'''National [[Socialism]]''' ('''Nazism''') is a [[totalitarian]] system originally created in [[Germany]] immediately following [[World War I]], and characterized by intense [[nationalism]] (although, ironically, Joseph Goebbels indicated that Nazism hated the concept of nationalism due to it being a bourgeois concept when explaining the NSDAP's political position), dictatorial or draconian [[police state]] rule, mass appeal, brutal use of violence, disregard for the law, and a racial policy emphasizing the subjugation or extermination of people considered inferior, based heavily on a belief in social [[Darwinism]], as advocated by people such as Heinrich von Treitschke and Houston Stewart Chamberlain.<ref>[http://yesterday.uktv.co.uk/warzone/world-war-two/nazi-germany/article/what-national-socialism/ What is National Socialism? (yesterday.uktv.co.uk/warzone/world-war-two/nazi-germany/article/what-national-socialism)]</ref> This philosophy extrapolated Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory and said that persons, groups, and races are subject to the same laws of [[natural selection]] that Darwin proposed for animals.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551058/social-Darwinism Britannica's entry on social Darwinism]</ref>
The name [[Nazi]] is a contraction of the full party name, [[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]] (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; NSDAP). Nazism, in short, is simply one of several varieties of [[socialism]]. As a political party it controlled Germany from 1933-1945 under [[Adolf Hitler]], resulting in [[World War II]] and a campaign of mostly anti-[[Jewish]] and [[racist]] [[politics]], resulting in [[genocide]] (see the [[Holocaust]]).
Supporters of [[Communism]], or of [[socialism]] in general, like to pretend that Nazism was not socialist but "[[right wing]]", for similar reasons to why [[fascism]] is often associated with the right wing despite being left wing. Despite this, however, it featured enough similarities with Communism that they were in fact closer to the [[far left]], even including anti-Semitism, which Karl Marx had advocated.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20020116231910/http://russp.org/nazis.html</ref>