National Socialism emerged in Munich as a political movement shortly after the First World War in 1919/20. The roots of Nazism lie in völkisch-antisemitic, social-Darwinist oriented movements, parties and organisations that had been forming in the German Empire and in Austria-Hungary since the last quarter of the 19th century. In 1920, the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) was founded in Munich, and Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) became its leader in 1921. National Socialism is characterised by radical, racial, and ethnic anti-Semitism, a readiness for violence and terror, and extreme nationalism. Its stance and its claim to power with regard to the state and to society were both totalitarian and anti-democratic.
The NSDAP enjoyed great popularity during the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), mainly due to the stipulations imposed by the Versailles Treaties of 1919, and then again from the time of the Great Depression from 1929 onwards. In 1933, Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor. After that, the NSDAP succeeded in rapidly transforming Germany into a totalitarian dictatorship. Dissenters or individuals deemed "inferior" or "unworthy of life" within the framework of Nazi ideology were stripped of their rights, persecuted, and murdered. From 1939, the Nazi state unleashed the Second World War, occupying and conquering vast territories across Europe. In parts of Eastern Europe, the "Third Reich" pursued a brutal war of extermination. About 5.7 million European Jews and another six to eight million civilians were murdered. The genocide of the Jews is known as the "Holocaust" or "Shoa". In total, about 50 million people perished as a result of the war. The United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR were ultimately able to defeat Germany and its allies in 1945, thus ending the war. The National Socialist reign of terror serves as a reminder and is a central element of Germany's culture of remembrance and commemoration.
Dr. Matthias Bader
bavarikon4U