Pan-Germanism in the context of "Hitler"

Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany during the Nazi era, which lasted from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 under his leadership marked the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout the ensuing conflict, Hitler was closely involved in the direction of German military operations as well as the perpetration of the Holocaust, the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.

Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary and moved to Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his service in the German Army in the First World War, receiving the Iron Cross. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party, and in 1921, was appointed the leader of the Nazi Party. In 1923, he attempted to seize governmental power in a failed coup in Munich and was sentenced to five years in prison, serving just over a year. While there, he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf (lit. 'My Struggle'). After his early release in 1924, he gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles as well as promoting pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. He frequently denounced communism as being part of an international Jewish conspiracy. By November 1932, the Nazi Party held the most seats in the Reichstag, but not a majority. Former chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservative politicians convinced President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933. Shortly thereafter on 23 March, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933, which ultimately began the Weimar Republic's transformation into Nazi Germany.

The Sudetenland (/suːˈdeɪtənlænd/ soo-DAY-tən-land, German: [zuˈdeːtn̩ˌlant]; Czech and Slovak: Sudety) is a German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia since the Middle Ages.

The word "Sudetenland" did not come into being until the early part of the 20th century and did not come to prominence until almost two decades into the century, after World War I, when Austria-Hungary disintegrated and the Sudeten Germans found themselves living in the new country of Czechoslovakia. The Sudeten crisis of 1938 was provoked by the Pan-Germanist demands of Nazi Germany that the Sudetenland be annexed to Germany, which happened after the later Munich Agreement. Part of the borderland was invaded and annexed by Poland. Afterwards, the formerly unrecognized Sudetenland became an administrative division of Germany. When Czechoslovakia was reconstituted after World War II, the Sudeten Germans were expelled and the region today is inhabited almost exclusively by Czech speakers.

Nazism (/ˈnɑːtsiɪzəm, ˈnæt-/ NA(H)T-see-iz-əm), formally named National Socialism (NS; German: Nationalsozialismus, German: [natsi̯oˈnaːlzotsi̯aˌlɪsmʊs] ), is the far-right totalitarian ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was frequently called Hitler Fascism and Hitlerism. The term "neo-Nazism" is applied to far-right groups formed after World War II with similar ideology.

Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. Its beliefs include support for dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, anti-Slavism, anti-Romani sentiment, scientific racism, anti-Chinese sentiment, white supremacy, Nordicism, social Darwinism, homophobia, ableism, and eugenics. The Nazis' ultranationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist Völkisch movement, which had been prominent within German ultranationalism since the late 19th century. Nazism was influenced by the Freikorps paramilitary groups that emerged after Germany's defeat in World War I, from which the party's "cult of violence" came. It subscribed to pseudo-scientific theories of a racial hierarchy, identifying ethnic Germans as part of what the Nazis regarded as a Nordic Aryan master race. Nazism sought to overcome social divisions and create a homogeneous German society based on racial purity. The Nazis aimed to unite all Germans living in historically German territory, gain lands for expansion under the doctrine of Lebensraum, and exclude those deemed either Community Aliens or "inferior" races (Untermenschen).

Pan-nationalism (from Ancient Greek πᾶν (pân) 'all' and French nationalisme 'nationalism') in the social sciences includes forms of nationalism that aim to transcend (overcome, expand) traditional boundaries of basic or historical national identities in order to create a "higher" pan-national (all-inclusive) identity, based on various common denominators. In relation to classical state nationalism, pan-nationalism manifests itself through various political movements that advocate the formation of "higher" (pan-national) forms of political identity, based on a regional or continental grouping of national states, such as Pan-Africanism, Pan-Americanism, Pan-Arabism, Pan-Asianism, Pan-Slavism, and Pan-Turkism. In terms of ethnic nationalism, pan-nationalism can also manifest itself through specific ethnic movements that advocate setting up "higher" (pan-national) forms of common identity that are based on ethnic grouping (for example: Pan-Germanism or Pan-Slavism). Other forms of nationalism also have their pan-national variants.

Some forms of pan-nationalism, such as Pan-Germanism, manifest themselves on two levels: wider - relating to the unity of all Germanic peoples - and narrower - relating to the unity of all ethnic Germans, also including (on either of those two levels) German-speaking Austrians and German-speaking Swiss people, many of who may not self-identify as strictly "German", while still belonging to the wider family of contemporary Germanic peoples.

Turanism, also known as Turanianism, pan-Turanism or pan-Turanianism, is a pan-nationalist political movement built around pseudoscientific claims of biological and linguistic connections between various ethnic groups of Eurasia. It revolves around the abandoned proposal of a Ural-Altaic language family, which hypothesizes that the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Uralic peoples share Inner and Central Asian origins and therefore close cultural, ethnic, and linguistic bonds. Supporters of Turanism propose political unity among these groups, chiefly to oppose the cultural and political influences of the Indo-Europeans of Europe, West Asia, and South Asia, as well as the Sino-Tibetans of East Asia. The movement emerged in the 19th century to counter pan-nationalist ideologies such as pan-Germanism, and built upon the ideas of pan-Slavism (e.g. the idea of a "Turanian brotherhood and collaboration" was borrowed from the pan-Slavic concept of "Slavic brotherhood and collaboration").

The German revolutions of 1848–1849 (German: Deutsche Revolution 1848/1849), the opening phase of which was also called the March Revolution (German: Märzrevolution), were initially part of the Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many European countries. They were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, including the Austrian Empire. The revolutions, which stressed pan-Germanism, liberalism, and parliamentarianism, demonstrated popular discontent with the traditional, largely autocratic political structure of the 39 independent states of the Confederation that inherited the German territory of the former Holy Roman Empire after its dismantlement as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. This process began in the mid-1840s.

The middle-class elements were committed to liberal principles, while the working class sought radical improvements to their working and living conditions. As the middle- and working-class components of the Revolution split, the conservative aristocracy defeated it. Liberals were forced into exile to escape political persecution, where they became known as Forty-Eighters. Many emigrated to the United States, settling from Wisconsin to Texas.

German nationalism (German: Deutscher Nationalismus) is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and of the Germanosphere into one unified nation-state. It emphasises and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as one nation and one people. German nationalism, and the concept of nationalism itself, began during the late 18th century, which later gave rise to Pan-Germanism. Advocacy of a German nation-state became an important political force in response to the invasion of German territories by France under Napoleon Bonaparte. In the 19th century, Germans debated the German question over whether the German nation-state should comprise a "Lesser Germany" that excluded the Austrian Empire or a "Greater Germany" that included the Austrian Empire or its German speaking part. The faction led by Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck succeeded in forging a Lesser Germany.

Aggressive German nationalism and territorial expansion were key factors leading to both World Wars. Before World War I, Germany had established a colonial empire, which became the third-largest, after Britain and France. In the 1930s, the Nazis came to power and sought to unify all ethnic Germans under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, eventually leading to the extermination of Jews, Poles, Romani, and other people deemed Untermenschen (subhumans) in the Holocaust during World War II. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the country was divided into East and West Germany in the opening acts of the Cold War, and each state retained a sense of German identity and held reunification as a goal, albeit in different contexts. The creation of the European Union was in part an effort to harness German identity to a European identity. West Germany underwent its economic miracle following the war which led to the creation of a guest worker program; many of these workers settled in Germany which led to tensions around questions of national and cultural identity, especially with regard to Turks who settled in Germany.