NATIONAL SOCIALISM. - A movement with a generally socialist tendency but a hierarchical and centralized structure, which arose in Germany in 1919–20 and gradually gained ground there through fluctuating fortunes, later becoming the totalitarian force at the head of that state from 1933 to 1945; it was then overwhelmed by the disastrous outcome of the Second World War, which it had essentially determined.
I. ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT UP TO 1933
With the entry of A. Hitler (then a propaganda officer in a Munich regiment) into the German Workers’ Party (founded by A. Drexler on 5 January 1919), National Socialism soon underwent unexpected development in Bavaria. On 24 February 1920, Hitler himself gave it an extensive 24-point programme, and in April its name was changed to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei: N.S.D.A.P.). On 25 July 1921, Hitler finally secured the party’s presidency and, especially by means of specially organized military groups (the Sturmabteilungen or assault detachments: S.A.), succeeded in rendering his most direct opponents, the Social Democrats, politically inactive. From the outset, several of his future leaders rallied to him: ex-officers such as H. Göring and E. Röhm, journalists such as A. Rosenberg (later the movement’s racial theorist) and students such as R. Hess (for many years the Party’s secretary and Hitler’s designated successor in 1939).However, the ill-fated attempt by various right-wing groups under General Ludendorff to stage a coup against the Bavarian government (the so-called Munich Putsch of 8–9 November 1923), which ended with Hitler’s conviction to five years’ imprisonment and the flight abroad of some of his collaborators, seemed to mark the Party’s decline. Yet in his cell, Hitler wrote a volume of memoirs and reflections that was destined to become—under the title *Mein Kampf*—the movement’s definitive ideological text.
On his release, the N.S.D.A.P.’s propaganda rapidly spread beyond Bavaria (in the north, particularly through the efforts of G. Strasser, who would later break with Hitler in 1932, and in the Rhineland, through J. Goebbels). The Party also created numerous dependent organizations (among them one for young people, led by B. von Schirach), launched a broad agrarian programme to defend peasant interests (inspired by W. Darré) and began to contest elections on a large scale, until it secured a majority of parliamentary seats in the Reichstag elections of 30 July 1932.
Thus the stage was set for its rise to power, especially as the masses, disillusioned and depressed (in 1929 unemployment had reached three million), saw in a decisive change of regime a hope of recovery. On 30 January 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor; the elections of 5 March to the Reichstag, conducted in an atmosphere of open intimidation, gave the Party 17 million votes; and on 23 March, by law, the Nazi cabinet was granted “full powers,” after which the country fell into the hands of the movement’s leaders, who thus became arbiters of its destiny.
II. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DOCTRINE
The 24 points of the 1920 programme, despite their initially provisional character, formed for many years the essential core of National Socialism’s demands: the reunification of all Germans into a great Germany no longer bound by treaties imposed by force and restored to its colonies; the formation of a closer community among all citizens (Volksgemeinschaft), though excluding those of non-German blood (in particular the Jews); protection of the middle class in industry and commerce by eliminating excessive profits and safeguarding labour in every way; equally effective support for the rural classes, burdened by taxes and debt; extensive and multifaceted activity in favour of the physical and moral health of the people; acceptance of a positive Christianity free from ties to particular confessions, admitted only if they “did not endanger the security of the State or harm the customs and sentiments of the Germanic race”; and finally, the establishment of a strong central power in the Reich.Unlike Fascism—from which Hitler borrowed many aspects, chiefly external—National Socialism, after its long wait for power, was able to elaborate a complete political and social doctrine and then translate it into legal terms through extensive coordinated legislation in the early years of its rule. It is therefore possible to outline its essential principles as they appeared in their most developed phase.
For National Socialism, the dominant political value was no longer the State, as elaborated in the scientific jurisprudence of the 19th century, but the people (Volk) as an ethnic unit essentially determined by the identity of blood. This intimate racial community (Volksgemeinschaft) was to be achieved by eliminating from the people all non-Aryan elements. According to this prejudice, the Aryan-Nordic race was most purely represented in Germany, and on the basis of the theory of the inequality of human races, formulated long before by the Frenchman Gobineau and the Englishman Chamberlain, it was considered the most advanced of all existing races. In particular, individuals of non-assimilable blood (among Europeans, for example, Jews and Gypsies) who had entered the citizenry at a time when racial considerations were disregarded were to be reduced to the status of mere subjects (Staatsangehörige) rather than citizens (Reichsbürger). Clearly, only the latter were to be regarded as full members of the Germanic people (Volksgenossen).
