Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945

The National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), better known as the NSDAP was a political party that was led to power in Germany by Adolf Hitler in 1933. The term Nazi is a short form of the German word Nationalsozialist (National Socialist, the "zi" originating from Sozialist), reflecting the ideology of the NSDAP. The NSDAP set up the Third Reich after Hitler's apppointment to Chancellor in January 1933.

The NSDAP was the main political force in Greater Germany from the fall of the Weimar Republic in 1933 until the end of World War II in 1945, when it was declared illegal and its leaders were arrested and convicted of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials. The ideology and practices of the Nazi Party gave rise to an entire new branch of political science, commonly known as "National Socialism".