FOCUS QUESTION What policies did Nazi Germany pursue, and how did they lead to World War II?

The most frightening dictatorship developed in Nazi Germany. National Socialism (or Nazism) shared some characteristics with Italian fascism, but Nazism was far more interventionist. Under Hitler, the Nazi dictatorship smashed or took over most independent organizations, established firm control over the German state and society, and violently persecuted the Jewish population and non-German peoples. Truly totalitarian in aspiration, Nazi Germany acted with a dynamism, based on racial aggression and territorial expansion, that led to history’s most destructive war.