Political views of Adolf Hitler

The political views of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, have presented historians and biographers with some difficulty. Hitler's writings and methods were often adapted to need and circumstance, although there were some steady themes, including antisemitism, anti-communism, anti-slavism, anti-parliamentarianism, German Lebensraum ('living space'), belief in the superiority of an "Aryan race" and an extreme form of German nationalism. Hitler personally claimed he was fighting against "Jewish Marxism".^[a]

Hitler's political views were formed during three periods, namely (1) his years as a poverty-stricken young man in Vienna and Munich prior to World War I, during which he turned to nationalist-oriented political pamphlets and antisemitic newspapers out of distrust for mainstream newspapers and political parties; (2) the closing months of World War I when Germany lost the war, since Hitler claimed to have developed his extreme nationalism and allegedly pledged to "save" Germany from both external and internal enemies, who in his view betrayed it; (3) and the 1920s, during which his early political career began and he wrote Mein Kampf. Hitler formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925, but did not acquire German citizenship until almost seven years later in 1932; thereby allowing him to run for public office.^[2] Hitler was influenced by Benito Mussolini, who was appointed Prime Minister of Italy in October 1922 after his "March on Rome".^[b] In many ways, Hitler epitomized "the force of personality in political life" as described by Friedrich Meinecke.^[4] Hitler was essential to Nazism's political appeal and its manifestation in Germany. So important were Hitler's views that they immediately affected the political policies of Nazi Germany. He asserted the Führerprinzip ('leader principle'), which advocated the absolute obedience of all subordinates to their superiors. Correspondingly, Hitler viewed himself at the top of both the party and government in this structure.^[5]

Hitler firmly believed that the force of "will" was decisive in determining the political course for a nation and rationalized his actions accordingly. Given that Hitler was appointed "leader of the German Reich for life", he "embodied the supreme power of the state and, as the delegate of the German people", it was his role to determine the "outward form and structure of the Reich".^[6] To that end, Hitler's political motivation consisted of an ideology that combined traditional German and Austrian antisemitism with an intellectualized racial doctrine resting on an admixture of bits and pieces of social Darwinism and the ideas – mostly obtained second-hand and only partially understood – of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Arthur de Gobineau and Alfred Rosenberg as well as Paul de Lagarde, Georges Sorel, Alfred Ploetz and others.^[7]

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