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155-523: The upcoming decision led to tumultuous upheavals in the local society. A decisive role was played by the Völkischer Kampfring , a local Nazi group, with its successful propagandistic appeals to the German "nationality" and "ethnicity" of South Tyroleans, and its terror acts against dissenters. Another key aspect was the spreading of fake rumors about an allegedly planned deportation of the "remainers" by

310-460: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it

465-402: A second language , and 75–100   million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220   million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90   million people, or 16% of

620-559: A yokel . In this sense, the word Nazi was a hypocorism of the German male name Igna(t)z (itself a variation of the name Ignatius )—Igna(t)z being a common name at the time in Bavaria , the area from which the NSDAP emerged. In the 1920s, political opponents of the NSDAP in the German labour movement seized on this. Using the earlier abbreviated term Sozi for Sozialist ( German for 'Socialist') as an example, they shortened

775-587: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become

930-529: A "state within a state" that threatened German national unity. Fichte promoted two options in order to address this, his first one being the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine so the Jews could be impelled to leave Europe. His second option was violence against Jews and he said that the goal of the violence would be "to cut off all their heads in one night, and set new ones on their shoulders, which should not contain

1085-423: A "superior" society based on ethnic German "folk" culture and German "blood". It denounced foreigners and foreign ideas and declared that Jews, Freemasons and others were "traitors to the nation" and unworthy of inclusion. Völkisch nationalism saw the world in terms of natural law and romanticism and it viewed societies as organic, extolling the virtues of rural life, condemning the neglect of tradition and

1240-498: A blood-and-soil ideology, the notion of a master race, [and] the idea of territorial acquisition and settlement in the East. These ideas were embedded in a popular nationalism which was vigorously anti-modernist, anti-humanist and pseudo-religious. Brought together, the result was an anti-intellectual and politically semi-illiterate ideology lacking cohesion, a product of mass culture which allowed its followers emotional attachment and offered

1395-421: A deliberate attempt at reducing the indigenous German-speaking population to minority status. Between 1928 and 1939 various resistance groups formed in the province to fight the fascist Italian regime and its policy of suppressing the German language. Children were taught the prohibited German language in clandestine catacombe schools and Catholic media and associations resisted the forced integration under

1550-755: A form of far-right politics . Far-right themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate other people and purge society of supposed inferior elements. Adolf Hitler and other proponents denied that Nazism was either left-wing or right-wing: instead, they officially portrayed Nazism as a syncretic movement. In Mein Kampf , Hitler directly attacked both left-wing and right-wing politics in Germany, saying: Today our left-wing politicians in particular are constantly insisting that their craven-hearted and obsequious foreign policy necessarily results from

1705-556: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from

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1860-457: A hierarchy of evolution from apes while Darwinian theory did not grade races in a hierarchy of higher or lower evolution from apes, but simply stated that all humans as a whole had progressed in their evolution from apes. Many Lamarckians viewed "lower" races as having been exposed to debilitating conditions for too long for any significant "improvement" of their condition to take place in the near future. Haeckel used Lamarckian theory to describe

2015-461: A homogeneous German society based on racial purity which represented a people's community ( Volksgemeinschaft ). The Nazis aimed to unite all Germans living in historically German territory, as well as gain additional lands for German expansion under the doctrine of Lebensraum and exclude those whom they deemed either Community Aliens or "inferior" races ( Untermenschen ). The term "National Socialism" arose out of attempts to create

2170-475: A nation's need to maintain its racial purity in order to prevent its degeneration and argued that racial intermingling with Jews should never be permitted. In 1923, Chamberlain met Hitler, whom he admired as a leader of the rebirth of the free spirit. Madison Grant 's work The Passing of the Great Race (1916) advocated Nordicism and proposed that a eugenics program should be implemented in order to preserve

2325-466: A nationalist redefinition of socialism , as an alternative to both Marxist international socialism and free-market capitalism . Nazism rejected the Marxist concepts of class conflict and universal equality , opposed cosmopolitan internationalism , and sought to convince all parts of the new German society to subordinate their personal interests to the " common good ", accepting political interests as

2480-453: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained

2635-410: A part of Italy since the end of World War I . After the rise of fascism in 1922, a policy of Italianization in the area was implemented ruthlessly. All places, down to the tiniest hamlet, were given Italian names, and even family names were translated. The process intensified in the 1930s, when the government of Benito Mussolini encouraged thousands of southern Italians to relocate to the region, in

2790-679: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In

2945-595: A prominent aspect of German ultranationalism since the late 19th century. Nazism was strongly influenced by the Freikorps paramilitary groups that emerged after Germany's defeat in World War I , from which came the party's underlying "cult of violence". It subscribed to pseudo-scientific theories of a racial hierarchy , identifying ethnic Germans as part of what the Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race . Nazism sought to overcome social divisions and create

