If you read the Washington Post regularly, you’re probably familiar with Glenn Kessler, the Post‘s official fact checker. Kessler analyzes various statements and claims to determine whether they are true. If he finds them false, he awards them Pinocchios, with the number of Pinocchios depending on the degree of falsehood. The highest number of Pinocchios he awards is 4.
On May 29, Glenn Kessler earned his own Pinocchios. At issue was a statement that Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) made at an America First rally in Georgia on May 27. Here’s what he quoted:
You know, Nazis were the National Socialist Party. Just like the Democrats are now a national socialist party.
Now Kessler would have been on good grounds had he challenged her second statement. The Democrats are nationalists to some degree, although probably somewhat less than Republicans and way less than the Nazis. They’re also socialists to some degree, more so than Republicans, but way less so than the Nazis.
But that’s not the route Kessler took. Instead he challenged her first statement. Under a section titled “The Facts,” Kessler writes:
The full name of Hitler’s party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. In English, that translates to National Socialist German Workers’ Party. But it was not a socialist party; it was a right-wing, ultranationalist party dedicated to racial purity, territorial expansion and anti-Semitism — and total political control.
His first 2 sentences are fine; 0 Pinocchios. But the first clause of his last sentence is false. They really were a socialist party. They were also, as Kessler says, ultranationalist and dedicated to racial purity, territorial expansion, and anti-Semitism. They also wanted total political control. None of that contradicts the claim that they were socialist. Stalin was dedicated to territorial expansion and many of the leading Soviets were also anti-Semitic. Stalin also wanted total political control and achieved more of it than Hitler did. Stalin was also a socialist. Would Kessler say that Stalin was not a socialist? If so, I think we would need to award him 5 Pinocchios.
Kessler attempts to buttress his case by listing the first 8 of 25 planks in the 1920 Nazi Party platform. Those planks do help his case that the Nazis were anti-Semitic (duh) and nationalists (ditto duh). But what about the other 17 planks? Kessler doesn’t list them but instead quotes Ronald Granieri’s analysis of them.
Space is cheap on the web so I will quote the remaining 17:
9. All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
10. The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all Consequently we demand:
11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery.
12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
16. We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality.
17. We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.
18. We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, Schieber and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
19. We demand substitution of a German common law in place of the Roman Law serving a materialistic world-order.
20. The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession.
21. The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
22. We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.
23. We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press. In order to enable the provision of a German press, we demand, that: a. All writers and employees of the newspapers appearing in the German language be members of the race: b. Non-German newspapers be required to have the express permission of the State to be published. They may not be printed in the German language: c. Non-Germans are forbidden by law any financial interest in German publications, or any influence on them, and as punishment for violations the closing of such a publication as well as the immediate expulsion from the Reich of the non-German concerned. Publications which are counter to the general good are to be forbidden. We demand legal prosecution of artistic and literary forms which exert a destructive influence on our national life, and the closure of organizations opposing the above made demands.
24. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: common utility precedes individual utility.
25. For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich. Unlimited authority of the central parliament over the whole Reich and its organizations in general. The forming of state and profession chambers for the execution of the laws made by the Reich within the various states of the confederation. The leaders of the Party promise, if necessary by sacrificing their own lives, to support by the execution of the points set forth above without consideration.
Planks 13, 14, and 17 seem pretty socialistic.
Finally, Kessler tries to make his case by quoting the famous quote by Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller. He does it by quoting the version used at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. It goes:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
The words, says Kessler, “provide a flavor of what the Nazis thought about socialists.”
There are 2 things to note, though. First, the way I had always heard it and seen it written, the first line is:
First they came for the C0mmunists, and I did not speak out–because I was not a Communist.
Which is right? The major expert on this is UC Santa Barbara history professor Harold Marcuse. (Is that name familiar? He’s the grandson of Herbert Marcuse.) According to Harold Marcuse, “In the narrative versions directly traceable to Niemöller he always started with ‘the Communists.'” (bold in original)
It is not controversial that Hitler hated Communism. That does not mean that he hated socialism.
Second, you know who else “came for the Communists” or at least some of the Communists and many of the socialists? Joseph Stalin. Does that mean that Stalin was not a socialist?
