Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and state as well as other related far-right groups. Usually characterised as a form of fascism that incorporates scientific racism and antisemitism, Nazism originally developed from the influences of pan-Germanism, the Völkisch German nationalist movement and the anti-communist Freikorps paramilitary culture in post-First World War Germany, which many Germans felt had been left humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles.
German Nazism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and social Darwinism, asserted the superiority of an Aryan master race, and criticised both capitalism and communism for being associated with Jewish materialism. It aimed to overcome social divisions, with all parts of a racially homogenous society cooperating for national unity and regeneration and to secure territorial enlargement at the expense of supposedly inferior neighbouring nations. The use of the name “National Socialism” arose out of earlier attempts by German right-wing figures to create a nationalist redefinition of “socialism”, as a reactionary alternative to both internationalist Marxist socialism and free market capitalism. This involved the idea of uniting rich and poor Germans for a common national project without eliminating class differences (a concept known as "Volksgemeinschaft", or "people's community"), and promoted the subordination of individuals and groups to the needs of the nation, state and leader. National Socialism rejected the Marxist concept of class struggle, opposed ideas of equality and international solidarity, and sought to defend private property.
The Nazi Party was founded as the pan-German nationalist and antisemitic German Workers' Party in January 1919. By the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler had become its leader and assumed control of the organisation, now renamed the National Socialist German Workers’...