3100-421: A renaming that Hitler initially objected to. The National Socialist Program , or "25 Points", was adopted in 1920 and called for a united Greater Germany that would deny citizenship to Jews or those of Jewish descent, while also supporting land reform and the nationalisation of some industries. In Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), published in 1925–1926, Hitler outlined the antisemitism and anti-communism at

3255-475: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it

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3410-675: A simplified and easily-digestible world-view based on a political mythology for the masses. Adolf Hitler himself along with other members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei , NSDAP) in the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) were greatly influenced by several 19th- and early 20th-century thinkers and proponents of philosophical, onto-epistemic, and theoretical perspectives on ecological anthropology , scientific racism , holistic science , and organicism regarding

3565-736: A single Jewish idea". The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1912) is an antisemitic forgery created by the secret service of the Russian Empire , the Okhrana . Many antisemites believed it was real and thus it became widely popular after World War I. The Protocols claimed that there was a secret international Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. Hitler had been introduced to The Protocols by Alfred Rosenberg and from 1920 onwards he focused his attacks by claiming that Judaism and Marxism were directly connected, that Jews and Bolsheviks were one and

3720-956: A temporary strategic alliance between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to form a common anti-liberal front so they could defeat liberal democracies, particularly France . Hitler admired the British Empire and its colonial system as living proof of Germanic superiority over "inferior" races and saw the United Kingdom as Germany's natural ally. He wrote in Mein Kampf : "For a long time to come there will be only two Powers in Europe with which it may be possible for Germany to conclude an alliance. These Powers are Great Britain and Italy." The historical roots of Nazism are to be found in various elements of European political culture which were in circulation in

3875-688: Is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and

4030-580: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as

4185-547: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German

4340-546: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic

4495-472: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German

4650-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25   million speak it as

4805-460: Is determined for its part ruthlessly to seize the reins of power—that is the beginning of resistance of which I spoke a few minutes ago. Hitler at times redefined socialism. When George Sylvester Viereck interviewed Hitler in October 1923 and asked him why he referred to his party as 'socialists' he replied: Socialism is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism

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4960-520: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in

5115-595: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as

5270-559: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are

5425-525: Is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists. Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it

5580-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and

5735-587: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as

5890-506: Is outlawed in many European countries, including Germany and Austria. The full name of the Nazi Party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ( German for 'National Socialist German Workers' Party') and they officially used the acronym NSDAP. The term "nazi" had been in use, before the rise of the NSDAP, as a colloquial and derogatory word for a backwards farmer or peasant . It characterised an awkward and clumsy person,

6045-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German

6200-404: Is patriotic. In 1929, Hitler gave a speech to a group of Nazi leaders and simplified 'socialism' to mean, "Socialism! That is an unfortunate word altogether... What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism." When asked in an interview on 27 January 1934 whether he supported the "bourgeois right-wing", Hitler claimed that Nazism

6355-510: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c.  1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period

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6510-566: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish

6665-481: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers

6820-673: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to

6975-677: The Schutzstaffel (SS) functioned as the paramilitary organisations of the Nazi Party. Using the SS for the task, Hitler purged the party's more socially and economically radical factions in the mid-1934 Night of the Long Knives , including the leadership of the SA. After the death of President Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, political power was concentrated in Hitler's hands and he became Germany's head of state as well as

7130-627: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as

7285-567: The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Optanten für Deutschland (Association of Optants for Germany). Those who chose to stay, called Dableiber , mainly banded together around local Catholic priests . The Völkischer Kampfring , a local Nazi organization, condemned the Dableiber as "traitors", comparing them to "Jews" or "Gypsies", and was responsible for aggressive propaganda, violence and terror acts against them. The Option destroyed many families and

7440-522: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share

7595-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language

7750-514: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout

7905-724: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in

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8060-623: The Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitler Fascism (German: Hitlerfaschismus ) and Hitlerism (German: Hitlerismus ). The later related term " neo-Nazism " is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War when the Third Reich collapsed. Nazism is a form of fascism , with disdain for liberal democracy and

8215-644: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c.  765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in

8370-626: The Soviet Union 's leader Joseph Stalin and Stalinism on numerous occasions. Hitler commended Stalin for seeking to purify the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of Jewish influences, noting Stalin's purging of Jewish communists such as Leon Trotsky , Grigory Zinoviev , Lev Kamenev and Karl Radek . While Hitler had always intended to bring Germany into conflict with the Soviet Union so he could gain Lebensraum ("living space"), he supported

