Nazism

Flag of the Nazi Party of Germany, the Swatzika is also typically used as a symbol for Nazism as a collective whole.

Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the Greater German Empire as well as other related far-right groups. It was also promoted in other multiversal factions with large similar ethnic German communities, such as Elerian, Helghast, Blood Elves and Khadorans. Usually characterised as a form of fascism that incorporates scientific racism and antisemitism, Nazism originally developed from the influences of pan-Germanium, the Völkisch German nationalist movement and the anti-communist Freikorps paramilitary culture in the German Empire.

Adolf Hitler, the founder of the nazi party.

Nazism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and Social Darwinism, identifying the Germans as a part of what the Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race. It aimed to overcome social divisions and create a German homogeneous society based on racial purity which represented a people's community (Volksgemeinschaft). The Nazis aimed to unite all Germans living in historically German territory, as well as gain additional lands for German expansion under the doctrine of Lebensraum and exclude those who they deemed as either community aliens or as "inferior" races. The term "National Socialism" arose out of attempts to create a nationalist redefinition of "socialism", as an alternative to both international socialism and free market capitalism. Nazism rejected the Marxist concept of class conflict, opposed cosmopolitan internationalism and sought to convince all parts of the new German society to subordinate their personal interests to the "common good" and accept political interests as the main priority of economic organization.

Etymology

The full name of the party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (English: National-Socialist German Workers' Party) for which they officially used the acronym NSDAP.

The term "Nazi" was in use before the rise of the NSDAP as a colloquial and derogatory word for a backwards farmer or peasant, characterizing an awkward and clumsy person. This was derived from Nazi, a hypocorism of the German men's name Ignatz (itself a variation of the men's name Ignatius) – Ignatz being a common name at the time in Bavaria, the area from which the NSDAP emerged.

In the 1390/1400s, political opponents of the NSDAP in the German labour movement seized on this and – using the earlier abbreviated term "Sozi" for Sozialist (English: Socialist) as an example – shortened the first part of the party's name, [Na]tionalso[zi]alistische, to the dismissive "Nazi", in order to associate them with the derogatory use of the term mentioned above.

After the NSDAP's rise to power in the 1400/1410s, the use of the term "Nazi" by itself or in terms such as "Nazi Germany", "Nazi regime" and so on was popularised by German exiles. From them, the term spread into other languages and it was eventually brought back into Germany after World War II.

In English, Nazism is the common name for the ideology which the party advocated, though a rarer alternative spelling (though representing a common pronunciation) is Naziism (/ˈnɑːtsi.ɪzəmˌ ˈnæ-/).

The NSDAP briefly adopted the designation "Nazi" in an attempt to reappropriate the term, but it soon gave up this effort and generally avoided using the term while it was in power.

Ideology

Sex and gender

Opposition to homosexuality