Radicalisation - Nazi Racial Ideology

Social Darwinism and race theory

• Ideas of Social Darwinism were incorporated into Nazi ideology

• Hitler’s obsession with this ‘biological struggle’ between races fitted with his view of the Jews

• Hitler viewed humanity as consisting of a hierarchy of races: the Jews, black people and Slavics were inferior races while the master race (the Herrenvolk) was the Aryan people of Northern Europe

• Hitler believed that it was the destiny of Aryans to rule over the inferior races - meaning Hitler’s concept of Social Darwinism was on an all-or-nothing basis - Himmler’s justification of killing Jewish was that ‘the germ had to be eliminated’, and Jews were to be treated as posing a deadly threat to the German folk

Race theory and marriage

• A key Nazi idea was the need to ‘purify’ the stronger races by eliminating the ‘germs’ that threatened to poison them through intermarriage with so-called ‘degenerate’ (lacking expected qualities) races

• In order to ensure their success in this racial struggle, it was vital for Aryans to maintain their ‘racial purity’.

Social Darwinism definition

• Adapting Darwin’s scientific principles of natural biological selection (‘the survival of the fittest’) to rather unscientific theories about human society in order to justify ideas of racial superiority and the theory of eugenics

The Volksgemeinschaft

• Hitler’s concept of the Volksgemeinschaft (‘people’s community’) was non inclusive of all people living in Germany

• ‘Volk’ - to qualify as a member of the Volk it was essential to be a true German, both in terms of loyalty and racial purity - to protect the Volk, it was essential to eliminate all un-German elements

• Membership of the Volksgemeinschaft - known as Volksgenossen (national comrades) - was reserved for those of Aryan race, and members were expected to be healthy, socially efficient and politically reliable

Lebensraum

• ‘Living space’

• In Germany, there was widespread support for the idea that the country was already over-populated and that industrious German farmers needed more land

• Many argued that it was Germany’s destiny to expand eastwards, conquering the inferior Poles and the Russian Empire to gain fertile land and raw materials

• Nazi ideology fitted smoothly with this - however, Hitler’s concept of Lebensraum had a focus on race

• Involved

• ‘Germanisation of eastern lands’, bringing ‘lost Germans’ back to the Reich, and most importantly providing a battleground for a war of racial annihilation.