8525-486: The Soviet Union . The Nazi Party won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, making them the largest party in the legislature by far, albeit still short of an outright majority ( 37.3% on 31 July 1932 and 33.1% on 6 November 1932 ). Because none of the parties were willing or able to put together a coalition government, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933 by President Paul von Hindenburg through

8680-640: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung

8835-536: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit.   ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this

8990-503: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and   Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German

9145-902: The Wehrmacht occupied the province and on 10 September 1943 the Operation Zone of the Alpine Foothills was established. The ADO was dissolved and joined with the Deutsche Volksgruppe . Peter Hofer was chosen as the Volksgruppenführer . Some members of the ADO joined with the South Tyrolean Volunteer Corps and were involved in the annihilation of the Jewish population in Meran . Though,

9300-404: The assimilation of the ethnic German minorities in the province. The members of these two language communities had to choose by 31 December 1939 between remaining in Italy and losing all minority rights, or emigrating to Nazi Germany, the so-called "Option für Deutschland" (option for Germany). Around 70% of the population opted for emigration; they were called Optanten and banded together in

9455-415: The far-right political canard which was popular when the ethnic völkisch movement and its politics of Romantic nationalism for establishing a Großdeutschland was strong. Nazism's racial policy positions may have developed from the views of important biologists of the 19th century, including French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , through Ernst Haeckel 's idealist version of Lamarckism and

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9610-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from

9765-407: The parliamentary system . It incorporates a dictatorship , fervent antisemitism , anti-communism , anti-Slavism , anti-Romani sentiment , scientific racism , white supremacy , Nordicism , social Darwinism , homophobia , ableism , and the use of eugenics into its creed. Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist Völkisch movement which had been

9920-505: The 1870s, German völkisch nationalism began to adopt antisemitic and racist themes and it was also adopted by a number of radical right political movements. Radical antisemitism was promoted by prominent advocates of völkisch nationalism, including Eugen Diederichs , Paul de Lagarde and Julius Langbehn . De Lagarde called the Jews a " bacillus , the carriers of decay ... who pollute every national culture ... and destroy all faiths with their materialistic liberalism" and he called for

10075-416: The Bavarian Soviet Republic and he stated that he became an antisemite in 1913 during his years in Vienna. This statement has been disputed by the contention that he was not an antisemite at that time, even though it is well established that he read many antisemitic tracts and journals during that time and admired Karl Lueger , the antisemitic mayor of Vienna. Hitler altered his political views in response to

10230-474: The DNVP lost many of its seats in the Reichstag . The Nazis denounced them as "an insignificant heap of reactionaries". The DNVP responded by denouncing the Nazis for their "socialism", their street violence and the "economic experiments" that would take place if the Nazis ever rose to power. However, amidst an inconclusive political situation in which conservative politicians Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher were unable to form stable governments without

10385-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In

10540-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of

10695-412: The German Army and several prominent industrialists, formed an alliance in opposition to the Weimar Republic on 11 October 1931 in Bad Harzburg , officially known as the "National Front", but commonly referred to as the Harzburg Front . The Nazis stated that the alliance was purely tactical and they continued to have differences with the DNVP. After the elections of July 1932, the alliance broke down when

10850-405: The German Nation (1808), written amid the First French Empire 's occupation of Berlin during the Napoleonic Wars , Fichte called for a German national revolution against the French Imperial Army occupiers, making passionate public speeches, arming his students for battle against the French and stressing the need for action by the German nation so it could free itself. Fichte's German nationalism

11005-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of

11160-497: The German politician Friedrich Naumann formed the National-Social Association which aimed to combine German nationalism and a non-Marxist form of socialism together; the attempt turned out to be futile and the idea of linking nationalism with socialism quickly became equated with antisemites, extreme German nationalists and the völkisch movement in general. During the era of the German Empire , völkisch nationalism

11315-447: The German states; the invention of the printing press c.  1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of

11470-675: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by

11625-646: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are

11780-845: The Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ), the Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German

11935-651: The Italian government. Roughly 70% opted to move to Germany. The region of South Tyrol had been a place of contending claims and conflict between German nationalism and Italian nationalism . One of the leading founders of Italian nationalism, Giuseppe Mazzini , along with Ettore Tolomei , counterfactually claimed that the German-speaking South Tyrolian population were in fact mostly a Germanicized population of Roman origin who needed to be "liberated and returned to their rightful culture". The southern part of Tyrol , renamed " Province of Bolzano ", had been

12090-619: The Jewish population of Europe – were eventually exterminated in a genocide which became known as the Holocaust . Following Germany's defeat in World War II and the discovery of the full extent of the Holocaust, Nazi ideology became universally disgraced. It is widely regarded as evil , with only a few fringe racist groups, usually referred to as neo-Nazis, describing themselves as followers of National Socialism. The use of Nazi symbols

