HSC · Topic explainer
What was Nazism? HSC Modern History
Nazism was the far-right ideology of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party. It combined extreme nationalism, racial hierarchy, antisemitism and rejection of democracy. In power, the Nazis used law, propaganda and terror to impose dictatorship and persecute people they targeted. Nazi racial ideology helped drive the Holocaust, the genocide of Europe’s Jews.
Worked example
Use the Nuremberg Laws to connect an ideological claim to a concrete policy. Nazi leaders promoted a false racial hierarchy. The Reich Citizenship Law turned that hierarchy into a legal distinction, excluding Jews from full citizenship and its political rights.
Build the historical argument by naming the measure, explaining how it expressed the ideology and identifying its effect. For a question about cultural expression, use that same method with evidence specific to literature, film, music or art.
Official exam practice
Find other years and marking guidance in the Modern History official exam archive.
Further reading. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, The Nuremberg Race Laws