National Socialism 1933 - 1945

In the times of crisis following World War I, National Socialism emerged in Germany as an extreme nationalist, imperialist and racist political movement. The National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), founded in 1920, came to power in Germany under Adolf Hitler on January 30, 1933, ending Weimar democracy and establishing the dictatorship of the so-called "Third Reich," the Nazi state, through terror, lawbreaking and "Gleichschaltung".