12245-507: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c.  thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c.  1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy

12400-517: The NSDAP's name, Nationalsozialistische , to the dismissive "Nazi", in order to associate them with the derogatory use of the aforementioned term. The first use of the term "Nazi" by the National Socialists occurred in 1926 in a publication by Joseph Goebbels called Der Nazi-Sozi ["The Nazi-Sozi"]. In Goebbels' pamphlet, the word "Nazi" only appears when linked with the word "Sozi" as an abbreviation of "National Socialism". After

12555-413: The NSDAP's rise to power in the 1930s, the use of the term "Nazi" by itself or in terms such as " Nazi Germany ", " Nazi regime ", and so on was popularised by German exiles outside the country, but not in Germany. From them, the term spread into other languages and it was eventually brought back into Germany after World War II. The NSDAP briefly adopted the designation "Nazi" in an attempt to reappropriate

12710-486: The Nazi Party emerged from obscurity to become a major political force after 1929, the conservative faction rapidly gained more influence, as wealthy donors took an interest in the Nazis as a potential bulwark against communism. The Nazi Party had previously been financed almost entirely from membership dues, but after 1929 its leadership began actively seeking donations from German industrialists, and Hitler began holding dozens of fundraising meetings with business leaders. In

12865-464: The Nazi Party. His four sons, including Prince Eitel Friedrich and Prince Oskar , became members of the Nazi Party in hopes that in exchange for their support, the Nazis would permit the restoration of the monarchy. Hitler dismissed the possibility of a restored monarchy, calling it "idiotic." Wilhelm grew to distrust Hitler and was appalled at the Kristallnacht of 9–10 November 1938, stating, "For

13020-564: The Nazi movement the Heil greeting, the Führer title and the model of absolute party leadership. Hitler was also impressed by the populist antisemitism and the anti-liberal bourgeois agitation of Karl Lueger , who as the mayor of Vienna during Hitler's time in the city used a rabble-rousing style of oratory that appealed to the wider masses. Unlike von Schönerer, Lueger was not a German nationalist and instead

13175-687: The Nazi point of view, sacrificing South Tyrol was a relatively small price to pay in exchange for securing Italian support in pursuit of German claims elsewhere, starting with the Sudetenland before incorporating formerly German territories in Poland and ultimately vast territories in the east . In June 1939, the Nazi regime in Germany and the fascist regime in Italy signed the Option Agreement. On 21 October 1939, Adolf Hitler and Mussolini reached agreement on

13330-454: The Nazi seizure of power, there were even Social Democrats and Communists who switched sides and became known as " Beefsteak Nazis ": brown on the outside and red inside. The leader of the SA, Ernst Röhm , pushed for a "second revolution" (the "first revolution" being the Nazis' seizure of power) that would enact socialist policies. Furthermore, Röhm desired that the SA absorb the much smaller German Army into its ranks under his leadership. Once

13485-400: The Nazis achieved power, Röhm's SA was directed by Hitler to violently suppress the parties of the left, but they also began attacks against individuals deemed to be associated with conservative reaction. Hitler saw Röhm's independent actions as violating and possibly threatening his leadership, as well as jeopardising the regime by alienating the conservative President Paul von Hindenburg and

13640-487: The Nazis as a useful ally to promote their interests. Business groups made significant financial contributions to the Nazi Party both before and after the Nazi seizure of power, in the hope that a Nazi dictatorship would eliminate the organised labour movement and the left-wing parties. Hitler actively sought to gain the support of business leaders by arguing that private enterprise is incompatible with democracy. Although he opposed communist ideology, Hitler publicly praised

13795-525: The Nazis, Papen proposed to President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor at the head of a government formed primarily of conservatives, with only three Nazi ministers. Hindenburg did so, and contrary to the expectations of Papen and the DNVP, Hitler was soon able to establish a Nazi one-party dictatorship. Kaiser Wilhelm II , who was pressured to abdicate the throne and flee into exile amidst an attempted communist revolution in Germany, initially supported

13950-463: The Nineteenth Century (1899), praised Germanic peoples for their creativity and idealism while asserting that the Germanic spirit was threatened by a "Jewish" spirit of selfishness and materialism . Chamberlain used his thesis to promote monarchical conservatism while denouncing democracy , liberalism and socialism . The book became popular, especially in Germany. Chamberlain stressed

