Führer


or Leader, he began a process of consolidating ability known every bit


Gleichshaltung


(coordination) that enforced the Nazi Political party’s authorisation over existing state institutions.

Having achieved total control over Federal republic of germany, Hitler and the Nazi Political party began to implement other aspects of the fascist calendar. They began with the effort to create the ideal German national community defined along racial lines, known as the


Volksgemeinschaft

. This effort was a 2 part process. Commencement, information technology entailed uniting all ethnic Germans in a single German language state. Second, information technology excluded all minorities already within the German country who did not belong in the national community—peculiarly Jews.

In 1938, German language annexed Republic of austria in the


Anschluss

. The


Anschluss


created the greater German state many German nationalists had dreamed of since 1848. A few months afterward, Germany seized the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, with the tacit permission of the Munich Agreement. When Earth War 2 began in September 1939, 1 of the Nazis’ primal war aims was to expand Germany’s territorial boundaries and influence so that all ethnic Germans could be together and that Germany would have the


Lebensraum


(living infinite) that the Nazis believed necessary for the nation to survive and grow.

The Nazis also focused on “cleansing” the national community at home. They worked to eliminate supposed threats to its health and unity. For case, they imprisoned in concentration camps Germans seen as political opponents, criminally inclined, or “asocial.” They also forcibly sterilized Germans with mental or physical disabilities. In addition, the Nazis moved to isolate and drive out persons considered racially alien to the national community considering they supposedly threatened its purity and security. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws redefined German citizenship, excluding “non-Aryans,” specially Jews. Escalating persecution and violence isolated German Jews, depriving them of their property, livelihoods, access to education, and markets and public facilities, with the intention of forcing them to emigrate.

The Nazis framed World War Two every bit the ultimate struggle for the survival of the German language


Volk

. They used the war to justify the near radical measures against both internal and alien enemies, including murdering mentally and physically disabled Germans and exterminating all the Jews in Europe.

Last Edited: May 28, 2019