The Nazi Party,[b] officially the National Socialist German Workers´ Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei[c] or NSDAP), was a far-right[10][11][12] political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers´ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremist German nationalist, racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against the communist uprisings in post–World War I Germany.[13] The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism.[14] Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti–big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric, which was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party´s main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes.[15] The party had little popular support until the Great Depression, where worsening living standards and vast unemployment drove Germans into political extremism.[12]