14105-749: The Pan-German Großdeutschland ("Greater Germany") which the Nazis advocated, Hitler stated that Bismarck's attainment of Kleindeutschland was the "highest achievement" Bismarck could have achieved "within the limits possible at that time". In Mein Kampf , Hitler presented himself as a "second Bismarck". During his youth in Austria, Hitler was politically influenced by Austrian Pan-Germanist proponent Georg Ritter von Schönerer , who advocated radical German nationalism , antisemitism, anti-Catholicism , anti-Slavic sentiment and anti-Habsburg views. From von Schönerer and his followers, Hitler adopted for

14260-574: The Semitic race, which they associated with "cultural sterility". Arthur de Gobineau , a French racial theorist and aristocrat, blamed the fall of the ancien régime in France on racial degeneracy caused by racial intermixing , which he argued had destroyed the purity of the Aryan race, a term which he only reserved for Germanic people. Gobineau's theories, which attracted a strong following in Germany, emphasised

14415-595: The Weimar Republic for signing the armistice in November 1918 which later led it to sign the Treaty of Versailles. A major inspiration for the Nazis were the far-right nationalist Freikorps , paramilitary organisations that engaged in political violence after World War I. Initially, the post–World War I German far-right was dominated by monarchists , but the younger generation, which was associated with völkisch nationalism,

14570-616: The afternoon, even after he became Chancellor and then Führer. After the war, his battalion was absorbed by the Bavarian Soviet Republic from 1918 to 1919, where he was elected Deputy Battalion Representative. According to historian Thomas Weber , Hitler attended the funeral of communist Kurt Eisner (a German Jew), wearing a black mourning armband on one arm and a red communist armband on the other, which he took as evidence that Hitler's political beliefs had not yet solidified. In Mein Kampf , Hitler never mentioned any service with

14725-438: The concept of the Aryan race to draw a distinction between what they deemed to be "high and noble" Aryan culture versus that of "parasitic" Semitic culture. Notions of white supremacy and Aryan racial superiority were combined in the 19th century, with white supremacists maintaining the belief that certain groups of white people were members of an Aryan "master race" that is superior to other races and particularly superior to

14880-641: The conservative-oriented German Army. This resulted in Hitler purging Röhm and other radical members of the SA in 1934, in what came to be known as the Night of the Long Knives . Before he joined the Bavarian Army to fight in World War I, Hitler had lived a bohemian lifestyle as a petty street watercolour artist in Vienna and Munich and he maintained elements of this lifestyle later on, going to bed very late and rising in

15035-604: The constitution of complex systems and theorization of organic-racial societies. In particular, one of the most significant ideological influences on the Nazis was the 19th-century German nationalist philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte , whose works had served as an inspiration to Hitler and other Nazi Party members, and whose ideas were implemented among the philosophical and ideological foundations of Nazi-oriented Völkisch nationalism . Fichte's works served as an inspiration to Hitler and other Nazi Party members, including Dietrich Eckart and Arnold Fanck . In Speeches to

15190-538: The decay of morals, denounced the destruction of the natural environment and condemned "cosmopolitan" cultures such as Jews and Romani. The first party that attempted to combine nationalism and socialism was the (Austria-Hungary) German Workers' Party , which predominantly aimed to solve the conflict between the Austrian Germans and the Czechs in the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire , then part of Austria-Hungary . In 1896

15345-430: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with

15500-526: The development of the economy of the province was set back for many years. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Optanten für Deutschland (ADO) ( German for "Association of optants for Germany") was an association for German-speakers who had chosen to emigrate to Germany rather than stay in South Tyrol . The association was founded on 30 January 1940. Peter Hofer took leadership of the Association. In September 1943,

15655-452: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in

15810-521: The disarmament of Germany, whereas the truth is that this is the policy of traitors ... But the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms. In a speech given in Munich on 12 April 1922, Hitler stated: There are only two possibilities in Germany; do not imagine that

15965-507: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of

16120-430: The existence of an irreconcilable polarity between Aryan ( Germanic ) and Jewish cultures . Aryan mysticism claimed that Christianity originated in Aryan religious traditions, and that Jews had usurped the legend from Aryans. Houston Stewart Chamberlain , an English-born German proponent of racial theory, supported notions of Germanic supremacy and antisemitism in Germany. Chamberlain's work, The Foundations of

16275-427: The existence of interracial struggle and put races on a hierarchy of evolution, ranging from wholly human to subhuman . Mendelian inheritance , or Mendelism, was supported by the Nazis, as well as by mainstream eugenicists of the time. The Mendelian theory of inheritance declared that genetic traits and attributes were passed from one generation to another. Eugenicists used Mendelian inheritance theory to demonstrate

16430-492: The extermination of the Jews. Langbehn called for a war of annihilation against the Jews, and his genocidal policies were later published by the Nazis and given to soldiers on the front during World War II . One antisemitic ideologue of the period, Friedrich Lange , even used the term "National Socialism" to describe his own anti-capitalist take on the völkisch nationalist template. Johann Gottlieb Fichte accused Jews in Germany of having been and inevitably of continuing to be

