Nazism focused on the community at the expense of the individual. The Nazis were passionate, fanatic idealists. The profound brutality at the heart of National Socialism grew out of their conception of morality. Understanding Nazism requires unpacking this paradoxical relationship between political violence and cultural ideals.

The ultimate act of virtue—self-renunciation—was dying for Germany. Reflecting on his First World War comrades, Hitler observed that—more than once—thousands and thousands of young Germans had “stepped forward with self-sacrificing resolve to sacrifice their young lives freely and joyfully on the altar of the beloved fatherland.”

Hitler glorified this commonplace idea of the honor of “dying for one’s country.” He built his ideology on the foundation of this idea, carrying it through to an extreme, bizarre conclusion.