Totalitarian ideologies such as Nazism represent extreme forms of nationalism.

Hitler preached,
"Your life is bound up with the life of your whole people; the nation is not merely the root of
your strength, it is the root of your very life." He asked his people to acknowledge their
profound dependence upon the nation. He declared, "Our Nation is not just an idea in which you
have no part; you yourself support the nation; to it you belong; you cannot separate yourself from
it." Hitler insisted that people identify themselves entirely with the nation; that it was not
possible to exist in a condition of separation from one's nation.
Hitler proclaimed:
Our future is Germany. Our today is Germany. And our past is Germany. Let us take a vow this
evening, at every hour, in each day, to think of Germany, of the nation, of our German people.
You cannot be unfaithful to something that has given sense and meaning to your whole existence.
He declared that Deutschland uber Alles (Germany above all) is a profession of faith which
"fills millions with a great strength, with that faith which is mightier than any earthly might."
Nazism was based on the belief that one should be deeply devoted, loyal and faithful to one's
nation. Hitler presented himself as a model of faith and devotion. His oratory revolved around
persuading others toshare his faith and devotion; to love Germany as deeply as he did.
Hitler's promise was that Germans would become endowed with "great strength" by virtue of
devotion to and faith in Germany. On the other hand, Hitler explained to his people: "You are
nothing, your nation is everything." In other words, the strength that the individual could expect
to obtain by virtue of identification with Germany required an extreme form of self-negation. In
order to embrace and partake of the omnipotence of the nationto internalize its strengthone

had to become "nothing." Hitler's Nazism was an orgy of nationalistic self-glorification and
simultaneously an orgy of self-abnegation. What was glorified was the nation or collective. What
was abnegated was the actual person, who traded in his or her individuality for the sake of being
"at one" with the omnipotent nation.
Rudolf Hess often introduced Hitler at mass-rallies declaring, "Hitler is Germany, just as
Germany is Hitler." Hitler reveled in his identification with Germany. Indeed, at the core of
Nazism was this mystical sense of "oneness" between self and nation. From this perspective,
Nazism did not differ from ordinary nationalism that posits that the life of the individual and
national life are intimately bound. What Hitler did was to carry through the idea of
"identification with one's nation" to an extreme conclusion. Nazism revealed the heart of
darkness or monumental destructiveness contained within the idea of "love of country."
Hitler's ideology grew out of his fantasy of the nation as an actual organism or body (politic).
"Our movement alone," Hitler declared, "was capable of creating a national organism." In place
of the State, Hitler said, must be set "the living organismthe people." Hitler conceived of
Germany as a body politic consisting of German people as its cells. It followed that the purpose
of politics was to preserve the body politic; to "maintain the substance of the people in bodily
and mental health, in good order and purity." According to Hitler, the supreme test of every
politic institution was: "Does it serve to preserve the people or not."
Germany, howeveraccording to Hitlerhad a problem. The otherwise healthy body politic
was being assailed or assaulted by forces that threatened to destroy it; to bring about the demise
of the nation. National Socialism came into being as a response to the desire of Hitler and others

to rescue or "save" the nation; to prevent it from dying. Hitler proclaimed that he was determined
to "prevent our Germany from suffering, as Another did, the death upon the cross."
Throughout his political career, Hitler was possessed and tormented by his conviction that an
unprecedented, cosmic force was working toward the destruction, not only of Germany, but of
Western civilization. Hitler declared that it was only rarely that the life of peoples "suffers from
such convulsions that the deepest foundations of the edifice of social order are shaken" and
threatened with destruction. "Who will refuse to see or even deny," Hitler said, that "today we
find ourselves in the midst of a struggle that is not concerned merely with the problems of
frontiers between peoples or States but rather with the question of the maintenance or
annihilation of the whole inherited human order of society and its civilizations?"
The phrase that appears most frequently in Hitler's speeches to describe this threat to Germany
and Western civilization is translated as "force of disintegration." The German
word "zersetzung" is a term from chemistry meaning "decomposition;" that which breaks things
down into their component parts. Hitler identified Jews as "disintegrators of people" working to
bring about the "political disintegration of the body of a people." Hitler believed that the Jewish
force of disintegration within the body politic was working to cause the nation to fragment; break
into pieces.
Given the danger that Germany would fall to pieces, one of Hitler's fundamental political
strategies was to work to unite or unify the German people; to bind them together into a single,
indestructible body. To solve the problems of Germany, Hitler said, it was essential to bring the
people together so that "millions of individuals could be fused into a unity." Hitler would act to

bring about the "inner welding together of the body of our people." He insisted that men throw
themselves into the "great melting pot, the nation" so that they could be "welded one to another."
We've observed that Hitler conceived of Germany as a gigantic "national organism" consisting of
people as cells of this body. Hitler's efforts to unify or unite the German people, therefore,
reflected his desire to fuse together the cells of the German nation into a cohesive body
(politic). National Socialism grew out of Hitler's belief that Germany was disintegrating. His
struggle (Mein Kampf) reflected his desire to create a German body politic that was so cohesive
so powerfulthat it would not succumb to this internal force that threatened to cause it to
disintegrate.
Hitler's ideology, then, revolved around his conception of a unified German body politic, on the
one hand, and a Jewish force of destruction on the other hand that was acting to cause Germany
to fall apart. Hitler called the Jew the "demon of the disintegration of peoples," symbol of the
"unceasing destruction of their life." The project of National Socialism, therefore, was
"glorification of the national creative will over against the conception of international
disintegration."
As National Socialism consolidated its power, Hitler believed he had achieved his goal of
welding the German people into a single, omnipotent body politic. Affirming his determination
to protect his accomplishment, Hitler declared, "Our people have become one and this unity in
Germany will never break into pieces." He insisted that his Movement would leave behind a
German body politic "completely renewed internally, intolerant of anyone who sins against the
nation and its interests, intolerant and pitiless against anyone who shall attempt once more to
destroy or disintegrate this body politic."

If the first most frequently used phrase by Hitler to describe the threat to Germany was that of a
"force of disintegration," the second was that of a "disease within the body politic" whose
continued presence within the nation could lead to its death. The balance of this paper will focus
on the belief of Hitler and other Nazis that Germany was suffering from a potentially fatal
disease whose source was "Jewish bacteria."
Hitler approached politics as if a physician, observing that "Every distress has some root or
other." In order to cure the nation's disease, Hitler said, it was not sufficient to behave like
conventional politicians who merely "doctored around on the circumference of the distress" and
only occasionally tried to "lance the cancerous ulcer." Rather, Hitler believed, in order to cure
Germany's disease, it was necessary to "penetrate to the seat of the inflammationto the cause."
It was relatively unimportant, Hitler said, whether this irritating cause was discovered or
removed "today or tomorrow." The essential thing to realize was that unless the cause was
removed "no cure is possible."