"He who would live must fight. He who
doesn't wish to fight in this world,
where permanent struggle is the law of
life, has not the right to exist."
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
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The scientific basis for the Nazi Party's Racial ideology derives from German Social Darwinists in the late 19th century. Like these Darwinists, the Nazis believed that people can be classified through races solely based on specific recurring characteristics of a respective 'race'. These characteristics tied directly with a race's physical appearance, intellectual capability, ways of life, cultural sophistication, strength, and military prowess. The Nazis also adopted the Darwinist ideology of 'survival of the fittest,' which helped justify the Nazi's cause to war: races had to expand to survive. Because Earth's resources are finite, an infinite and external struggle for conquest and extermination of other races was the only means for survival. The Nazis argued that any race that failed to expand would face extermination.
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| German Soldiers on March. |
| Courtesy of AP Photo, File |
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| Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz. |
| Courtesy of Getty Images |
| Poster comparing 'superior' Aryan children to 'inferior' Jewish children. |
| Courtesy of the Library of Congress |
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"As long as there have been men on the Earth, the struggle between man and the subhuman will be the historic rule; the Jewish-led struggle against the mankind, as far back as we can look, is part of the natural course of life on our planet. One can be convinced with full certainty that the struggle for life and death is just as much a law of nature as is the struggle of an infection to corrupt a healty body."
- Reichfurer-SS Heinrich Himmler
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The Nazis believed it was their duty to preserve the purity of the Aryan gene pool and exterminate all biologically inferior races that threatened this purity. This resulted in the persecution of physically ‘inferior’ beings such as the disabled, mentally retarded, and those with genetic flaws. Apart from physically ‘inferior’ beings, the Nazis also sought to exterminate races they considered subhuman (untermenschen), most importantly the Jews. This mass racial, cultural, and ethnic cleansing became known to the world as the Holocaust.
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| Racial Ideology Video |
| Courtesy of facinghistory.org |
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