Watch the video for a quick overview of Nazi Ideology. More detail below!

• Hilter's ideas are built on his concept of race.

• He believed that humanity consisted of a hierarchy of races and that life is simply "the survival of the fittest".

• This comes from Darwin's theory of natural selection.

• Darwin's theory states, "heritable differences in organisms which allow them to better survive to reproduce is the process of evolution".

• Many people assumed that it means "those who are the fittest will survive and those that are weak will not".

• They then assume that the surviving animal or organism is stronger. WRONG! The organism is just better adapted to survive, not necessarily stronger or better.

• The animal or organism can always return to the previous adaptation if it is better to survive.

• This idea of evolution making organisms stronger can be mistakenly applied to the human race. This scientific explanation leads to:

1. Scientific Racism - The belief that one culture is superior to others based on social and physical characteristics, such as height, skin colour, and skull size. This eventually led them to believe that humans were also evolving.

2. Social Darwinism - The belief that some human cultures are superior because they were more advanced. This could be technologically superior or culturally superior.

• Social Darwinism necessitated a struggle between races, just as animals fought for food and territory in the wild so should humanity.

• Thus there was a hierarchy of "race", where white people were a superior, more evolved race and had the right to claim total dominion over and control of the inferior population.

• Which of course leads to the justification of some pretty crazy stuff.

Autarky just means "Economic self-sufficiency". Hitler wanted Germany to be self sufficient, rather than relying on other countries like they did under the Weimar Republic.

While the ulterior motive was rearmament and war, this was particularly useful to help Germany move away from the Great Depression.

The creation of national jobs, like the Autobahns (highways), and the "Strength through Joy" program was extremely important to achieve Autarky.

Lebensraum means 'Living Space'. Hitler believed that for Germany to be a great empire it needed to expand, specifically into Eastern Europe where there was fertile farming land.

The creation of the Volksgemeinschaft (unified Germany) was incredibly important to achieving the goals of Lebensraum. All German people should be working toward the "Grossdeutschland" or Greater Germany.