Finally, Kessler’s methodology proves too much. Hitler came for (murdered) Ernst Rohm and many top officials in Rohm’s SA on the night of the long knives. They were Nazis. If Kessler were to apply his methodology consistently, he would have to conclude that Hitler was not a Nazi. That makes zero sense. That’s the problem with Kessler’s methodology.
The Nazis really were nationalists and socialists. So Glenn Kessler deserves some Pinocchios. How many does he deserve?
READER COMMENTS
Mark Swanstrom
May 30 2021 at 7:02pm
Of course Nazis were Socialists. The only reason they disliked the Communists was because they were going after the same voters. They’re like Yankee fans and Red Sox fans, they hate each other because they are basically the same.
Mark Brady
May 30 2021 at 7:11pm
Before we follow David down this particular rabbit hole, would he please define socialism.
Ken DeRosa
May 30 2021 at 9:59pm
Socialism – an economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property (the means of production) and natural resources.
Marxism – class based socialism
Leninism – Marxism brought on by an elite vanguard
Nazism – race base socialism
Fascism – in Italy at least socialism based on nationality
Greg G
May 31 2021 at 7:57am
The Nazis were “socialist” like the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany) was “democratic.” That is to say that, in both cases, it would be wise not to take totalitarian labeling and propaganda at face value.
The Nazis and the real socialists (who actually wanted to nationalize the means of production) were bitter enemies. The Nazis were delighted to leave ownership of the means of production in the hands of compliant rich industrialists (many of whom were supporters). They were bitter enemies of the trade unions.
Totalitarians want total control of everything including the economy. Right wing totalitarianism and left wing totalitarianism are both rightly viewed as evil but wanting to use that power for OPPOSITE ends. The right always appeals to the recovery of a lost greatness in a glorious national past. The left always appeals to reform of a system it views as always having been embarrassingly bad all along.
The right is hierarchical and nationalistic. The left is leveling and internationalist. There is a good reason that long prevailing language conventions on the issue have always viewed them as political opposites. They have opposite political goals despite sharing an eagerness to abuse power in the service of those political goals.
Mark Z
May 31 2021 at 1:56pm
Odd as it may seem to an American, socialism and rightism are not (unless defined as such) mutually exclusive, and Germany, more than maybe any other country, has a rich history of right wing or conservative socialism (see Johann Rodbertus as an example of an influential right wing socialist thinker). Their influence was largely why an ultra-conservative like Bismarck pursued very social democratic policies. Hitler’s chief rival for control of the Nazi party – Gregor Strassor – was by all appearances a sincere socialist (as was Josef Goebbels), while also holding all the standard racial and nationalistic views. The Nazis, once in power, certainly weren’t full-blown socialists (‘right wing social democrats’ might be a better description), and Hitler ceded much of the socialist sentiment in the party’s original platform in order to gain support from industrialists once in power. But they did introduce a decent number of ‘reforms’ in the direction of a more socialist or social democratic economy. I think the reason this is such a confusing topic for Americans is that in the US, socialist economic thinking is viewed as almost definitional of what it means to be left-wing, but in Europe the right/left and socialist/capitalist axes can be almost orthogonal.
Jon Murphy
May 30 2021 at 8:17pm
I did a bit of digging, and came across a paper by Harold Marcuse here he states that Niemoller never wrote the words down. They were from various speeches that he gave post-war and sort of synthesized into one saying. So, while it appears that the written record starts with “Communists,” it’s entirely possible that Niemoller may have started with “socialist” in some of his talks, since the two terms are often interchangeable. But that would say more about Niemoller than the Nazis
Frank
May 31 2021 at 6:10pm
Niemoeller didn’t have all that much chance of enunciating his thoughts on the matter on account from 1938 he was sojourning at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
I’d give the guy a break.
Jon Murphy
May 31 2021 at 6:37pm
He lectured for about 40 years after the war until his death. That’s where the repeated versions come from
Max More
May 30 2021 at 9:38pm
Socialism and Nazism (“national socialism”) have a tremendous amount in common. I’ve always understood the difference to be that socialists want the state to take control of private property, while the Nazis may do some of that but mostly rely on heavy regulation and industrial policy.
