By tracing the origins and historical uses of the terms “nazism” and “national socialism” Hachtmann argues for a renewed scientific use of the first. While the term “national socialism” had been coined by the mid-19th century, it was employed by Nazis in Germany for their own use as of the 1920s. Today it is the dominant analytical term to grasp the specificity of Germany’s “national socialism.” Contrary to that approach Hachtmann argues that the term “Nazism” is less prone to the legitimizing content of the term “national socialism” thus focusing on the specificity of its true social and political content. It allows to analyse a movement and a state based on four ideological pillars: anti-marxism, racism and antisemitism, nationalism, warmongering.