Handbook Ideologies in National Socialism Online

The Handbook Ideologies in National Socialism Online (INSO) offers the most up-to-date scholarship on the ideas and ideologies that shaped the ‘Third Reich’ and our understanding of it.

Multi-disciplinary in approach, it brings together a diverse group of international scholars to examine how ideology worked (and didn’t work) in different contexts and from multiple perspectives: from the military to the family; from anthropology to philosophy; from racial science to religion; from the law to sport, and everything in between. Nor is the project limited to Germany during the years 1933-1945; it also focuses on Nazi-adjacent ideas and movements before and afterwards, and across the globe.

Given such depth and breadth, INSO is easily the most ambitious study yet of the thoughts and beliefs that underpinned, inspired, and were inspired by Nazism, and thus of the actions that flowed from it.
Aimed at students and scholars alike, it will provide the first comprehensive reference work on the topic.

INSO will be structured around the four main research areas that form the basis of the project:

• Ideology and Individuals – to be launched in 2023: focuses on people, presenting biographical essays on senior and low-level functionaries within the regime, as well as on people from society at large. The central aim of the volume is to determine what, if any, ideologies different people engaged with, and how, if at all, their actions were influenced by them.
• Ideology and Institutions (launch planned for 2024) – examines how ideologies functioned in different institutional and organisational settings, such as ministries, prayer groups, and everything in between. It seeks to determine, first, what those ideologies were, before addressing if and how they became the basis for institutional action.
• History of Ideas (launch planned for 2025) – will focus on the ideas and concepts that both inspired and fed into of National Socialism, such as Antisemitism and völkisch nationalism, occultism, and eugenics, and those that grew out of it, like ‘Research on the East’, and the ‘Will of the Führer’. In short, volume 4 will examine the conceptual underpinnings of the Nazi worldview, both in isolation and in different contexts.
• Terms, Research and Perspectives (launch planned for 2025) – will examine the language and linguistic make-up of National Socialism, such as the different languages of violence. It will also provide a glossary of terms relating to different ideologies in different fields.

The reference work will also be available in four printed volumes, with the first due to appear in 2024.

• First systematic reference work analyzing the ideas and ideologies of the ‘Third Reich’　
• Launch of the database with more than 100 biographical essays
• Not limited to the period of 1933-1945, also covering Nazi-adjacent ideas and movements before and afterwards
• Essential research tool for every student and scholar of Nazism and its global dimensions