Clauses 11 and 13 surprised me. That undermines my presumption. However, I don’t think those clauses were actually put into practice much. It’s been a few decades since I studied Soviet and Nazi Germany history so I could easily be wrong. If not, we end up saying socialism and nazism are more different in theory (but still have a huge amount in common) than in practice.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
May 30 2021 at 10:17pm
The Nazi claimed to be socialists when they thought that it was to their electoral advantage to do so. But when there were no more elections to worry about, they abandoned the proposal for the state to own all the means of production. They were no more socialist than the governments of UK, US, France, etc.
So 4 Pinocchios for saying that the Nazis (in power) were a socialist party.
Bob B
May 31 2021 at 7:13am
Marcuse doesn’t give much credence to the use of socialist in the statement. He ends his analysis by stating, “The omission of Communists in Washington, and of Jews in Germany, distorts that meaning and should be corrected.”
MarkW
May 31 2021 at 6:37pm
They were no more socialist than the governments of UK, US, France, etc.
The Nazis didn’t need de jure government ownership when they had as much de facto command and control as they would have had if the industries were actually nationalized. But in a way, you’re right — the US government <a href=”https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-seizes-control-of-montgomery-ward”>was pretty socialist in the same sense during WWII</a>.
MarkW
May 31 2021 at 6:38pm
I always forget this is the one site that doesn’t let you put in links with html code. Let’s try that one again.
TGGP
May 30 2021 at 10:33pm
“Schieber and so forth”
What is that a reference to?
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
May 30 2021 at 10:34pm
I think it is at best sloppy thinking to call any kind of government intervention in the economy that the speaker does not like, “socialism.” [If there is a fallacy of ad hominem is there one of ad oeconomiam? :)]
So US Democrats circa 2021 are not “more” socialistic than US Republicans circa 2021 or “less” socialistic than Nazis circa 1940, just as they are not more or less bald.
Mark Z
May 31 2021 at 12:03am
I think the degree of intervention in the economy is in fact a rough approximation of how socialist one is. Socialism is arguably a continuous variable rather than a binary one (baldness is too, is it not). Most Americans are at least a little socialist in that they favor socialized national defense, law enforcement, and partial state control over some other industries. Isn’t that the conventional wisdom in mainstream (mostly capitalist) economic thinking? That there are a few exceptional industries that should be socialized because they are public goods, and the rest left private? So the Democrats having a longer list of industries they’d like to nationalize or partly nationalize would make them more socialist, treated as a continuous bariable. I’m not sure that’s even a controversial assertion.
That may not clarify much regarding whether or not someone is a socialist in some binary sense; for that I guess I would rely mainly on self-identification or pick some arbitrary cutoff point.
Phil H
May 31 2021 at 4:51am
This seems about right to me, as a sort of neutral approach to looking at political orientation. The problem with it is that “socialist” is almost never used in that way – it always carries a strong affirmative or derogatory tone. I think that at least some people can use the terms “right wing” and “left wing” in reasonably neutral (dare I say objective?) ways; but socialist is just always an attack term/membership shibboleth. At this point, I see very little political content in it at all.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
May 31 2021 at 7:39am
I agree that regimes can have greater or lesser degrees of state ownership of the productive resources of an economy and all states probably own some percentage of the resources of the economy, but until it reaches some (ill defined) threshold, it does not make any sense to talk about degrees of “socialist”-ism.
Lots and lots of bad regulation and high deadweight taxes do not add up to “socialism.”
Also I would like to retract “ad oeconomiam” as a proposed name for this fallacy in favor of “ad nomen.”
Mark Z
May 31 2021 at 2:20pm
“Lots and lots of bad regulation and high deadweight taxes do not add up to “socialism.””
I’m not sure about that. What would you call a country with a 100% tax rate? Or where prices and production levels are set entirely by the state? I think ‘socialist’ would be an accurate description. Ceteris paribus, a country where 60% of income is taxed is more socialist than one where 30% is taxed; ceteris paribus, a country where businesses’ prices are constrained by price floors and ceilings, or production levels by quotas or subsidies, is more socialist than one where businesses have free reign to set prices and production levels. America right now is more socialist than it would be if we had anarcho-capitalism. I think defining ‘good regulation’ or ‘good taxation’ as not really socialist is just an effort to avoid the stigma of socialism, but that ultimately renders the word kind of meaningless.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Jun 2 2021 at 5:07am
A 60% tax rate (or a structure of excises and subsidies and tariffs the result in arbitrary discrepancies of prices from their values without intervention) implies nothing about who owns and controls the means of production and is not “more” socialistic than a 55% tax rate or a 10% tax rate.
