Nazi Party

(noun)

A political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that practiced Nazism. Initially, its political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric; however, in the 1930s the party's focus shifted to anti-Marxist and anti-Semitic themes.

Related Terms

Examples of Nazi Party in the following topics:

  • The Nuremberg Trials

    • The Nuremberg Trials were military tribunals that tried Nazi political and military leadership for alleged crimes committed during the war.
    • He led the American delegation to London that, in the summer of 1945, argued in favor of prosecuting the Nazi leadership as a criminal conspiracy.
    • There was an immense amount of evidence backing the prosecutors' case, especially since meticulous records of the Nazis' actions had been kept.
    • The prosecution entered indictments against 24 major war criminals and seven organizations – the leadership of the Nazi party, the Reich Cabinet, the Schutzstaffel (SS), Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Gestapo, the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the "General Staff and High Command," comprising several categories of senior military officers.
    • The creation of the IMT was followed by trials of lesser Nazi officials and the trials of Nazi doctors, who performed experiments on people in prison camps.

  • Italy and Germany

    • The National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP; Nazi Party) was the renamed successor of the German Workers' Party founded in 1919, one of several far-right political parties active in Germany at the time.
    • After the federal election of 1932, the Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag, holding 230 seats with 37.4 percent of the popular vote.
    • All civilian organizations, including agricultural groups, volunteer organizations, and sports clubs, had their leadership replaced with Nazi sympathizers or party members.
    • Further elections in November 1933, 1936, and 1938 were entirely Nazi-controlled and saw only the Nazis and a small number of independents elected.
    • All social programs in Nazi Germany excluded German Jews.

  • The Holocaust

    • The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was a genocide in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews during World War II.
    • Killings took place throughout Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories, with Nazi-occupied Poland constituting the geographical hub of the genocide.
    • The latter were first established as prison camps to hold Hitler's opponents in Germany immediately after the Nazi Party took over power.
    • After invading Poland, the Nazis established ghettos in the incorporated territories and General Government to confine Jews.
    • Treblinka, Sobibór, and Bełżec were never liberated, but were destroyed by the Nazis in 1943.

  • War Aims and Strategy

    • The priority of the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany.
    • Roosevelt managed to obtain a commitment by Stalin to participate in the UN and it was agreed that Nazi war criminals were to be found and put on trial.
    • The final major conference took place after the formal defeat of Nazi Germany  and after Roosevelt's death.
    • They were represented by Stalin,  Churchill and Clement Attlee (who at the time replaced Churchill after his Labor party won the 1945 general election in the UK), and President Harry S.
    • They gathered to decide how to administer the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier, on May 8.

  • The Mood in America

    • The outbreak of World War II and increasing threats from Nazi Germany and Japan changed the U.S. long-standing stand of isolationism and non-interventionism.
    • The 1935 act imposed a general embargo on trading in arms and war materials with all parties in a war.
    • Roosevelt promised to help the United Kingdom fight Nazi Germany by giving them military supplies while the United States stayed out of the actual fighting.
    • Roosevelt refuted the idea that America was safe because the Atlantic ocean provided a buffer from the Nazis, stating that modern technology had effectively reduced the distance across that ocean.

  • A Grinding War Against Iran

    • Reza Shah Pahlavi had been a supporter of Germany, as a counter to the British and Russians even before the Nazis came to power; the Nazis continued to woo him by providing economic aid, bringing Iran closer to Germany.
    • During the three years of occupation in Iran, Stalin had expanded Soviet political influence in Azerbaijan and the Kurdish area in northwestern Iran, founding the communist Tudeh Party of Iran.

  • The Cold War Begins

    • The Soviet Union promoted the ideology of communism, which was characterized by a planned economy and a one-party state.
    • During the opening stages of World War II, the Soviet Union laid the foundation for the Eastern Bloc by directly annexing several countries as Soviet Socialist Republics that were initially ceded to it by Nazi Germany in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.
    • The Eastern European territories liberated from the Nazis and occupied by the Soviet armed forces were added to the Eastern Bloc by converting them into satellite states.
    • The plan's aim was to rebuild the democratic and economic systems of Europe and to counter perceived threats to Europe's balance of power, such as communist parties seizing control through revolutions or elections.

  • Tension with the USSR

    • Although leaderless when it first began, it was the first major threat to Soviet control since the USSR's forces drove out Nazi Germany from its territory at the end of World War II and broke into Central and Eastern Europe.
    • The brief period of multi-party democracy came to an end when the Communist Party merged with the Social Democratic Party to become the Hungarian Working People's Party, which stood its candidate list unopposed in 1949.
    • Under Rakosi, the AVH began a series of purges, starting with the Communist Party to end dissent.
    • However, Rákosi remained General Secretary of the Party, and was able to undermine most of Nagy's reforms.
    • Previously banned political parties reappeared to join the coalition.

  • Japanese Aggression

    • Nearly two years later, on April 13, 1941, the parties signed a Neutrality Pact, in which the Soviet Union pledged to respect the territorial integrity and inviolability of Manchukuo, while Japan agreed similarly for the Mongolian People's Republic.
    • On September 15 an armistice was arranged, and two years later, on April 13, 1941, the parties signed aNeutrality Pact, in which the Soviet Union pledged to respect the territorial integrity and inviolability of Manchukuo, while Japan agreed similarly for the Mongolian People's Republic .
    • On September 27, 1940, Imperial Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, establishing what would become known as the Axis Powers.
    • Four days later, Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy declared war on the United States, merging the separate conflicts.

  • The Rise of Japan

    • All political parties were ordered to dissolve into the Association, forming a one-party state based on totalitarian values.
    • On September 27, 1940, Imperial Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
    • Its objective was to "establish and maintain a new order of things," with Nazi Germany and Italy taking leadership in Europe while Japan in Greater East Asia.