17 May 2023

What is NSDAP? – Definition and principles of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party

By Donald

The Nazi party was recorded in world history due to the policy carried out by its leaders and the supremacist thought they wanted to impose. In this article, the meaning of acronym NSDAP and its function as the political party of Adolf Hitler. In the same way, the history of this organization and its relationship with paramilitary groups such as the SS and the SA are addressed. In addition, the actions that they executed to fulfill their objectives and produce the holocaust are specified.

What does the acronym NSDAP stand for?

The ideology of Nazism and the supremacy of the Aryan people were the main bases of Nazi Germany to conquer the world. This supremacist thought was imposed from the Nazi party, a political group that controlled the country and served as a platform for Adolf Hitler to come to power. This party defended its position from the most extreme and radical right, causing massacres of people whom they saw as inferiors in the holocaust.

The initials NSDAP are the abbreviated form in which the official title of the Nazi party is written, which in German is called Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. So, these acronyms provide another way of referring to the denominated in Spanish as the German Nationalist Workers’ Party. The NSDAP party represented the German political organization with far-right ideology that emerged after the defeat of the Germans in the Great War.

What principles did the NSDAP stand for? – Characteristics

The NSDAP party or Nazi party had well-established characteristics and marked in radicalism of nationalist thought. In this sense, the group was born from the ideas contributed by racist and ultranationalist people who belonged to the Freikorps, which were paramilitary groups that fought in the First World War.

  • The main characteristic of the members of the Nazi party was excessive racism towards the Jews, which led to the Holocaust.
  • The Nazi German military, especially the Waffen SS soldiers practiced anti-Semitic tactics. That is, torture and murders of jews.
  • The policy of Hitler and Nazi Germany was to conserve the German gene, since, according to them, there was a Aryan supremacy that needed to be preserved.
  • The Germans were against communism and the ideas of Carl Marx, so they also had anti-Marxist actions.

In the search for racial purity, the NSDAP party began an expansion of the territory of Nazi Germany. At the beginning of their conquests, the troops were made up of paramilitary groups that offered to as volunteers. Among them, the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Sturmabteilung (SA) stand out, which received the name of brown shirts.

Other characteristics in the policies of this army was the search for social welfare, where the individual was despised. This is why the NSDAP indoctrinated recruits into sacrifice themselves for the Nazi state and the greater good. Since, the idea was to preserve the superior race, where the main features were the Aryan strength and purity.

In this way, the SS and SA troops began to carry out acts of repression and massacre against all those who did not meet these standards, thus the Holocaust began by hunting down all people of Jewish origin, since they were its main objective. However, they also killed many Roma or gypsies, homosexuals, disabled and Jehovah’s Witnesses. They also killed many black Africans and people who promulgated leftist ideological thoughts.

In cases where these people were not murdered, racial segregation was imposed on them and they were placed in concentration camps. In those places they were excluded from society because they were considered inferior to the rest, in total more than 11 million people.

History of the NSDAP – Origin, coming to power and end

The history of the NSDAP as the Nazi party begins with the Treaty of Versailles, where Germany acknowledges defeat and all the responsibilities of the First World War. From there, internal conflicts begin in the German Workers’ Party (DAP), an extreme right-wing political group that is the forerunner of the NSDAP. These problems ended in the dissolution of the party and the creation of a new, stronger one.

The writer Arthur Moeller van den Bruck who belonged to the Conservative Revolutionary Movement first promulgated the term ‘Third Reich’. This figure sought to combine German nationalism with conservative socialist thought, which Hitler used from the time he came to power.

Thus, in 1920 Adolf Hitler began the creation of a new group that defended the german nationalism and supremacist thinking. This leader promised that he would defend the values ​​of German culture against the influences of the Jews. In the first elections they ran in after the Great Depression they won a few seats in parliament.

Then, in the 1930 elections, the NSDAP became the second largest political party in the country. The most important step came two years later when the Nazi party won the majority vote in the general elections, where Adolf Hitler was elected as chancellor of the republic.

Hitler established a totalitarian government where he imposed a semi-formal dictatorship thanks to the Reichstag Fire Decree. Little by little, the then chancellor eliminated any democratic institutionso the NSDAP was the only political party from 1933 until the end of World War II.

Who was the leader of the NSDAP?

The NSDAP had Adolf Hitler as its leader, so all members of the organization had to answer to him and obey him. However, Anton Drexler Dietrich Eckart, Alfred Rosenberg, Hermann Esser and Karl Harrer who were the leaders are also considered as leaders. founders of the German Workers’ Party, who also had great importance within the party structure. From 1921 to 1945 the supreme authority was the führer Hitler until his death.