The Nazis regarded the war against the Soviet Union as a 'war of Essay

The Nazis regarded the war against the Soviet Union as a 'war of extermination' (Vernichtungskrieg). What does it mean - Essay Example In  the  spring  of  1941, as preparations were under way for the invasion of the USSR, Hitler proclaimed that a war of destruction was about to start. He called for the annihilation of the Bolshevik leadership, thus laying the foundation for the extermination of what Hitler considered to be the biological source of Bolshevism: the Jews of the USSR. The application of Nazi ideas and ideology depended on two types of force, one of these took the form of indoctrination and propaganda, the other was based on terror. The initial phase of success on eastern front gave Wehrmacht, the opportunity to implement their policy of extermination (Lee 30). This resulted in the worst genocide of history, in which millions of people were killed brutally by using gassing techniques and starving them to death. Thus, the Nazis considered their war against Soviet Union as war of extermination and application of their policies of persecution. Nazis Ideology A profound understanding of Nazis ideolo gy is essential in order to understand the true spirit of Nazis war of extermination. The official name of Hitler’s movement throughout the period 1920 to 1945 was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. ... Hence, Jews were to be excluded from German nationhood; all non-German immigration must be prevented (Lee 12) There were Nazis who emphasized the socialist element of their ideology, but these did not include Hitler. Instead, Hitler focused more and more on racial rather than economic explanations for major historical trends. He argued in his 1925 book Mein Kampf (My Struggle) that ‘The adulteration of the blood and racial deterioration conditioned thereby are the only causes that account for the decline of ancient civilizations; for it is never by war that nations are ruined, but by the loss of their powers of resistance, which are exclusively a characteristic of pure racial blood’ Lee 13) Hitler has unique importance as the creator of the Nazis programme and ideology; most of his ideas are contained in Mein Kampf and the Zweites Buch (Second Book).(p14) A vital component of Nazism was the ‘Fuehrer principle’ (Fuhrerprinzip). It is true that the cult of lea dership is to be found in all fascist movements, but it was of particular importance in the Nazi context since Hitler’s ideas were crucial in defining the nature of Nazi eclecticism. Above all, Hitler provided Nazism with a unique vision of racial purity and anti-Semitism (Lee 14). Adolf Hitler  had argued in his autobiography  Mein Kampf  for the necessity of Lebensraum, acquiring new territory for German settlement in Eastern Europe. He envisaged settling Germans there as a master race, while exterminating or deporting most of the inhabitants to  Siberia  and using the remainder as  slave labor. The linking of anti-Semitic accusations to race struggle is what made Nazism so genocidal. The Nazis believed the Jews were responsible for what they