Hitler was a socialist

[Ningen]

Socialism is an economic system where capital goods (means of production) are shared and controlled communally. The philosophy is built around the idea of preventing inequality of economic power by giving everyone an equal share and equal voice in the use of capital. Essentially, it's the economic equivalent of a direct democracy.

National Socialism (or German Fascism), despite it's name, shares more in common with Keynesian economic policy than it does with Socialism (or Marxism). Fascist economics tends to be against "loan-capitalism," where profit is based on speculation, but that's more or less where the hard similarities with Socialism end. Fascism promotes class solidarity, while Socialism, with the exception of some moderates, proposes the complete elimination of class distinctions, often through violent means. Fascism supports the artificial stimulation of the economy by the government which, despite what some American Conservatives might tell you, is a Keynesian policy rather than a Socialist one. Along with all of this, Fascism is a free-market system that allows for private ownership of capital goods as well as capital accumulation, concepts that any "good socialist" would despise. National Socialists were also strongly opposed to the "welfare state," preferring instead to take a more "social Darwinism" approach to economics; that is to say, let those who cannot support themselves die and allow the strong to thrive.

Wrong, socialism is when the government does stuff

 

[DJ Grelle]

You cannot split national-socialism. It is not a mere fusion of nationalism and socialism. It is something holistic. Its not a nationalistic socialism. Its not a socialistic nationalism. etc etc
t. alfred rosenberg in volkischer beobachter, I cant seem to remember which date it was, or the exact details of the article.

My personal opinion is that left/right distinction are retarded as long as you dont say which kind of left/right. You have the American left right (democrats vs republicans) and the french left/right (pro enlightenment&revolution vs traditionalists&monarchists).
The entire american left/right spectrum is left wing on the french spectrum.

Further, the distinction between reactionary/conservative/progressive/revolutionary and ideology must be made. Reactionary is not inherently right-wing, although a lot of reactionaries are right wing. An example of left wing reactionaries are the communists who wanted to return to stalin's era during the fall of the soviet union.

National-socialism was a weird form of revolutionary traditionalism. While they saw the concept of an aristocratic state as the correct one, they rejected the old nobility and royalty as reactionaries who have failed their positions and aimed to replace the old, decadent aristocracy with a new warrior aristocracy (the SS). At least, those were the plans. I'm not going to go out and say how much of it became reality in those 12 years they were in power.

Trying to define nazism by its economic policies is retarded, they would do what worked within their philosophical paradigm. If that was mass nationalisation, they would have done that. If it was mass privatization, they would have done that.

hope its clear,

Spoiler: pwrlvl

I just spent 10 hours on an university exam and im a bit ranty

 

[CatParty]

 

[Dom Cruise]

Sometimes I do wonder if the Communists and the Nazis were just two sides of the same coin and their collective sperging out has basically fucked over the human race.

The fact that we're STILL fighting these battles, that people still fly swastika and hammer and sickle flags 20 years into the 21st century is just insane.

Leave that shit in the 20th century where it belongs, focus on the problems we face now and address them without the baggage of branding them with old 20th century movements.

 

[SigSauer]

I’ll let this quote speak for itself.