The formula *Blut und Boden* (“blood and soil”) summed up National Socialism’s thinking in this regard; but *Blut* also evoked the concept of lineage (*Abstammung*), that is, the biological, psychic and moral substance determined by birth, while *Boden* denoted not only the territory over which the supreme power of the State held sway, but also the stretch of land to which a people feels intrinsically bound by its labour and its history.
It is thus explained why, alongside the so-called Nuremberg Laws of 15 September 1935, which were openly anti-Semitic, there were enacted the law of 14 July 1933 on sterilization (of the incurably insane, habitual criminals, etc.), that of 18 October 1935 prohibiting marriage for persons suffering from certain contagious diseases, and the law of 29 September 1935 on hereditary farms (*Reichserbhofgesetz*), which aimed, by forbidding the further division of family farming units, to create a source of healthy blood through a strong and numerous rural population.
The aforementioned “German folk community, based on the identity of blood and historical tradition” was to bind all its members in a bond of sincere camaraderie, and within it the common good was to take natural precedence over individual advantage (“Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz” could be read on Reich coins). The individual was therefore to be considered only in his capacity as a member of the folk community, which in turn was to become ever more homogeneous by abolishing the manifold political, social and cultural particularisms, until it fully realized, with regard to the entire Germanic race even beyond the State’s territorial borders, the axiom “one people, one Reich, one Führer.”
The law, which was to bring order and strength to the aforementioned community, was not, in fact, conceived as something external and alien to the people themselves, but rather as something that existed within them in a diffuse state, awaiting the arrival of a *Führer* capable of giving it concrete form by expressing it in normative terms. The *Führer* appeared, in fact, as the one who, better than any other *Volksgenosse*, was able to interpret this communal spirit (*Volksgeist*); and he, in his activity directed toward safeguarding and strengthening the *Volksgemeinschaft*, was not to wield coercive power of dominion (*Herrschaft*), but rather to march forward as one who leads (*führt*), followed by all his comrades in full spontaneity and trust, forming his loyal *Gefolgschaft*.
The principal means necessary for the *Führer* to achieve these ends were the National Socialist Party (or *Bewegung*, i.e., the political movement) and the State, now conceived as the complex of bureaucratic, military, and paramilitary organizations (*Beamtentum*, *Wehrmacht*, *Arbeitsdienst*), that is, as a mere apparatus, a pure instrument of his leadership (*Führung*).
As is evident, such a political and social doctrine of National Socialism, with its quasi-mystical valorization of race, its absolute contempt for all individuals not belonging to the *Volksgemeinschaft*, its cult of pure violence, etc., could not be accepted by the Catholic Church. And so, despite the Concordat concluded with the Reich on 20 July 1933—particularly through the mediation of F. von Papen—which summarized previous agreements with certain Länder, numerous disputes soon arose over its interpretation. Meanwhile, the prestige of the Church was subtly undermined through numerous trials against priests accused of alleged violations of currency laws (1935) and moral laws (1936–37). The Pope, moreover, reacted most decisively to the growing suffocation of religious life with the encyclical *Mit brennender Sorge* (14 March 1937), which was echoed by numerous pastoral letters and declarations of the German episcopate. In reality, Catholic opposition was the only one to remain effectively active even during the harshest years of oppression. Moreover, the National Socialist attempt to completely subjugate the Protestant Church, given its national character (law of 11 July 1933), encountered considerable resistance from many pastors.
III. ITS EPHEMERAL TRIUMPH IN GERMANY
Especially during the early years of the Second World War, the programmatic foundations now outlined appeared largely achieved, even though subsequent events revealed their ephemeral nature.In fact, after the death of President Hindenburg (2 August 1934), the *Führer* remained the sole legislator; all public officials (including those in the armed forces) answered directly to him and swore personal loyalty to him; a devoted party militia (the *Schutzstaffeln*, or protection squads: SS), tasked with police duties, reported directly to him; even the judiciary had become dependent on his will, while he could intervene personally in any trial to determine and even execute punishment, as he had done, for example, in 1934 when suppressing the rebellion ordered by the SA Chief of Staff, Röhm. Moreover, according to the principle “authority downward, responsibility upward,” all public functions, without any democratic participation of the people in government, were assigned to a complex hierarchy of subordinate leaders, ultimately answerable only to the single, irresponsible *Führer* (the so-called *Führerprinzip*). Similarly, citizens enjoyed no serious constitutional guarantees, since judges could impose penalties even in the absence of appropriate laws, if they deemed an action contrary to the immanent and latent right inherent in the *Volksgemeinschaft*.