On the other hand an economy in which all assets are owned by the state but state managers are instructed to and effective incentivized to maximize profits and so works “like” capitalistic perfect competition is still “socialist.”
“Socialistic” in not the only adjective available to characterize economies with policy induced distortions.
Jon Murphy
May 31 2021 at 9:30am
Indeed, but that’s not what is going on here. Socialism is a very specific thing: the government ownership of the means of production. Thus, we can talk about various groups being more or less socialist than other groups by the degree to which they want government ownership of the means of production.
As David points out, Planks 13, 14, and 17 in the above are explicitly socialist in that they call for nationalization (ie government ownership) of various resources.
Now, it is true that not all government intervention is socialist in nature. Indeed, we have a name for that: interventionism. Interventionism may be socialist in nature. It may be fascist in nature. It may be classically liberal in nature. It’s a broad term. But just as not everything that the government does is socialist in nature, not every critique of socialism is a critique of government intervention in general.
suddyan
Jun 3 2021 at 7:40am
[I think it is at best sloppy thinking to call any kind of government intervention in the economy that the speaker does not like, “socialism.”]
I regard the above at best as sloppy thinking.
One way of looking at property rights is captured by the terms “usus,” “fructus,” “abusus.”
So US Democrats circa 2021 are socialistic as are US Republicans circa 2021 as are Nazis circa 1940.
Jerry Brown
May 31 2021 at 12:57am
I like when there are posts about the Nazis if only because almost everyone can agree that they did absolutely horrible things that have no possible justification. We usually call Hitler a fascist rather than a socialist though. And I am content with that distinction and start to wonder about motives when people try to equate them.
Henri Hein
May 31 2021 at 1:36am
11, 18 and 22 may not be explicitly socialist, but they are anti-capitalist. 11 and 18 in a specific sense, too. They are aimed directly at capitalists in a capitalist economy.
Jens
May 31 2021 at 3:44am
If one tries to draw parallels between the NSDAP and other political parties or currents or to equate aspects, then one should first note that the history of the NSDAP only spans about 25 years. Of these 25 years, the NSDAP was only about half the ruling party and its beginnings as a micro-party (DAP) were quite manageable. That alone is a considerable difference to many socialist unitary parties, some of which have existed for many decades, often with constant staff at the top, but also with a structured transition. This aspect is also not entirely unimportant, because a lot of what the NSDAP and Hitler did could only work under the banner of maximum escalation and acceleration (in line with maximum external aggression). Here, too, one can see differences to some long-term socialist experiments.
The NSDAP was founded out of the DAP, a “workers’ party” that sought clear sympathy in the working class and therefore could not entirely ignore the class struggle formulas popular there. But how Henderson describes the events surrounding the Röhm Putsch is somewhat questionable. The socialist / national Bolshevik wing within the NSDAP, which was represented above all by Gregor Strasser, was abolished with the Röhm putsch.
Anti-Semitism is a phenomenon that can be found in many eras, societies and states. The Nazi rule not only conveyed anti-Semitic elements in some of its representatives, but it was based on community by delimiting and fighting imagined and real internal and external enemies. Socialists tried to spread their ideas internationally, which also defined and provoked hostile forces, but actually nobody was excluded from birth. “Völkerfreundschaft”/”Friendship between nations” is a typical propaganda term of socialist states. (On the other hand, one also has to say that the NSDAP’s racial ideology was curiously adaptable and flexible. For example, the Japanese were defined as the Aryans of the East and the assessments of the Eastern Europeans were greatly revised as soon as one realized that they were needed. Something like that should be seen under the initially mentioned inherent need to accelerate National Socialist expansion).
