Is National Socialism a Germans' Only Ideology?

[Siebenbürgerin]

I've a question about National Socialism in the Third Reich. I recall having seen a quote by Goebbels in which he said the ideology wasn't for export.
Here the quote:

Nation Socialism is a completely German phenomenon. It can only be understood in the framework of German conditions and forces. Like Mussolini once said about Fascism, "it is not for export."

Maybe someone can help me understand this quote. In your view, did Goebbels mean non-Germans can't be truly National Socialists? What is your view on non-German National Socialists?

[Víðálfr]

At a first glance, when I see 'neo-nazis' which are not even white enough, I don't make a good impression on them (it's obvious). About non-Germanic, but white... well, there are a lot of NSBM slavic bands... this if we refer to the present phenomenon. I think it may sound strange how National Socialism become so universal nowadays... but one can say it's the globalization responsible for this.
I can't say it's good, but I can compare this with the phenomenon of Norse mythology/tradition/spirituality and symbols embraced by many non-Germanics.

Anyway, National Socialism has been born in certain conditions concerning a certain part of the world, so I think it's natural what Goebbels said (supposing he meant that non-Germans can't be truly National Socialists). In that period, from what I already know, any similar (more or less) ideologies which have been born in other countries had a local specific. It may have been some synchronization between them, and it would have been really stupid for a group of people to copy exactly the National Socialism, if they weren't German. From my point of view, it's like the case with the religions. (No offence, but I can't see how Europeans, in general, could really understand and practice Judeo-Christianity, as it hasn't too much to deal with their folk. And it is no wonder that the Judeo-Christianity in Europe has been divided in so many groups, with their own specific.)

Thinking about the last years of the Third Reich, in the WW2, from what I know, there were many volunteers from other countries, non-Germanic, who were enrolled in the German army. There are some points of view from which they fought for an European unity, under the banner of the Third Reich, so I think, concerning this aspect, National Socialism became somewhat universal for many parts of Europe where there were people fighting for the same cause.

This is just a possibility to respond this question, in fact I'm still pending if NS should be only German, or can have more extended meanings.

[Siebenbürgerin]

Thinking about the last years of the Third Reich, in the WW2, from what I know, there were many volunteers from other countries, non-Germanic, who were enrolled in the German army. There are some points of view from which they fought for an European unity, under the banner of the Third Reich, so I think, concerning this aspect, National Socialism became somewhat universal for many parts of Europe where there were people fighting for the same cause.

Hmm, yes, this is usually brought up in such discussions, but in my view there should be a distinction between the political and the military. There were volunteers even from the non-white countries, but this was a strategic move. They weren't necessarily National Socialists, just soldiers. In fact many soldiers in the Wehrmacht didn't consider themselves National Socialist. Here a parallel to explain what I mean more accurately: the USA has neo-conservative and Christian politics in power, but the soldiers in the American army don't necessarily follow such political ideologies.

[rainman]

Some of the various ideals could be applied to different people depending on how compatible their natural character is with them. For example any group of people can attempt to preserve their race. However the unique symbols, customs and specific execution of national socialism at the time was meant for Germans only. Unlike Communism which would like to see a hammer and sickle flown by every nation, the swastika for example was to be a symbol of Germanic people. Even modern Slavic NS use a variation of the swastika to demonstrate their own unique movement. It would be like saying Zionism is for Jewish people and not for export. Why would a Chinese nationalist fly an Israeli flag or Nazi flag? Why would they copy the language and customs? For example communist would like to create a global language- be it Russian or English or Esperanto. NS would have its own language and different languages for the nations around it. I guess that movement is pretty much dead though.

Take me for example. I feel I am a branch of the Germanic tree but I'm not a German. It wouldn't make sense for me to fly a German flag and try to copy all the holidays and customs of Germany. Each unique region should organically grow its own philosophy, customs etc. That being said Germany at the time had to expand in size in order to compete globally. A tiny nation would easily be over run by powerful enemies. Therefore land in the East was needed to create a nation of great strength. Similar in size and resources to say the United States or China or something. Even within that framework there would be regional variations, however it would be one folk. One race with a common ancestry, ideal appearance etc. and common culture, living in a similar environment. For instance the Nazis had no interest in colonizing Africa because it is not a native environment of Germanic peoples (tropical areas), nor interest in Asia.

