Nazi ideology was a worldview that claimed
to explain everything about the world and
how it functions. At its core, the Nazi
worldview was racist and biological. Positing
that the so-called Aryan race, primarily the
north-Europeans, was the superior race of
human beings to which nearly all positive
human development in science, technology,
art, architecture, and other fields 
could be attributed.
All other races and peoples, save the Jews,
were viewed as occupying rungs below the Aryans,
in a sort of hierarchy of races. Various west-Europeans
such as the French and Italians were relatively
high in the hierarchy. And others, particularly
the Slavic peoples, very low. The Aryans’
innate superiority, granted them the right
and obligation to rule over other races and
peoples for the benefit of humankind. The
Jews, in complete contrast, were seen as a
kind of anti-race, dangerous inhuman beings,
in seemingly human form. They were viewed
alternatively as microbes and parasites,
or as devils, that is, inhuman creatures,
with super-human power. A threat to the very
existence of the world. A danger of cosmic
proportions. And a radical danger required
a radical, total, and irreversible solution.
But from where did the Nazis derive these ideas,
and to what extent were their ideas in sync
with the world at the time? We should first
note, that everything that Hitler and the
Nazi believers argued had been said before.
The Nazi worldview claimed to be scientific,
and indeed it based itself on and drew from
various scientific developments in the modern
era. Let’s take a look at some of the various
sources, from which the Nazis drew.
Christian Anti-Judaism, the development of
new fields of research in Social Sciences
and Humanities, particularly Philology and
Anthropology, the development of modern racism,
particularly the Theory of Evolution, Genetics
and Eugenics, and modern Antisemitism.
Christian Anti-Judaism from early Christian
times onward, was essentially an attack on
Jewish belief. The Jews were accused of deicide,
rejecting and then killing the messiah that
god had sent. They were accused of blinding
themselves to the truth, and hence Christianity
had replaced Judaism as the new Israel. Jews
were accused of being in league with the devil.
And of engaging in evil practices, such as
the charge that they killed Christian children,
to use their blood in rituals, the so-called,
Blood Libel. Still, at its core, this attack
sought to convert the Jews to what Christians
believed was the one truth, Christianity.
The treatment of the Jews was often brutal,
and at times murderous. But this Anti-Judaism
left open an escape clause for Jews - conversion.
Any Jew who converted to Christianity essentially
solved the problem. Yet this Anti-Judaism
also left an imprint on European society,
and its view of the Jews. And the Nazis used
this imprint to good advantage, in gaining
tacit or active support in Germany, 
and all of Europe.
Philosophical and scientific developments
in the 18th and 19th centuries, both advanced
societies and justified inequality at the
same time. Whereas Christian belief and the
new modern secular humanism, shared a conviction,
that all human beings are potentially equal,
whether because they are created in god’s
image, or because all are born equal, some
scholars in the new fields of Philology, Anthropology,
and Biology, sought to exploit these sciences
in order to demonstrate the supposed inherent
inequality of peoples. Many of these scientific
pioneers argued that the differences between
languages, peoples and cultures pointed to
the superiority of some, over others. Charles
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution provided these
scientists the missing scientific theory,
that helped explain common origins to seemingly
disparate things. Many Philologists pointed
to the Indo-European languages, a new concept
of a language group, as the most developed
and superior language family. While many
Anthropologists pointed to some European cultures, as more developed and advanced than other cultures.
Their research seemed to provide a scientific
underpinning for the racist theories that
developed. And Nazi theorists and supporters
later seized on these ideas, and tried unsuccessfully,
to provide scientific evidence 
to support them.
The important Sociologist and Physiologist,
Herbert Spencer, promoted a theory known as
Social Darwinism in the 1850’s. In contrast
to Darwin’s theory of evolutionary development
in the plant and animal worlds, through natural
selection over eons of time, Spencer argued
for struggle, and the survival of the fittest
of the human social order, in the present
tense. He believed the strong must rule, and
the weak, must submit. By the mid 1800’s,
racism that claimed to be scientifically based,
had become widely accepted. But this modern
racism saw not only people of dark skin as
inferior, but also divided white people into
races. Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau’s
1855 book, on the inequality of the races,
based itself on research in Philology and
Anthropology, to argue that the white races
are superior to the black and yellow, and
that the Aryans are the superior race among
white races.
The field of Eugenics grew out of research
into Genetics and Heredity. By the early 1880’s,
Francis Galton had developed the idea, that
society should promote the propagation of
certain desirable traits. This could for example,
help eliminate certain diseases. Positive
Eugenics advocated encouraging procreation
between those with desirable traits. While
negative eugenics, advocated limiting, or
preventing procreation between people with
undesirable traits. University genetics departments
were created in western countries, many of
which employed national Eugenic policies in
the 20th century. The Nazis seized upon these
ideas, as part of the basis to subjugate,
persecute, or even destroy, various kinds of people.
Developments in science and other fields,
impacted on Europeans’ attitudes towards
Jews. Jews continued to be generally perceived
as strangers in society, bearers of a foreign
language, culture, religion, and mores. Modern
intellectuals’ animus against Jews, could
no longer be based on religious belief, but
rather, on science, supposedly. Modern Antisemitism
emerged. Like the new social Scientisim political
theories, Antisemitism too, claimed to be
scientific. Antisemitism supposedly harked
to science as the basis for its antagonism
to Jews. Antisemitism, a term coined by Wilhelm
Marr, in 1879, was ideological, racist, political
and organized. The Jews were now viewed as
an evil and destructive race, an evil that
was immutable. Which meant that the Jews’
increasing integration into society should
be reversed.
The Nazi worldview coalesced, in an age of
ideologies. From the mid 19th century to
nearly the mid 20th century, many competing,
and conflicting ideologies arose, seeking
to explain the world and society, and claiming
to have the formula, to make a perfect world.
Adolf Hitler and his followers also claimed
to explain, and fix the world to perfection.
They drew upon scientific and other modern
developments, and merged these ideas with
German Völkisch ideology, a German racial nationalistic
ideology, that saw all Germans as organically,
biologically connected, to each other, and
to the soil of their country. It was in his
book, Mein Kampf, published in 1925, and in
subsequent talks and actions, that Hitler developed
this into a worldview, that turned society,
morality and the world as we know it, 
on its head.
Ultimately, the Nazi worldview led to many
policies that were based on the 19th and early
20th centuries scientific and ideological
developments. Such as Lebensraum, living
space, based on the false contention, that
Germany is the most overcrowded country, and
Germans have the right to expand eastward,
in order to gain living space. Or operation
T4, the so-called Euthanasia Program. In which
some 200,000 German and Austrian, mentally
handicapped people, were murdered. And most
pronouncedly, the Nazi campaign, against the Jews.
Nazi policy making in 1933 to 1945 was ideologically
based on the Nazi worldview. Yet, policies
could make tactical compromises on many issues,
in order to achieve their greater aims. There
was only one issue, on which there could be
no compromise - the Jews. Whatever policy was
decided upon, would ultimately affect all
Jews. The Nazis innovation was not in their
ideas. Which as we have seen they borrowed
from earlier thinking. Their innovation lay
in molding these ideas, into a comprehensive
worldview, that was the basis for the policy
making of a modern, scientifically, technologically,
and educationally advanced country.
And it was from this worldview, that the 
Final Solution ultimately emerged.
