[[Image:Wille.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Political poster from Germany during the 1930s; translated, it reads ''National Socialism -- the organized will of the nation'']]
'''National [[Socialism]]''' ('''Nazism''') is a [[totalitarian]] system originally created in [[Germany]] immediately following [[World War I]], and characterized by intense a [[nationalismcollectivist]] (although, ironicallyview toward [[race]]. 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), . Nazism used 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]]).