[Stygian Cellarius]

The fundamental principles of NS can be applied to any group of people. I'd actually like to see in what context Goebbels said those words. He was minister of propaganda and it is possible his words were an attempt to bolster the spirits and inclusiveness of the German people. Besides, Germany's plan was to occupy Europe. It wouldn't make much sense if NS couldn't be applied to Norwegians if they were to be a part of the NS domain. It wouldn't make much sense for them to initiate Estonian SS officers if NS was so exclusive, which we know they did.

The only way I can see that statement making sense, if he truly meant it, is if he had the particular conditions of its rise, at that particular point in time, in mind. Which is suggested by his words.

Nation Socialism is a completely German phenomenon.

It was, there was no other NS country.

It can only be understood in the framework of German conditions and forces

It might be difficult for an outsider to understand how something could come to be unless that person lived under the conditions of that specific time and struggle.
Now this part here: "It can only be understood", was Goebbels making his statement an absolute, to amplify the desired effect of his words. Textbook propaganda.

NS was an extreme cultural defense mechanism. The collective alignment of the sociological, cultural immune system. An event as rare within a lifetime as the alignment of planets, a population would have to experience it to understand it. That doesn't mean individuals can't, it just means populations cannot. You see how difficult it is for people to understand it even today, but people are people and if an Englishman was born in that context, chances are that he too would understand it and support it.

How do we know that it could only have been Germany that understood it to the point of it coming to being? Simply because that's what happened. It was only Germany that adopted it. It wasn't for export because the conditions didn't exist elsewhere, to stimulate its rise, as they did in Germany.

Well, that's my take on it anyways. I cannot be exactly certain what he was thinking when he said that. No one really can except him.

The statement about Fascism being limited to Italian's sounds a bit confusing as well. Being that Spain was equally as fascist.

[Kiel]

One could use the terms, Germanic Socialism, Nordic Socialism, Racial Socialism, Aryan Socialism, Teutonic Socialism, or some other term to be more or less precise. I think the term "National Socialism" is used today to mean an ideology that we can use to save our race from annihilation, and thus, has a slightly different meaning today than during the WWII era.

[Vindefense]

Here is my understanding about what NS is, It is the philosophy of Natural law, and can be applied by all species which exhibit the ability to organize and create culture. Any people who can claim descent from the once indigenous root race, have within them the potential to harness it's law. Here are words from the Wolf himself:

"National Socialism, would be worth nothing if it were restricted merely to Germany and did not seal the supremacy of the superior Race over the entire world for at least a thousand to two thousand years." A.Hitler

The State

The state is a means to an end. Its end lies in the preservation and advancement of a community of physically and psychically homogeneous creatures. This preservation itself comprises first of all existence as a race and thereby permits the free development of all the forces dormant in this race.... A. Hitler

That the state represents no end, but a means. It is, to be sure, the premise for the formation of a higher human culture, but not it's cause, which lies exclusively in the existence of a race capable of culture. A. Hitler

Even Hitler envisioned National Socialism as a World philosophy. It's restrictive merit was based on race not nation, specifically the Aryan.

[Herzbluth]

There are similar quotes from Adolf Hitler too… they didn't "create" the Nationalsocialism to become an international movement as communism, so they didn't run any "Fifth Column" in foreign countries. But there were local groups of the NSDAP for Germans who lived abroad (NSDAP Auslands-Organisation).

But the main question is: Did Hitler really "create" Nationalsocialism?!

And: Was there any consistent doctrine?

I believe the basic ideas of "Nationalsocialism" allways were alive as a concept, but it found a special form in Germany, mainly coined by Adolf Hitler. But also by others, think of Alfred Rosenberg, for example.
And Heinrich Himmler and Walther Darré had their very own interpretations of that idea, for example.
During the war the politics changed, according to the requirements of time. Other trends in the NS-movement became more important, as we can see in the Waffen-SS-concepts.

Nationalsocialism was an embodiment of certain natural principles. – And that's the way Savirti Devi Mukherji saw it. According to her believes Hitler was an avatar of Vishnu, and it's legitimated to evolve a political idea in the same spirit.

So the answer is: Hitler didn't suppose to export "his" Nationalsocialism to the world, but actually he never "owned" the idea, so of course it can be an international thing. All ideas are "global".

And I know fanatic Nationalsocialists from all over the world.

