Nazism facts for kids
Nazism (or National Socialism; German: Nationalsozialismus) is a set of political beliefs associated with the Nazi Party of Germany. It started in the 1920s. Party gained power in 1933, starting the Third Reich. They lasted in Germany until 1945, at the end of World War II.
The Nazis believed that only the Aryan race was capable of building nations and other races, notably the Jewish race, were agents of the corruptive forces of capitalism and bolshevism, both of which the Nazis opposed. The Nazis blamed the Jewish people for Germany's defeat in World War I. This is known as the Stab in the Back Myth. The Nazis also blamed the Jewish people for rapid inflation and practically every other economic woe facing Germany at the time as a result of their defeat in World War I. For this reason the Nazis not only viewed the Jewish people as inferior to but as oppressors of the Aryan people.
To implement the racist ideas, in 1935 the Nuremberg Race Laws banned non-Aryans and political opponents of the Nazis from the civil-service. They also forbid any relationships between 'Aryan' and 'non-Aryan' persons.
The Nazis sent millions of Jews, Roma and other people to concentration camps and death camps, where they were killed. These killings are now called the Holocaust.
The word Nazi is short for Nationalsozialist (supporter of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) in the German language. This means "National Socialist German Workers' Party".
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Nazi rise to power
Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, wrote a book called Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). The book said that all of Germany's problems happened because Jews were making plans to hurt the country. He also said that Jewish and communist politicians planned the Armistice of 1918 that ended World War I, and allowed Germany to agree to pay huge amounts of money and goods (reparations).
On the night of the 27 February 1933 and 28 February 1933, someone set the Reichstag building on fire. This was the building where the German Parliament held their meetings. The Nazis blamed the communists. Opponents of the Nazis said that the Nazis themselves had done it to come to power. On the very same day, an emergency law called Reichstagsbrandverordnung was passed. The government claimed it was to protect the state from people trying to hurt the country. With this law, most of the civil rights of the Weimar Republic did not count any longer. The Nazis used this against the other political parties. Members of the communist and social-democratic parties were put into prison or killed.
The Nazis became the biggest party in the parliament. By 1934, they managed to make all other parties illegal. Democracy was replaced with a dictatorship. Adolf Hitler became leader (Führer) of Germany.
Attacking other countries
As the German leader (Führer) of Nazi Germany, Hitler began moving Nazi armies into neighboring countries. When Germany attacked Poland, World War II started. Western countries like France, Belgium, and the Netherlands were occupied and to be treated by Germany as colonies. However, in Eastern countries, such as Poland and the Soviet Union, the Nazis planned to kill or enslave the Slavic peoples, so that German settlers could take their land.
The Nazis made alliances with other European countries, such as Finland and Italy. Every other European country that allied with Germany did it because they did not want to be taken over by Germany. Through these alliances and invasions, the Nazis managed to control much of Europe.
The Holocaust
In the Holocaust, millions of Jews, as well as Roma people (also called "Gypsies"), people with disabilities, homosexuals, political opponents, and many other people were sent to concentration camps and death camps in Poland and Germany. The Nazis killed millions of these people at the concentration camps with poison gas. The Nazis also killed millions of people in these groups by forcing them to do slave labor without giving them much food or clothing. In total, 17 million people died, 6 million of them Jews.
Victory of the Allies
In 1945, the Soviet Union took over Berlin after beating the German army in Russia. The Soviet Red Army met the American and British armies, who had fought right across Germany after invading Nazi Europe from Normandy in France on June 6,1944. The Nazis lost because the Allies had many more soldiers and more money than them.
During the invasion of Berlin, Hitler may have shot himself in a bunker with his new wife, Eva Braun. Other Nazis also killed themselves, including Joseph Goebbels just one day after Hitler named him as his successor. The Nazis surrendered after the Red Army captured Berlin.
Trial for the Nazis
After the war, the Allied governments, namely the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, held trials for the Nazi leaders. These trials were held in Nuremberg, in Germany. For this reason, these trials were called "the Nuremberg Trials." The Allied leaders accused the Nazi leaders of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murdering millions of people (in the Holocaust), of starting wars, of conspiracy, and belonging to illegal organizations like the Schutzstaffel (SS). Most Nazi leaders were found guilty by the court, and they were sent to jail or executed by hanging.
Nazis after the war
There has not been a Nazi state since 1945, but there are still people who believe in those ideas. These people are often called neo-Nazis, (which means new-Nazis). Here are some examples of modern Nazi ideas:
- Germanic peoples are superior to all other races of people.
- Many neo-nazis change "germanic" to "all white people".
- They speak against Jews and sometimes other races. For example:
- They say that the Holocaust did not happen, and that it was made up by the Jews.
- Say that Hitler was right to blame Jewish people for Germany's problems after World War I;
- Tell people to hate Jewish people and other groups of people; and
- Believe that Jews have too much power in the world.
After the war, laws were made in Germany and other countries, especially countries in Europe, that make it illegal to say the Holocaust never happened. Certain countries, such as Germany, Austria, and France also ban the use of Nazi symbols and it is also banned to make a nazi pledge position on a popular media source to stop Nazis from using them.
Related pages
Images for kids
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte, considered one of the fathers of German nationalism
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Georg Ritter von Schönerer, a major exponent of Pan-Germanism in Austria
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Arthur de Gobineau, one of the key inventors of the theory of the "Aryan race"
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Houston Stewart Chamberlain, whose book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century would prove to be a seminal work in the history of German nationalism
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Beginning of Lebensraum, the Nazi German expulsion of Poles from central Poland, 1939
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Topographical map of Europe: the Nazi Party declared support for Drang nach Osten (expansion of Germany east to the Ural Mountains), that is shown on the upper right side of the map as a brown diagonal line
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A "poster information" from the exhibition "Miracle of Life" in Berlin in 1935
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Hitler in 1935 with Cesare Orsenigo, the Catholic Church's nuncio to Germany
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Deutsches Volk–Deutsche Arbeit: German People, German Work (1934) – an example of reactionary modernism
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Anti-communist, antisemitic propaganda poster in Nazi Germany
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Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, 1936
See also
In Spanish: Nazismo para niños
