The Nazi Worldview

The crimes that Nazis committed were linked to a system of beliefs and a set of practices.

Nazi ideology was synonymous with Hitlers worldview. According to this there was no equality between people, but only a racial hierarchy. In this view blond, blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryanswere at the top, while Jews were located at the lowest rung. They came to be regarded as an anti-race, the arch-enemies of the Aryans. All other coloured people were placed in between depending upon their external features. Hitlers racism borrowed from thinkers like Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Darwin was a natural scientist who tried to explain the creation of plants and animals through the concept of evolution and natural selection. Herbert Spencer later added the idea of survival of the fittest. According to this idea, only those species survived on earth that could adapt themselves to changing climatic conditions. We should bear in mind that Darwin never advocated human intervention in what he thought was a purely natural process of selection. However, his ideas were used by racist thinkers and politicians to justify imperial rule over conquered peoples. The Nazi argument was simple: the strongest race would survive and the weak ones would perish. The Aryan race was the finest. It had to retain its purity, become stronger and dominate the world.

The other aspect of Hitlers ideology related to the geopolitical concept of Lebensraum, or living space. He believed that new territories had to be acquired for settlement. This would enhance the area of the mother country, while enabling the settlers on new lands to retain an intimate link with the place of their origin. It would also enhance the material resources and power of the German nation.Hitler intended to extend German boundaries by moving eastwards,to concentrate all Germans geographically in one place. Poland became the laboratory for this experimentation.

Source A:

For this earth is not allotted to anyone nor is it presented to anyone as a gift. It is awarded by providence to people who in their hearts have the courage to conquer it, the strength to preserve it,and the industry to put it to the plough the primary right of this world is the right to life, so far as one possesses the strength for this. Hence on the basis ofthis right a vigorous nation will always find ways of adapting its territory to its population size.Hitler, Secret Book, ed. Telford Taylor.

Source B:

In an era when the earth is gradually being divided up among states, some ofwhich embrace almost entire continents,we cannot speak of a world power inconnection with a formation whose political mother country is limited to the absurd area of five hundred kilometers.Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 644.