• 
  The Germany of today is a National Socialist State. The ideology that dominates us is in diametrical contradiction to that of Soviet Russia. National Socialism is a doctrine that has reference exclusively to the German people. Bolshevism lays stress on international mission. We National Socialists believe a man can, in the long run, be happy only among his own people. We are convinced the happiness and achievements of Europe are indissolubly tied up with the continuation of the system of independent and free national States. Bolshevism preaches the establishment of a world empire and recognizes only section of a central international. We National Socialists grant each people the right to its own inner life according to its needs and its own nature. Bolshevism, on the other hand, establishes doctrinal theories that are to be accepted by all peoples, regardless of their particular essence, their special nature, traditions, etc. National Socialism speaks up for the solution of social problems, issues and tensions in their own nation, with methods that are consistent with our common human, spiritual, cultural and economic beliefs, traditions and conditions. Bolshevism preaches the international class struggle, the international world revolution with the weapons of the terror and the violence. National Socialism fights for the reconciliation and consequent adjustment of the differences in life and the union of all for common benefits. Bolshevism teaches the overcoming of an alleged class rule by the dictatorship of the power of a different class. National Socialism does not attach importance to a only theoretical rule of the working class, but especially on the practical improvement of their living conditions and standard of living. Bolshevism fights for a theory and, for it, sacrifices millions of people, immense values of traditional culture and traditions, and achieves, compared with us, only a very low standard of living for all. As National Socialists, our hearts are full with admiration and respect for the great achievements of the past, not only in our own people but also far beyond. We are happy to belong to an European cultural community that has so tremendously embossed today's world with a stamp of its mind. Bolshevism rejects this cultural achievement of mankind, claiming that has found the beginning of the real cultural and human history in the year of birth of Marxism. We, National Socialists, do not want to be of the same opinion as our church organizations in this or that organizational question. But we never want a lack of belief in religion or any faith, and do not wish that our churches become club-houses or cinemas. Bolshevism teaches the godlessness and acts accordingly. We National Socialists see in private property a higher level of human economic development that according to the differences in performance controls the management of what has been accomplished enabling and guaranteeing the advantage of a higher standard of living for everyone. Bolshevism destroys not only private property but also private initiative and the readiness to shoulder responsibility. It has not been able to save millions of human beings from starvation in Russia, the greatest Agrarian State in the world. It would be unthinkable to transfer such a catastrophe into Germany, because, at the of the day, in Russia there are 10 city dwellers for every 90 country dwellers, but in Germany for only 25 farmers there are 75 city dwellers. National Socialists and Bolshevists both are convinced they are a world apart from each other and their differences can never be bridged. Apart from that, there were thousands of our people slain and maimed in the fight against Bolshevism. If Russia likes Bolshevism it is not our affair, but if Bolshevism casts its nets over to Germany, then we will fight it tooth and nail.
  • Speech made at the Reichstag (21 May 1935) Found in Translation of Herr Hitler's Speech to the German Reichstag on May 21, 1935 Foreign Office Press. [page needed] German version

 

[JP's_Canadian_Cider]

Not this shit again.

You can't just say that Hitler was a socialist because they share political ideas and projects. Nor can you say that a socialist is a nazi because they agree that a nation should be able to defend itself with a army. Two political systems/movements can share ideas and still be different groups. Also, political movements change with the years. The main objective for the socialist has always been improving workers stature in the society and socialism as a economical system never existed in a vacuum. The intention was always to improve the welfare in the state for workers, redistribution of wealth and planned economy was just a tool to achive this goal. During the 30's and post-war period most socialist abandoned the idea of planned economy. They were still socialists, and they could all show a scholary lineage and shared visions with the earliest worker movements, even if their policy had changed. In the same way as you can identify with the Republican Party, without having an opinion about the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

The point being, you don't classify a political movement by their actions, but from their intentions. Hitlers intention was to defend/improve the stature of the german race. Socialists wanted to improve worker conditions. To hammer this down even harder. Both monarchists, tribal clans and fascist believe that the state should be run by one man who was basically the father of the nation. This leader figure should be adored and if the nations is attacked, you should defend it in his name. So following the logic, monarchists, clans and fascists are the same ideology. Hitler was a clan leader. Big papa nazi. . King Hitler the first. Chief Jew Ash Sky. Why is this so hard for Native Americans to accept?

Except no, he wasn't. He was his own thing. A very specific subgenre of fascists that we call Nazis.

Also, in case you are autistic. Just because you have a intention doesn't mean that you are working effectively towards that intention. So all true socialists wants to improve the stature of the worker, but they might sabotage that goal with shitty policies. The soviet union was socialists, even if their policies was detrimental to worker rights. And North Korea is no more socialist than they are democratic.

 

[Nanook Rubs It]

ITT: People implying modern socialist don't just use the ideas of Wealth Redistribution and Government Programs as means to an ends of power and control, just like every socialist regime before it.


