Auschwitz was a German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.

EXERCISE

• Have you ever heard the term Nazism?

• Do you associate it with anything or anyone?

Read the text below, explaining what Nazism was.

Nazism—a totalitarian ideology and movement, developed in interwar Germany and led by Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (or Nazi Party).

Nazism propagated:

– anti-individualism—the subordination of the individual to the nation and society,

– strength and struggle as the elements ruling the world,

– the strong authority of a charismatic leader (i.e. Hitler)—the so-called Führerprinzip;

– extreme nationalism:

• the nation is a community of blood, based on race and biology,
• the nation is thus connected to its blood and land (Blut und Boden)—hence the cult of land,
• the nation needs the Lebensraum, or the living space in the East, which it deserves (at the cost of the racially inferior Slavs),
• the nation must combat its enemies (Jews, communists, social-democrats, liberals).

  – rasism:

• the idea of the Herrenrasse, or the “master race”—the superiority of the Nordic peoples, especially the Germans, over inferior people, i.e. other white peoples, especially the Slavs (anti-Slavism), and non-white peoples,
• virulent anti-Semitism, or the hatred of Jews (which eventually led to the Holocaust).

Nazism opposed:

• democracy,
• the multiparty system,
• parliamentarianism,
• other ideologies and movements: liberalism, communism, social democracy, trade unions, pacifism,
• Christianity as a religion of submissiveness and meekness,
• the free press.

The Nazis came to power democratically, but consolidated their power through:

• dictatorship,
• lawlessness,
• terror and repressions—not only against their political opponents.

Do you know what ideas inspired Adolf Hitler to create the murderous ideology of Nazism? Read the explanation of Darwinism.

The term Darwinism comes from the name of Charles Darwin, a 19th-century British naturalist. He created the theory of evolution, which assumes a constant, gradual and irreversible transformation of species. This theory is based on a few observations:

• struggle for survival takes place in nature, as there is not enough space and food for all,
• the strongest and best adapted to the environment win this struggle.

EXERCISE

• Why was Darwin’s theory used as the foundation of Nazi ideology?
• Do you think the theory of evolution was useful in justifying the use of violence?
• Can the laws governing evolution be viewed as a model for human conduct?

Read the explanation of Nietzscheanism.

The term Nietzscheanism comes from the name of Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th-century German philosopher. He claimed that man’s primary goal is to live and obtain as much power as possible. However, people are not all the same and differ in their will to power, or the will to live. The strongest among them are masters. Those not fully aware of their power, or weak people, are slaves. Masters value independence and freedom, and they do not want to be restricted by ANY NORMS. Weak people act in herds and easily give up their own self and freedom.

Nietzsche criticised democracy as a system where the weak have an advantage. Christianity is the source of Europe’s fall because it stands up for the weak. Values stemming from Christianity should thus be discarded. These include: love for one’s neighbour, sacrifice for others, and empathy. Life should not be evaluated from a moral perspective, as it develops independently of “good” and “evil”. Nietzsche claimed that TRUTH does not exist and there are only different interpretations of reality.

Nietzsche heralded the emergence of a new epoch and a new human—Superhuman (Übermensch).

Like Nietzsche, Hitler criticised democracy.

EXERCISE

• Try to recap the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche.
• Answer the following question: who did Adolf Hitler mean when he used Nietzsche’s ideas of masters, slaves, superhuman.
• Drawing on the knowledge you have gained from your civic education classes, try to describe the values that democracy defends.
• Read the explanation of the term racism, and then a passage from Mein Kampf, the book Hitler wrote in prison, in which he presents his ideas and goals.

Racism is a ideology propagating the thesis of people’s inequality. The racist ideology assumes the superiority of some races over others. The survival of the “superior” races is of overriding importance, and thus they strive for dominance over “inferior” races. Racism is founded on the conviction that differences in people’s appearance (due to race) related to differences in personality and intellect.

Adolf Hitler thought that progress on earth is “the creative product of a few peoples and perhaps originally of one race”.

EXERCISE

• Who do you think Hitler may have meant by “the higher race”?

Hitler claimed that Germans are the only nation that represents the ideal and pure white race. The term “master race” was first used at the end of the 19th century in a racial theory that presented a pyramid of races. Germans (of the Nordic race) were at its top, and Jews (of the Semitic race) at its very bottom.

• According to the passage from Mein Kampf presented above, what do you think Hitler regarded as the greatest threat to the progress of humanity?