Nazi Party Platform

This article is about the Nazi Party platform and its relationship to Nazi ideology. Ideology is a set of beliefs about how the world operates. Nazi ideology was racist, antisemitic, and ultranationalist. These ideas drove the Nazis to pursue radical aims, including the mass murder of Jews in the Holocaust.

The Nazi Party platform (translated into English below) was a 25-point program outlining the Nazi movement’s political goals. The program combined ultranationalism, extreme antisemitism, critiques of capitalism, and social policies. It advocated for creating a strong authoritarian state in Germany. 

Creating and Announcing the Party Platform 

The Nazi Party platform was written in late 1919 and early 1920. At the time, the Nazi Party was still officially known as the German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or DAP). In 1920, Adolf Hitler was not yet the party’s leader. Nevertheless, he was a very important party speaker and propagandist. Hitler worked with the party’s leadership to write the program. He introduced it at a large political event at the Hofbräuhaus (a well-known beer hall in Munich, Germany) on February 24, 1920. Shortly afterwards, the DAP changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP). It became known in English as the Nazi Party.

“Unchangeable”: The Nazi Party Platform in the 1920s and 1930s

Photo

Adolf Hitler on the day he was appointed German chancellor (Photo)

On the day of his appointment as German chancellor, Adolf Hitler greets a crowd of enthusiastic Germans from a window in the Chancellery building. Berlin, Germany, January 30, 1933.

Credits:

• Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München

Hitler became the leader of the Nazi Party in 1921. As leader, he reaffirmed the party’s commitment to the 1920 platform on multiple occasions. Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Hitler refused to entertain debates about its contents. He expressly rejected any attempts to alter it. In August 1925, Hitler wrote, “This program is unchangeable. It only finds its completion through its fulfillment.” 

In practice, the Nazi Party was not always equally committed to all 25 points. As the Nazis tried to win voters, they focused on different parts of the platform. They emphasized different aspects of their ideology based on whose support they were trying to gain at a given moment.

After Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi German regime implemented many of the points outlined in the platform. 

Nationalism and Foreign Policy in the Nazi Party Platform

The Nazi Party platform called for redefining the post-World War I international order in Germany’s favor. The Nazis outlined their desire to unite all Germans in a German state (point one); overthrow the postwar peace treaties (point two); and acquire territory and colonies (point three). Hitler later referred to this last point as Lebensraum, or “living space.” These three goals reflected the Nazi Party’s ultranationalism and their rejection of international cooperation. The Nazis prioritized German dominance over peace and laid claims to territory of neighboring states.

Before and during World War II, Nazi Germany sought to implement these party goals through territorial aggression. Such acts of territorial aggression included:

• the annexation of Austria (1938); 
• the annexation of the Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia, 1938);
• the invasion of Poland (1939) and the subsequent annexation of certain Polish territories; and 
• the invasion of the Soviet Union (1941). 

Antisemitism in the Nazi Party Platform

In their platform, the Nazi Party expressed extreme antisemitism. However, the word “Jew” (“Jude”) appears only once, in point four. In point four, the Nazi Party called for the explicit exclusion of Jews from the German nation based on race, which they refer to as “blood.” On these racial grounds, this point proposed denying German citizenship to Jewish people. In points five, six, and seven, the Nazis indicated specific ways that Jews should be excluded from certain privileges of citizenship.  

After coming to power, the Nazi regime implemented these points by passing antisemitic legislation. Point six was implemented as the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of April 1933. This law removed Jews from government jobs. Point 23 was implemented as the Editors Law of October 1933. The Editors Law prevented Jews from working as editors and journalists. In September 1935, the Nazi regime made point four into law with the Reich Citizenship Law. This law was one of the Nuremberg Race Laws. It made the Nazi Party’s racial definition of citizenship the law in Germany. 

Many of the platform’s other points contained veiled antisemitism. The economic demands in points 10, 11, 12, 16, and 18 were indirect references to Jews. They drew on antisemitic stereotypes of Jews as profiteers and usurers who did not work. Most Germans at the time would have readily understood these antisemitic allusions. Furthermore, points seven and eight declared that, in certain circumstances, foreigners (meaning, in this context, Jews) should be forcibly removed from Germany. These calls for deportation foreshadowed future Nazi actions removing Jews from Germany beginning in 1938. 

Finally, in point 24, the platform referenced the “Jewish materialist-spirit.” This antisemitic catchall touched on existing religious and economic stereotypes. 

Critiques of Capitalism in the Nazi Party Platform

In the early 1920s, the Nazi Party often criticized capitalism, but once in power the Nazi regime mostly chose to work with business elites. 

Reflecting the movement’s early ideology, the party platform included anti-capitalist demands in points 10–18. These were similar to demands made by socialist and communist movements in Germany at the time. In later years, many of these points became the subject of intense conflict and debate within the Nazi movement. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Hitler walked a fine line between policies and slogans that would appeal to industrialists and big business owners and those that would appeal to workers. 

Social Policies in the Nazi Party Platform

The Nazi Party was interested in creating nationalist forms of social policies. This meant shaping policies and programs to foster the growth and prosperity of the German people as a whole. Examples of these ideals include educational reform (point 20), old age insurance (point 15), and programs for improving Germans’ physical fitness and health (point 21). 