I've always found the "No True Socialist" game played with Hitler really funny, especially when they will take people who are objectively worse like Stalin and Pol Pot.

 

[heyilikeyourmom]

Why is it that people (leftists) can't accept the fact that Hitler was a socialist

For the same reason leftists who don’t support Israel can’t accept the fact that they’re nazis; they don’t want their cover blown.

 

[He Who Points And Laughs]

Hitler was the "right wing" of the left. From the position of the Bolsheviks he was right wing.

 

[ulsterscotsman]

Don't National Socialists and Fascist claim to be neither left or right but claim to be Third position?

 

[crocodilian]

A Socialist is one who serves the common good without giving up his individuality or personality or the product of his personal efficiency. Our adopted term "Socialist" has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true socialism is not. Marxism places no value on the individual, or individual effort, or efficiency; true Socialism values the individual and encourages him in individual efficiency, at the same time holding that his interests as an individual must be in consonance with those of the community.

All great inventions, discoveries, achievements were first the product of an individual brain. It is charged against me that I am against property, that I am an atheist. Both charges are false.

Hitler and the National-Socialist party didn't invoke modern day ideas commonly associated with the term "socialism." A more apt term to summarize their ideas would be Germanism or Volkism, which may be summarized as "local producer-oriented capitalism." This is directly juxtaposed to "Jewish capitalism", which in turn may be summarized as globalist international finance.

To make the distinction even simpler: Marx advocated surrendering to a national identity, which was dictated by a collectivist governing body. Jewish Capitalism advocated engaging (and ideally dominating) the entire world economically, such as through Wall Street. Volkism advocated national pride, emphasized individual merit and opposed all outside influence.

The reason you so often hear things like "the Nazis were socialist" is because Socialism has become a convenient boogeyman, and not one undeserving of it's reputation thanks to the spread (and subsequent regional collapse) caused by Marxist ideas of socialism. Its equally as convenient to disparage Hitler, as his ideas are directly contrary to Jewish capitalism, which at the present time just about rules the world through financial strangulation.

 

[Xarpho]

Hitler did have many socialist programs (including welfare for single mothers). The reason why no one likes to talk about it is this socialism tended to be very ethnocentric and anyone that wasn't part of the "pure Aryan" club was basically told to fuck off. As modern-day socialists tend to parrot other left wing talking points ("diversity is our strength", etc.), Hitler's brand of socialism isn't favored.

 

[Shoggoth]

Although Hitler was the leader of a party with some socialist ideals, many of those were either never implemented or fell by the wayside during the war due to the amount of pressure on Germany's finances and people. Also, the NSDAP was barely more "socialist" than the average modern Western society; they were at best "socialism-lite" and honestly more like nationally-regulated protectionist capitalists with a solid welfare system. When you say "socialism" in the modern day, people usually think of the version of Socialism that Marx outlined as a stepping stone to Communism, which isn't the same way that the NSDAP were socialist. One way to think of it is that the NSDAP weren't a "nationalist and also socialist" political party, but instead a "nationalistically socialist" party. Socialism is the less important portion of their ideology overall, at least following Hitler's full takeover.

Also Hitler debatably never really believed in most of the NSDAP's socialist ideas before he took over the party, hence the later purges of the party's more socialist elements. But it's not like we can ask him.

I'm sorry for being autistic and linking the Mises Institute

Nazism is Socialism | Adam Young

The Free Market 19, no. 9 (September 2001)

mises.org

 

[heyilikeyourmom]

Hitler was a democrat.

 

[Ashy the Angel]

Hitler paid lip-service to socialism and even had socialists in his party to help him craft and co-opt socialist language. But he vehemently disagreed with the actual socialists in his party about the ideology.

See his debates with Otto Strasser:

Hitler vs Strasser, The Historic Debate of May 21st and 22nd 1930 – Otto Strasser

The 21st of May. Thursday May 21st, around 12:15, Mr Hess, Adolf Hitler’s personal secretary, called me to arrange a meeting with Mister Hitler at one at the Hotel Sanssouci. I was about to l…

institutenr.org

His idea of "Socialism" was infected by his tendency to sperg about the master race. His actual economic policies were Fascist.