Two other aspects are aristocracy / nobility and private property. Neither one nor the other was really abolished or attacked under Nazi-rule. You can’t really say that about socialism. It is true that neither nobles, rich people nor entrepreneurs could ignore the NSDAP and they also had to at least partially subordinate themselves and take on certain tasks within the ideology. But there are innumerable german biographies of aristocrats, entrepreneurs and business dynasties that were barely noticeably interrupted by the Nazi regime (But yes, you will also find a few resistance and fallen among aristocrats and business people). The same can hardly be said of socialist states.
On the one hand, one can say that the NSDAP had roots in the working class when it was founded and could not completely ignore the slogans and ideas that were very popular there. And in the end, you can also say that Hitler – if he didn’t explicitly hate something – was also quite flexible with terms as long as it served his power. And it is perhaps also the case that the NSDAP and other socialist parties or states can be classified under a very broad term of “socialism” (which one would like to have as such, whereby the fact that socialism is a broad, manifold and also in parts inconsistent historical topic also helps). But this term will hardly tell you anything about the NSDAP, National Socialism, the ideas behind socialism or the actually existing socialist states. And maybe that’s exactly what it’s all about.
Weir
May 31 2021 at 4:07am
Glenn Kessler could have quoted Hitler. Hitler said explicitly that the Democrats are “a capitalist party.”
What Democrats ought to do every time it’s alleged that some policy is socialist, nationalist, National Socialist, fascist, what Democrats should reply with pride is that, according to Hitler himself, they are “a capitalist party.”
When Hitler declared war on the US on December 11, 1941, he singled out two presidents.
This is Hitler on Wilson: “We know today that a group of interested financiers stood behind Wilson and made use of this paralytic professor because they hoped for increased business.”
And this is Hitler on FDR: “After the war Roosevelt tried his hand at financial speculation: he made profits out of the inflation, out of the misery of others, while I, together with many hundreds of thousands more, lay in hospital. When Roosevelt finally stepped on the political stage with all the advantages of his class, I was unknown and fought for the resurrection of my people. When Roosevelt took his place at the head of the USA, he was the candidate of a capitalist party which made use of him: when I became Chancellor of the German Reich, I was the Fuhrer of the popular movement I had created. The powers behind Roosevelt were those powers I had fought at home. The Brains Trust was composed of people such as we have fought against in Germany as parasites and removed from public life.”
Hitler had earlier presented himself as “the only statesman in the world who has no bank account.”
So he continued that theme in his attacks on Roosevelt: “Roosevelt comes from a rich family and belongs to the class whose path is smoothed in the democracies. I am only the child of a small, poor family and had to fight my way by work and industry. When the Great War came, Roosevelt occupied a position where he got to know only its pleasant consequences, enjoyed by those who do business while others bleed. I was only one of those who carry out orders, as an ordinary soldier, and naturally returned from the war just as poor as I was in Autumn 1914. I shared the fate of millions, and Franklin Roosevelt only the fate of the so-called Upper Ten Thousand.”
Jens
May 31 2021 at 4:21am
Just as a footnote, because sometimes people are obsessed with quotes without context or classification (the role somebody plays in a certain context is also important), here is a quote from a mentioned politician (in an official organ).
You will have no problem to find the source in this internet.
Daniel Klein
May 31 2021 at 5:56am
Great post, David, thank you.
Kessler’s bit to treat the defining of “socialist” as a factual matter suitable for Pinocchio-izing, and clinging to his how idiosyncratic semantics to boot, reveals much about him. I give him four Bozos.
Rob Weir
May 31 2021 at 9:21am
There seems to be this odd belief that the Nazis could not possibly be socialists because they attacked socialists. Surely socialists don’t fight other socialists?
But then what about Russian Bolsheviks fighting the Mensheviks? Or communist Vietnam going to war against communist Cambodia? The Comintern denounced German socialists as “social fascists.”
So, in fact it is quite common for the various flavors of socialism to be fighting each other.
David Henderson
May 31 2021 at 3:45pm
Good point. That was my point about Stalin.
Frank
May 31 2021 at 6:06pm
Own the means of production? How naive. Control the means of production!