16585-509: The fact that words in European languages and words in Indo-Iranian languages have similar pronunciations and meanings. Johann Gottfried Herder argued that the Germanic peoples held close racial connections to the ancient Indians and the ancient Persians, who he claimed were advanced peoples that possessed a great capacity for wisdom, nobility, restraint and science. Contemporaries of Herder used

16740-570: The father of genetics , German botanist Gregor Mendel . Haeckel's works were later condemned by the Nazis as inappropriate for "National-Socialist formation and education in the Third Reich". This may have been because of his " monist " atheistic , materialist philosophy, which the Nazis disliked, along with his friendliness to Jews, opposition to militarism and support altruism, with one Nazi official calling for them to be banned. Unlike Darwinian theory, Lamarckian theory officially ranked races in

16895-567: The fields of agricultural and industrial labour. German Jewish financiers and bankers played a key role in fostering Germany's economic growth from 1871 to 1913 and they benefited enormously from this boom. In 1908, amongst the twenty-nine wealthiest German families with aggregate fortunes of up to 55 million marks at the time, five were Jewish and the Rothschilds were the second wealthiest German family. The predominance of Jews in Germany's banking, commerce and industry sectors during this time period

17050-469: The first time, I am ashamed to be a German." The former German emperor also denounced the Nazis as a "bunch of shirted gangsters" and "a mob ... led by a thousand liars or fanatics." There were factions within the Nazi Party, both conservative and radical. The conservative Nazi Hermann Göring urged Hitler to conciliate with capitalists and reactionaries . Other prominent conservative Nazis included Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich . Meanwhile,

17205-512: The head of the government, with the title of Führer und Reichskanzler , meaning "leader and Chancellor of Germany" (see also here ). From that point, Hitler was effectively the dictator of Nazi Germany—also known as the Third Reich—under which Jews, political opponents and other "undesirable" elements were marginalised, imprisoned or murdered . During World War II , many millions of people – including around two-thirds of

17360-481: The heart of his political philosophy as well as his disdain for representative democracy , over which he proposed the Führerprinzip ( leader principle ), and his belief in Germany's right to territorial expansion through lebensraum . Hitler's objectives involved the eastward expansion of German territories, German colonization of Eastern Europe, and the promotion of an alliance with Britain and Italy against

17515-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,

17670-546: The induction of the Nuremberg Race Laws in 1935 by the Nazis, many German nationalists such as Roland Freisler strongly supported laws to ban Rassenschande between Aryans and Jews as racial treason. Even before the laws were officially passed, the Nazis banned sexual relations and marriages between party members and Jews. Party members found guilty of Rassenschande were severely punished; some party members were even sentenced to death. The Nazis claimed that Bismarck

17825-474: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of

17980-508: The intellectual capitals of the continent, what Joachim Fest called the "scrapheap of ideas" prevalent at the time. In Hitler and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic , historian Martin Broszat points out that [A]lmost all essential elements of ... Nazi ideology were to be found in the radical positions of ideological protest movements [in pre-1914 Germany]. These were: a virulent anti-Semitism,

18135-495: The main priority of economic organisation, which tended to match the general outlook of collectivism or communitarianism rather than economic socialism. The Nazi Party's precursor, the pan-German nationalist and antisemitic German Workers' Party (DAP), was founded on 5 January 1919. By the early 1920s, the party was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party in order to appeal to left-wing workers,

18290-520: The midst of the Great Depression, facing the possibility of economic ruin on the one hand and a Communist or Social Democrat government on the other hand, German business increasingly turned to Nazism as offering a way out of the situation, by promising a state-driven economy that would support, rather than attack, existing business interests. By January 1933, the Nazi Party had secured the support of important sectors of German industry, mainly among

18445-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted

18600-501: The nation. He believed that communism was invented by the Jews to weaken nations by promoting class struggle. After his rise to power, Hitler took a pragmatic position on economics, accepting private property and allowing capitalist private enterprises to exist so long as they adhered to the goals of the Nazi state, but not tolerating enterprises that he saw as being opposed to the national interest. German business leaders disliked Nazi ideology but came to support Hitler, because they saw

18755-630: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from

18910-534: The people will forever go with the middle party, the party of compromises; one day it will turn to those who have most consistently foretold the coming ruin and have sought to dissociate themselves from it. And that party is either the Left: and then God help us! for it will lead us to complete destruction—to Bolshevism, or else it is a party of the Right which at the last, when the people is in utter despair, when it has lost all its spirit and has no longer any faith in anything,

