The idea of Nazism as an act of madness is closely linked to the revisionism of the 1950s, to the social pact, which sought to dissociate it from the crisis of capitalism, from the explicit support of the German bourgeoisie for the Nazi expansionist project—and the inability of both the West and the USSR to prevent the war. Nazism resulted from the militant support of the German industrial and financial sector to the Nazi project; the absence of support by the USSR and social democracy for the revolutionary projects of the 1930s; and the inaction, if not active complicity, of social democracy and its alliances with semi-Bonapartist powers before Hitler’s rise to power.

Key words:
Nazism, Popular Front, United Front, 1929 crisis