National Socialism (Nazi Party)

German nationalist movement led by Adolf Hitler. Hitler's party was founded at Munich by Drexler in 1919 as the German Labour party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, hence the popular contraction 'Nazis'). In 1920 the party adopted a programme the chief aims of which included the union of all Germans, abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles, persons of Aryan blood only to be members of the nation, foreign nationals to be excluded from Germany, nationalisation of trusts, substitution of German for Roman law, nationalist education, and improvement of the nation's physique.

Profiting from economic distress, weak governments, and all manner of popular resentments, National Socialism gained ground rapidly after 1928. Mainly the nationalist, as distinct from the socialist, slogans were fulfilled, and from 1933, when Hitler came to power, no attempt at systematic socialism in the traditional sense was made, though economic initiative and control passed entirely to the state. All rival parties and organisations were proscribed. The Nazi party, the sole lawful political association in Germany, was based on the leadership principle, and the party members had no rights in relations to the conduct of policy, which was the exclusive function of the 'Führer'. In practice some of Hitler's lieutenants wielded great power, notably Goebbels as minister for propaganda, Goering, and, later, Himmler. Subsidiary organisations of the party of a compulsory character were the German Labour Front, comprising all employees, and the Hitler-jugend (Hitler Youth), and the party also organised its own military forces, the SA (Sturmabteilung, storm troops) and the SS (Schutzstaffel, protective squadron).

After the SA purge of 30 June 1934 the SS, which comprised the elite, assumed greater importance in the party system. Persecution, above all of Jews but also of political dissidents and other religious communities, which had been implied in all the earlier propaganda of National Socialism, now proceeded apace. A party congress was generally held at Nuremberg every year. The original basis of the party lay in the lower middle class, which the Nazis promised to save from the ruin threatened by big business and the economic crisis; but while the small trader's business increased, he suffered from heavy taxation and price control, while later, 'superfluous' small shops and businesses were closed down altogether.

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