19065-404: The prime minister of Italy ( Alcide De Gasperi ) and agreed on Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol to remain part of Italy ensuring its autonomy. Those who returned had to register both themselves and their children, and they had to prove, by means of a birth certificate , that they had the right to Italian citizenship. According to the 2001 census, more than two-thirds (69.4%) of the population of

19220-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation

19375-627: The protection of the Vatican . The underground resistance movement, the Völkischer Kampfring Südtirols , was formed by a Nazi party member, Peter Hofer  [ de ] . The geopolitical situation changed radically following the incorporation of Austria into the German Reich in 1938. Mussolini, who could safely ignore grievances regarding his treatment of a German-speaking minority as long as his country's German-speaking neighbour

19530-485: The province still speak German, 26.3% Italian and 4.3% Ladin as their mother language. Nazism Final solution Parties Nazism ( / ˈ n ɑː t s ɪ z əm , ˈ n æ t -/ NA(H)T -siz-əm ), formally National Socialism ( NS ; German : Nationalsozialismus , German: [natsi̯oˈnaːlzotsi̯aˌlɪsmʊs] ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and

19685-519: The purity of the Nordic race. After reading the book, Hitler called it "my Bible". In Germany, the belief that Jews were economically exploiting Germans became prominent due to the ascendancy of many wealthy Jews into prominent positions upon the unification of Germany in 1871. From 1871 to the early 20th century, German Jews were overrepresented in Germany's upper and middle classes while they were underrepresented in Germany's lower classes, particularly in

19840-455: The radical Nazi Joseph Goebbels opposed capitalism, viewing it as having Jews at its core and he stressed the need for the party to emphasise both a proletarian and a national character. Those views were shared by Otto Strasser , who later left the Nazi Party and formed the Black Front in the belief that Hitler had allegedly betrayed the party's socialist goals by endorsing capitalism. When

19995-515: The relocation of people and the complete Italianization of the area were never fully accomplished. Only a third of the people who had actually emigrated returned to the area in 1945. Despite Austrian efforts, South Tyrol remained part of Italy after World War II, and many chose to take up Italian citizenship after the Gruber–De Gasperi Agreement of September 1946. It was named after the foreign minister of Austria ( Karl Gruber ) and

20150-486: The rise of Hitler and the Nazis. In addition, the different ideologies incorporated into Nazism were already well established in certain parts of German society long before World War I . The Nazis were strongly influenced by the post–World War I far-right in Germany, which held common beliefs such as anti-Marxism, anti-liberalism and antisemitism, along with nationalism , contempt for the Treaty of Versailles and condemnation of

20305-485: The same and that Marxism was a Jewish ideology-this became known as " Jewish Bolshevism ". Hitler believed that The Protocols were authentic. During his life in Vienna between 1907 and 1913, Hitler became fervently anti-Slavic . Prior to the Nazi ascension to power, Hitler often blamed moral degradation on Rassenschande ("racial defilement"), a way to assure his followers of his continuing antisemitism, which had been toned down for popular consumption. Prior to

20460-499: The signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919 and it was then that he became an antisemitic, German nationalist. Hitler expressed opposition to capitalism, regarding it as having Jewish origins and accusing capitalism of holding nations ransom to the interests of a parasitic cosmopolitan rentier class. He also expressed opposition to communism and egalitarian forms of socialism, arguing that inequality and hierarchy are beneficial to

20615-541: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,

20770-456: The steel and coal producers, the insurance business, and the chemical industry. Large segments of the Nazi Party, particularly among the members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), were committed to the party's official socialist, revolutionary and anti-capitalist positions and expected both a social and an economic revolution when the party gained power in 1933. In the period immediately before

20925-661: The support and connivance of traditional conservative nationalists who believed that they could control him and his party. With the use of emergency presidential decrees by Hindenburg and a change in the Weimar Constitution which allowed the Cabinet to rule by direct decree, bypassing both Hindenburg and the Reichstag, the Nazis soon established a one-party state and began the Gleichschaltung . The Sturmabteilung (SA) and

21080-563: The term "Nazi". Hitler Youth leader Melita Maschmann wrote a book about her experience entitled Account Rendered . She did not refer to herself as a "Nazi", even though she was writing well after World War II. In 1933, 581 members of the National Socialist Party answered interview questions put to them by Professor Theodore Abel from Columbia University . They similarly did not refer to themselves as "Nazis". The majority of scholars identify Nazism in both theory and practice as

21235-437: The term, but it soon gave up this effort and generally avoided using the term while it was in power. In each case, the authors typically referred to themselves as "National Socialists" and their movement as "National Socialism", but never as "Nazis". A compendium of Hitler's conversations from 1941 through 1944 entitled Hitler's Table Talk does not contain the word "Nazi" either. In speeches by Hermann Göring , he never uses

