Editing Nazi

{{Stub}}

''"I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light."'' 

-[[J.R.R. Tolkien]]

[[Image:Nazi uniforms.gif|thumb|right|Nazis: Evil, but stylish]]
'''Nazi''' is the commonly used shorthand version of ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (National Socialist German Workers' Party), a political party which took over in Germany <s>for 1,000 years</s> from 1933 to 1945. It also refers to people who belong to said party, their ideology and to their regime in Germany during said period of time. Emerging from uncertainty and political upheaval due to the red scare, the end of the German Empire after the Great War, resentment at unfair conditions imposed by Treaty of Versailles, economic uncertainties due to the Stock Market crash of 1929, German Ethnic Nationalism, a desire to blame things on scapegoats, and a belief in militarism popular among many returning veterans, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler took control of Germany, aided by their invention of modern campaigning and propaganda, wide-spread dissatisfaction with the status quo producing protest votes, the strategic seizure of the political positions that controlled the police force, and more dumb luck than anyone has any right to have, let alone a bunch of [[Imperium of Man|evil, racist loons]]. 

They soon mobilized their armies and launched a war of expansion. Their goal was to impose their militaristic Social Darwinistic ideology across Europe, outlaw any dissenting school of thought, enslave all the "sub-human" slavs and exterminate any "undesirables" (Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, etc) which they blamed all their problems on because they felt that they were superhumans without any flaws any any problem which they suffered happened had to be the fault of some subversive other from outside who tried to cause the master race misery for no other reason than "the Evulz". But in doing so, they got into war with the British, the Soviets and the United States which, using their superior industrial might drove them back to germany and then crush the Nazi Regime completely.

To modern western civilization, the Nazis has the role of the Great Foe. The great evil which wrought death and misery on Europe which needed to be stopped by all means possible. They rejected Democracy in favor of Dictatorship, individual freedoms to subservience to the state and brutal repression of any dissenting idea or anything precised to be dissenting (as an example they banned the use of the Fraktur font in 1941 as someone came to believe that it might have been of Jewish origin), equality in favor of a rigid hierarchy with Germans on the top, non German "aryans" (Scandinavians, French, Italians, English) underneath them, Asians (note, some Asian races were seem as equal to ayrans, the Tibetans for example being one as Nazi higher ups believed them and aryans had a common root) , Black People and Slavs underneath to be used as slaves with the Jews underneath them, which they viewed as being universally from cradle to grave involved in some convoluted conspiracy to inflict misery on the Germans. They held 'weakness' and 'softness' in contempt. They used vile actions towards a vile end. But rather than just being an alien other, they represented the worst qualities of industrial western civilization inflated. Despite this, they were good at public image, with spiffy uniforms and distinctive architecture and omnipresent iconography. They also had (for the time) some fairly advanced technology.

As such, they have become one of the master templates from which modern writers in some way or another base their villains and evil civilizations on. In Star Wars, the forces of the Galactic Empire employ some Naziesque uniforms. The Daleks are defined for their fanatical hatred of anything that is not a Dalek. In Warhammer the Imperium of Man will often draw from Nazi Germany either indirectly (hatred, bigotry, willingness to use torture, repression and terror to their ends) to overt (The Armageddon Steel Legion).

[[category:history]]