Once in power, the Nazis did focus on education, physical fitness, and health. For instance, the Hitler Youth combined sports and outdoor activities with Nazi ideology. Similarly, the League of German Girls emphasized collective athletics. One of these activities was rhythmic gymnastics, which German health authorities deemed less strenuous on the female body and better suited to preparing them for motherhood.

Authoritarianism in the Nazi Party Platform

The Nazi Party was anti-democratic. It opposed the government of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933). Point 25 proposed an authoritarian form of government in its place. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis never wavered from their intention of establishing an authoritarian government under a strong leader. In 1932, as the Nazis campaigned in elections, Hitler asserted, “I consider the future of our nation [Volk] to be seriously threatened if the current democratic parliamentarianism is not replaced by a strong leadership authority.” 

After Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933, he moved quickly to destroy German democracy. By the end of August 1934, Hitler had established a Nazi dictatorship under his sole control.

Translation of Primary Source

(English translation of the 25-point program.1Footnote 11 German source text as published in Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in Augenzeugenberichten, 1974.)2Footnote 22

Fundamental Principles of the Program
of the national socialist
German Workers’ Party [Deutschen Arbeiter-Partei]

The Program of the German Workers’ Party is designed to be of limited duration. The leaders have no intention, once the aims announced in it have been achieved, of establishing fresh ones, merely in order to increase, artificially, the discontent of the masses and so ensure the continued existence of the Party.

1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Greater Germany on the basis of the right of national self-determination.
   
   
2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in its dealings with other nations, and the revocation of the peace treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain.
   
   
3. We demand land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and to settle our surplus population.
   
   
4. Only a member of the nation [Volksgenosse] may be a citizen of the State. Only someone of German blood, whatever their creed, may be a member of the nation. Accordingly, no Jew may be a member of the nation.
   
   
5. A Non-citizen may live in Germany only as a guest and must be subject to laws for aliens.
   
   
6. The right to vote on the State’s leadership and legislation shall be enjoyed by the citizens of the State alone. We demand therefore that all official appointments, of whatever kind, whether in the Reich, in the states or in the smaller localities, shall be held by none but citizens.
   
   We oppose the corrupting parliamentary custom of filling posts merely in accordance with party considerations, and without reference to character or abilities.
   
   
7. We demand that the State shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens. If it should prove impossible to feed the entire population, foreign nationals (non-citizens) must be deported from the Reich.
   
   
8. All non-German immigration must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who entered Germany after 2 August 1914 shall be required to leave the Reich forthwith.
   
   
9. All citizens shall have equal rights and duties.
   
   
10. It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform physical or mental work. The activities of the individual must not clash with the general interest, but must proceed within the framework of the community and be for the general good.
    
    We demand therefore:
    
    
11. The abolition of incomes unearned by work, breaking the slavery of interest.
    
    
12. In view of the enormous sacrifices of life and property demanded of a nation by any war, personal enrichment from war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand therefore the total confiscation of all war profits.
    
    
13. We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts).
    
    
14. We demand profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises.
    
    
15. We demand the extensive development of insurance for old age.
    
    
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, the immediate communalizing of big department stores, and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders, and that the utmost consideration shall be shown to all small traders in the placing of State and municipal orders.
    
    
17. We demand a land reform suitable to our national requirements, the passing of a law for the expropriation of land for communal purposes without compensation; the abolition of ground rent, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.
    
    
18. We demand the ruthless prosecution of those whose activities are injurious to the common interest. Common criminals, usurers, profiteers, etc., must be punished with death, whatever their creed or race.
    
    
19. We demand that Roman Law, which serves a materialistic world order, be replaced by a German common law.
    
    
20. The State must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education (with the aim of opening up to every able and hard-working German the possibility of higher education and of thus obtaining advancement). The curricula of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life. The aim of the school must be to give the pupil, beginning with the first sign of intelligence, a grasp of the notion of the State (through the study of civic affairs). We demand the education of gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.
    
    
21. The State must ensure that the nation’s health standards are raised by protecting mothers and infants, by prohibiting child labor, by promoting physical strength through legislation providing for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and by the extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of youth.
    
    
22. We demand the abolition of the mercenary army and the formation of a people’s army.
    
    
23. We demand legal warfare on deliberate political mendacity and its dissemination in the press. To facilitate the creation of a German national press we demand:
    
    
    1. that all editors of, and contributors to newspapers appearing in the German language must be members of the nation;
       
       
    2. that no non-German newspapers may appear without the express permission of the State. They must not be printed in the German language;
       
       
    3. that non-Germans shall be prohibited by law from participating financially in or influencing German newspapers, and that the penalty for contravening such a law shall be the suppression of any such newspaper, and the immediate deportation of the non-Germans involved. The publishing of papers which are not conducive to the national welfare must be forbidden. We demand the legal prosecution of all those tendencies in art and literature which corrupt our national life, and the suppression of cultural events which violate this demand.
       
       
24. We demand freedom for all religious denominations in the State, provided they do not threaten its existence nor offend the moral feelings of the German race.
    
    The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not commit itself to any particular denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health only from within on the basis of the principle: The common interest before self-interest.
    
    
25. To put the whole of this program into effect, we demand the creation of a strong central state power for the Reich; the unconditional authority of the political central Parliament over the entire Reich and its organizations; and the formation of Corporations based on estate and occupation for the purpose of carrying out the general legislation passed by the Reich in the various German states.
    
    The leaders of the Party promise to work ruthlessly—if need be to sacrifice their very lives—to translate this program into action.