Inspired by this post.
Most discussions I’ve seen about Nazi ideology seem to focus either on Hitler’s ideas (his speeches, Mein Kampf, etc.) or the eventual implementation of his ideas by the Nazi state.
I feel like all the emphasis on Hitler obscures the fact that there had to be many, many others who both inspired, and directly contributed to, his ideas; and to Nazi doctrine more generally. It's never just one man.
So who were the "intellectuals" that made up the brain trust of the Nazi Party? Who built the ideology?
Arguably the most currently relevant and academically rigorous philosopher of Nazism was Carl Schmitt. During World War II he was a Prussian State Counsellor, Professor at the University of Berlin, President of the Union of National-Socialist Jurists, and Editor of the German Jurists' Journal. As well, he represented the Reich in the famous case Preussen contra Reich. His work The Concept of the Political is a legal and political philosophical argument for the authoritarian power of the state, famously couching both sovereignty and politics itself within the question of the "friend/enemy distinction". His concepts were applied in an article justifying the Night of the Long Knives, called "The Leader Protects the Law".
American paleoconservative author Paul Gottfried wrote a book on Schmitt called Carl Schmitt: Politics and Theory and left-wing intellectual historian Gopal Balakrishnan wrote The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt. These two authors are representative of the diverse influence Schmitt's theories have had.