[Siebenbürgerin]

The fundamental principles of NS can be applied to any group of people. I'd actually like to see in what context Goebbels said those words. He was minister of propaganda and it is possible his words were an attempt to bolster the spirits and inclusiveness of the German people.

Good observation. I looked and found the entire speech of Goebbels where he said those words. The background is explained:

Background: On the occasion of the first Nuremberg Rally that followed Hitler's 1933 takeover of power, Goebbels gave a speech discussing the bad press Germany was receiving because of its racial policies. Goebbels claims that the Jews are making a mistake in attacking Germany, since by doing so they run the risk of putting Nazi views on the agenda for discussion. He suggests many in the world will as a result come to agree with the Nazis.

The source: "Rassenfrage und Weltpropaganda," Reichstagung in Nürnberg 1933 (Berlin: Vaterländischer Verlag C. A. Weller, 1933), pp. 131-142. This was the illustrated volume put out by Julius Streicher to commemorate the rally.

Here the link:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb41.htm

Just after, he said something else:

Nonetheless, we see the National Socialist revolution as an event that affects the entire world. Besides, the solution of the German Question cannot be without consequences for the future constellation of Europe. It is a warning for the entire liberal world that Germany has replaced democracy by an authoritarian system, that liberalism broke under the blows of the national uprising, that parliamentarianism and the party system are outdated concepts for us.

[Hauke Haien]

NS stood on a broad base of German traditions that were taken for granted by its historical proponents and as a consequence, NS cannot be properly understood outside of this context. This basic problem has escalated into even graver problems, namely Skinheadism, NS libertarianism (?), White Nationalism and other idiocies. There is no point in complaining about this as far as foreigners are concerned, but it becomes a problem for us if this kind of trash returns to Germany by way of Americanisation and makes yet another of our native ideologies dependent on a Western cultural context.

There was a time in German politics when practically all elements were fiercely ethnocentric, to varying degrees and with differing ideas about our inner structure. Now you will even find Germans who identify as NS, pledge allegiance to the white race and waste their time thinking about plots to save the very structure that keeps the German people enslaved to indifferent, incompetent morons for the sole reason that they are "white".

The state is a means to an end. Its end lies in the preservation and advancement of a community of physically and psychically homogeneous creatures. This preservation itself comprises first of all existence as a race and thereby permits the free development of all the forces dormant in this race.... A. Hitler

Even Hitler envisioned National Socialism as a World philosophy. It's restrictive merit was based on race not nation, specifically the Aryan.

"A community of physically and psychically homogeneous creatures", he is repeating a basic tenet of German ethno-nationalism, whose biological component had been solidified by means of scientific racism during the course of the 19th century. This is what he identifies as the basic foundation now. Before that, the biological aspect had already been present, albeit in less clear, highly spiritualised notions attached to a primarily linguistic conception.

The great innovation of our early 19th century national movement is to detach loyalty and culture from the state and shift it to the people. Only in the next step, a unity of state and people is achieved. This approach did not originate in NS, but it was continued there. You do not become German by waving the flag of the state, you are German first and then you wave the flag of the state your people has claimed for itself. By analogy, German NS cannot spread as an idea, it can only spread through the expansion of the German people and the Germanisation of assimilable types.

In an US context, where the identity of the people is rooted in a laughable civil religion attached to the state and the citizenship status issued by it, the quote is inevitably interpreted as a complete abandonment of the state and, more importantly, as a break between culture (resting with the state and its various subject peoples) and race. There is no dichotomy between culture and race in a German context, both are fused and form the German ethnicity, the distinction is between the state and the pre-existing German people that is supposed to be expressed in the state, essentially reversing the relationship found in most forms of monarchism and republicanism. Only if that is the case, only if "its end lies in the preservation and advancement of a community of physically and psychically homogeneous creatures", then the state becomes worthy of loyalty and acquires a spiritual quality.

I consider racial internationalism among Germans beneath contempt and a clear proof of the progress Americanism has made in destroying our German ethnicity. This already begins with naming our problems correctly. We are not suffering from "multiculturalism", we are suffering from a lack of mono-ethnicism and the ultimate aim must remain to seize or create state power, even though we realise that individualised contributions to the German people, which is synonymous with the German nation, are of primary importance, especially now that no German nation state exists anywhere.