The *Volksgemeinschaft*, internally, had indeed been purged of numerous non-assimilable elements (particularly through the relentless application of anti-Semitic laws), and consolidated into a unified State through the complete abolition of Länder autonomy and the incorporation of German-speaking nuclei, achieved by the annexation of Austria, the Sudetenland, etc.; and externally, it had attained a position of clear supremacy over various smaller ethnic groups through the formation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the Governorate of Poland, etc.
With the victory of the United Nations in 1945, the total collapse of National Socialist political institutions followed, swiftly and definitively, along with the complete dissolution of the “ideological myth” that formed its foundation and had drawn strength only from its apparent successes. The moral absurdity underlying such theories could no longer remain concealed, despite certain superficially appealing aspects, such as the proclaimed camaraderie or the asserted spontaneous subordination to collective utility. In reality, these masked an unjustifiable contempt for the supreme dignity of every individual human person.
The concept of nation (*nazione*) differs from that of race (*razza*), since the former is based on a natural social bond, while the latter is founded on a merely biological and material principle. The natural end of the nation is the common good, which, being universal and equal in all members of the species, allows for a broad scope of its natural end, extending to all goods necessary for a sufficient life. The end of race, by contrast, is restricted to the preservation of its cultural heritage.
In recent formulations, a particular concept of the nation has begun to emerge, the full articulation of which requires examination based on empirical data.
It seems evident, first of all, that the nation belongs to the category of natural social aggregates, being constituted by a core of intelligent beings united by an internal principle, the effect of innate human sociability, which spontaneously tends to bind together those subjects who are near and united by particular similarities of origin, character, and culture. The contrary opinion, which attributes the origin of the nation to the State, is refuted by the fact that, even before modern nation-states formed, well-defined social cells—ethnic groups—already existed within the territories later subjected to their political rule, groups to which the quality of nation cannot be denied. Not the nation presupposes the State, but the State presupposes the nation, as the environment in which the phenomenon of the State arises.
As a natural social aggregate, the nation is composed of a sum of individuals who resemble one another not only in nature but also in certain well-defined accidental specifications. Now, since man is a rational being, he does not enter into a factual association unless through a spiritual bond; consequently, one of the essential elements of the nation must be sought in something consciously perceived. This element consists in the consciousness of nationality, that is, in all those common traits that mark individuals or partial units, which, as properties of the aggregate, constitute its social patrimony and produce in the subjects the will to live together and the feeling of being bound to a common destiny.
This first spiritual element is further specified by the end toward which the associated action naturally tends, since the nation, like every other social formation, is specified by its end. This end, as Delos has well shown, properly consists in the preservation and development of the common cultural heritage for the benefit of the fullest and most perfect formation of the human person. Indeed, what produces the unitary consciousness and the will to collaborate among the members of a nation are the organic and spiritual partial unities that form a factual bond even before the rise of national consciousness. The objective foundation upon which rests the sentiment of social unity in the nation is, therefore, the various similarities that may be called factors of nationality.
It follows that, if these similarities—unity of religion, language, traditions, and culture—are exhausted beyond a certain limit, the instinct of sociability would lose its stimulus and the national aggregate its cohesion. If it wishes to endure, the nation must preserve and develop, protect and preserve its cultural heritage; this means that its natural end consists precisely in this preservation and defense, which cannot be separated from reasonable progress.
Yet national culture, its preservation and development, would have no significance as a collective end if they did not redound to the benefit of the human person. The bearers and artisans of civilization are persons, not the nation conceived or idealized as a subject in itself; the common culture must therefore flow back upon its artisans as a heritage to which all equally have a right. The natural importance of the nation is proportionate to the service it renders to man, and this is singular and proper. It impresses upon human faculties operative habits, permanent dispositions that will give direction and facility to their actions, actualizing the potential with which the human being comes into life. Thus it performs a function within man, forming his soul and character, shaping his sentiment, impressing upon the entire complex of his psychic functions special attitudes that will become permanent.
Through slow and continuous action, the nation implants in man, almost imperceptibly, the elements of its culture, communicates to him the patrimony of its spirit, its ideas, its traditions, its language, and its religion, sealing his soul forever, just as the community of origin from the same stock has sealed his body.
Synthesizing the elements described thus far, one may arrive at a complete definition of the nation. In its essence, it is a natural social aggregate that, in the consciousness of its unity of origin and culture, tends to the preservation and development of its own peculiarities and distinctive traits, for the sake of the fullest formation of the human person.