21390-496: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in

21545-423: The transfer of biological illness and impairments from parents to children, including mental disability, whereas others also used Mendelian theory to demonstrate the inheritance of social traits, with racialists claiming a racial nature behind certain general traits such as inventiveness or criminal behaviour. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )

21700-543: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during

21855-579: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching

22010-573: Was Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl , whose work— Land und Leute ( Land and People , written between 1857 and 1863)—collectively tied the organic German Volk to its native landscape and nature, a pairing which stood in stark opposition to the mechanical and materialistic civilisation which was then developing as a result of industrialisation . Geographers Friedrich Ratzel and Karl Haushofer borrowed from Riehl's work as did Nazi ideologues Alfred Rosenberg and Paul Schultze-Naumburg , both of whom employed some of Riehl's philosophy in arguing that "each nation-state

22165-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of

22320-558: Was a pro-Catholic Habsburg supporter and only used German nationalist notions occasionally for his own agenda. Although Hitler praised both Lueger and Schönerer, he criticised the former for not applying a racial doctrine against the Jews and Slavs. The concept of the Aryan race , which the Nazis promoted, stems from racial theories asserting that Europeans are the descendants of Indo-Iranian settlers, people of ancient India and ancient Persia . Proponents of this theory based their assertion on

22475-455: Was a weak Austria, now had a powerful regime with the explicit aim of incorporating all ethnic Germans into one Reich on his border. Mussolini did not wish to annoy Hitler, but at the same time not afford to be seen by his own people as anything less than an equal partner in relations with Germany. For his part, Hitler also placed sufficient value maintaining friendly relations with Mussolini to avoid pursuing irredentist claims against Italy. From

22630-530: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially

22785-473: Was an organism that required a particular living space in order to survive". Riehl's influence is overtly discernible in the Blut und Boden ( Blood and Soil ) philosophy introduced by Oswald Spengler , which the Nazi agriculturalist Walther Darré and other prominent Nazis adopted. Völkisch nationalism denounced soulless materialism , individualism and secularised urban industrial society, while advocating

22940-485: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which

23095-449: Was instrumental in founding the German Empire. The Nazis declared that they were dedicated to continuing the process of creating a unified German nation state that Bismarck had begun and desired to achieve. While Hitler was supportive of Bismarck's creation of the German Empire, he was critical of Bismarck's moderate domestic policies. On the issue of Bismarck's support of a Kleindeutschland ("Lesser Germany", excluding Austria) versus

23250-491: Was more radical and it did not express any emphasis on the restoration of the German monarchy. This younger generation desired to dismantle the Weimar Republic and create a new radical and strong state based upon a martial ruling ethic that could revive the "Spirit of 1914" which was associated with German national unity ( Volksgemeinschaft ). The Nazis, the far-right monarchists, the reactionary German National People's Party (DNVP) and others, such as monarchist officers in

23405-411: Was not exclusively for any class and he indicated that it favoured neither the left nor the right, but preserved "pure" elements from both "camps" by stating: "From the camp of bourgeois tradition, it takes national resolve, and from the materialism of the Marxist dogma, living, creative Socialism." Historians regard the equation of Nazism as "Hitlerism" as too simplistic since the term was used prior to

23560-505: Was overshadowed by both Prussian patriotism and the federalist tradition of its various component states. The events of World War I, including the end of the Prussian monarchy in Germany, resulted in a surge of revolutionary völkisch nationalism. The Nazis supported such revolutionary völkisch nationalist policies and they claimed that their ideology was influenced by the leadership and policies of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck , who

23715-447: Was populist and opposed to traditional elites, spoke of the need for a "People's War" ( Volkskrieg ) and put forth concepts similar to those which the Nazis adopted. Fichte promoted German exceptionalism and stressed the need for the German nation to purify itself (including purging the German language of French words, a policy that the Nazis undertook upon their rise to power). Another important figure in pre-Nazi völkisch thinking

23870-543: Was unable to complete German national unification because Jews had infiltrated the German parliament and they claimed that their abolition of parliament had ended this obstacle to unification. Using the stab-in-the-back myth , the Nazis accused Jews—and other populations who it considered non-German—of possessing extra-national loyalties, thereby exacerbating German antisemitism about the Judenfrage (the Jewish Question),

24025-417: Was very high, even though Jews were estimated to account for only 1% of the population of Germany. The overrepresentation of Jews in these areas fuelled resentment among non-Jewish Germans during periods of economic crisis. The 1873 stock market crash and the ensuing depression resulted in a spate of attacks on alleged Jewish economic dominance in Germany and antisemitism increased. During this time period, in

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