Lee
Jun 1 2021 at 8:40am
As Mark Brady suggests, a definition of socialism would have been good. However, if we define socialism as an economy without wages, prices, money, etc. (i.e. the view held by Marx), this creates a problem for both Henderson and Kessler (but maybe more so for Kessler). The co-founder of the Libertarian Alliance (UK), David McDonagh, once said that the USSR was fascist—but he also said (following M. Polanyi and P.C. Roberts) it was capitalist. I agree with him on both counts. That certainly puts Nazism and USSR in the same orbit. I suppose Kessler could argue (correctly) that neither one was socialist, but would he also argue they were both fascist? If the UK Labour Party is “a party with socialists in it” (to quote a book title), then we might say something similar about the Nazis, i.e. they were, (strictly) in terms of economic policy, closer to the Western-style socialist parties that rejected Bolshevism and (eventually) embraced capitalism. Although not remotely as ruthless as Hitler, the Western European countries even strive for a mega-state under the EU and the US wants to spread its model to the Middle-East and elsewhere.
Jon Murphy
Jun 1 2021 at 2:26pm
It’s been a while since I read Marx, but I don’t think he defined socialism that way. I think he just defined it as government ownership of the means of production.
Plus, given that future self-described socialists (like Oskar Lange and Abba Lerner) heavily relied on prices, even if Marx did define socialism in such a manner, it wouldn’t be a practical definition.
Lee
Jun 1 2021 at 8:44pm
Per David Ramsay Steele’s book From Marx to Mises, at the time that Marx became a communist, communism signified the absence of money or markets. As the word socialism became more fashionable, it was later adopted by Marxists and was considered synonymous with communism. Marx never defined communism but his views can be partially gleaned from what he dislikes about capitalism, primarily its unplanned nature.
Lange’s system did not rely on market prices; it relied on “accounting prices” that were adjusted in response to surpluses of deficits of factors of production.
Nick R
Jun 1 2021 at 10:46pm
The “fact checkers” are wing men for the mainstream media’s “narratives.” They attack conservative and libertarian positions and utterances, and ignore the rivers of absurdities from the left. The left in general and socialists in particular advocate centralized control of society and the economy. So did Hitler. If Hitler was “right wing”, I have a question: how much did he have in common with a “right winger” like Milton Friedman? Next to nothing. They can’t both be “right wing” in any meaningful sense. Playing games with labels is a long-standing tactic of the left. Nazism is a form of leftism, however one might want to spin it. The original “fascist”, Mussolini, was an editor of Italy’s Socialist paper Avanti before launching the fascist party. To simplify, fascism was Socialism that rejected Internationalism (remember “workers of the world unite!”?) Fascism was national socialism. Hitler once said (and I’m quoting from memory) something like “I have nothing to offer that communism doesn’t offer, except anti-semitism”.
MikeW
Jun 2 2021 at 11:20am
That’s the way I have always thought of it, too. It has never made sense to me to think of Nazism (or fascism) as the opposite of communism. They are both totalitarian, which makes them very similar in my eyes.
Tom Means
Jun 2 2021 at 2:10pm
Never been a fan of self-appointed “fact-checkers”. However, I may be naive but the terms socialism and communism had been around for several years. If a political party uses the term socialist (and also mentions workers’ party) in its name, it must mean something.
Glenn Corey
Jun 3 2021 at 10:55pm
You could also rely on Hitler himself to show he was a socialist. Here are some indicative quotes:
“National Socialism derives from each of the two camps the pure idea that characterizes it, national resolution from bourgeois tradition; vital, creative socialism from the teaching of Marxism.” – January 27, 1934, interview with Hanns Johst in Frankforter Volksblatt
“To put it quite clearly: we have an economic program. Point 13 in that program demands the nationalization of all public companies, in other words socialization, or what is known here as socialism…” – May 4, 1931, interview with Richard Breiting
“Is there a nobler or more excellent kind of Socialism and is there a truer form of Democracy than this National Socialism which is so organized that through it each one among the millions of German boys is given the possibility of finding his way to the highest office in the nation, should it please Providence to come to his aid?” – January 30, 1937, On National Socialism and World Relations speech in the German Reichstag
Mark Brady
Jun 4 2021 at 2:56am
“To put it quite clearly: we have an economic program. Point 13 in that program demands the nationalization of all public companies, in other words socialization, or what is known here as socialism…” – May 4, 1931, interview with Richard Breiting
So why didn’t Hitler nationalize all public companies when he assumed control of the German polity?
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