Would Hitler's views be considared Nationalism?

Hitler did believe in a kind of ethnic nationalism which had been invented in Germany years before he lived, referred to as the “Volk”. It was the belief that ethnic Germans, the “Aryan race” as ty points out, had achieved more and were therefore superior to other people, especially to their neighboring Slavs in Russia, Poland, etc.

But because Hitler believed in Aryan superiority, he wanted the countries he felt were made up of Aryans to unite. That included Austria, the German-dominated parts of Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Baltics, as well as Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and even England. Hitler felt the English, Dutch, etc. were also Aryans and therefore should unite under the Third Reich.

But Hitler did not necessarily appeal to this ethnic nationalism during his rise to power. To do that, he appealed to the wounded sense of national pride resulting from Germany’s loss in World War I, and he also appealed to the German middle and lower classes who were hit hardest by Germany’s Great Depression. The Jews, communists, and other elements of German society were blamed for subverting the WW1 war effort and for causing the economic hardships afterwards.

The issue of communism is pretty important if you want to see how Hitler got to power. In Germany during and after WW1, the communist movement was alive and well. When the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, there was a fear among some Germans that the same would happen in their country. German communists were seen as collaborating with the Bolsheviks to not only end the war, but to overthrow the powers that be. This fear continued well into the 1920s and 1930s.

Hitler also used the Protestant German majority to come to power, pointing to the Catholic Bavarians who attempted to break away after the war and also blaming them for subverting it.

Basically, Hitler used many things to come to power and sell his misguided views on ethnic superiority. Nationalism was one of those things he used.