In a 1923 interview he clarified his views even before this debate: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/17/greatinterviews1



In short, Hitler co-opted socialist language to appeal to the working class, but never had any intentions of actually following through with its tenets, at least the ones he deemed "marxist". His racial ideology overrode his economic one, and in fact directly informed it. This caused a schism within the party that culminated in the Night of the Long Knives, were several prominent leftists in the party were purged.

So Hitler and the Nazis were essentially Socialist in Name Only. This distinction continues to befuddle boomers and MAGAs who treat the term "Socialist" like a hot-potato they pass around to any ideology they want to insult. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with history knows the truth. Of course actually reading up on shit is too complicated for most people and calling Hitler a socialist helps to discredit ideological opponents on the left, so it gets parroted it around even though its factually incorrect. Next time just do some research yourself instead of asking fucking kiwifarms of all places.

 

[Jewish Porn Hoe]

This caused a schism within the party that culminated in the Night of the Long Knives, were several prominent leftists in the party were purged.

That's actually putting it very mildly. The left wing of the party was gutted more or less completely and it's leaders were either dead or in exile. Interestingly the purge not only targeted people inside the party but also the Red Prussians like von Schleicher who advocated for nationalization of industry and large scale work creation programs.

 

[Tour of Italy]

Hitler paid lip-service to socialism and even had socialists in his party to help him craft and co-opt socialist language. But he vehemently disagreed with the actual socialists in his party about the ideology.

See his debates with Otto Strasser:

Hitler vs Strasser, The Historic Debate of May 21st and 22nd 1930 – Otto Strasser

The 21st of May. Thursday May 21st, around 12:15, Mr Hess, Adolf Hitler’s personal secretary, called me to arrange a meeting with Mister Hitler at one at the Hotel Sanssouci. I was about to l…

institutenr.org

View attachment 1092398
His idea of "Socialism" was infected by his tendency to sperg about the master race. His actual economic policies were Fascist.

View attachment 1092402

View attachment 1092412

In a 1923 interview he clarified his views even before this debate: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/17/greatinterviews1

View attachment 1092403

In short, Hitler co-opted socialist language to appeal to the working class, but never had any intentions of actually following through with its tenets, at least the ones he deemed "marxist". His racial ideology overrode his economic one, and in fact directly informed it. This caused a schism within the party that culminated in the Night of the Long Knives, were several prominent leftists in the party were purged.

So Hitler and the Nazis were essentially Socialist in Name Only. This distinction continues to befuddle boomers and MAGAs who treat the term "Socialist" like a hot-potato they pass around to any ideology they want to insult. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with history knows the truth. Of course actually reading up on shit is too complicated for most people and calling Hitler a socialist helps to discredit ideological opponents on the left, so it gets parroted it around even though its factually incorrect. Next time just do some research yourself instead of asking fucking kiwifarms of all places.

I’m gonna actually agree with Ashy here, vehement as our disagreement may be on other subjects.

People lose the fucking plot on this all the time.

Hitler’s economic policies are not what made him a monster. The horrors of the Nazi regimes were not a product of government intervention in the market. The Third Reich did not fuel its engine of genocide and war with moderate social welfare.

There’s an argument to be made that the atrocities of 20th century socialism/communism are a result of the authoritarian governments necessary to sustain the ideology, but that is an entirely separate argument. Hitler’s authoritarian government was instated on the back of overzealous patriotism, and the power it had was then wielded to commit atrocities. It’s a different sequence of cause and effect.

It’s possible that his power would not have been as absolute if he didn’t stoke the resentment and hatred with an ideology of racial superiority, but the fact remains that it was that ideology motivating Germany’s crimes. Not the way the government and economies themselves were structured, other than the fact that central control largely enabled the brutality. There could have been a version of National Socialist Germany that didn’t turn to aggression and systematic violence. If that were the case, then maybe we could talk about the harm caused by the failures of central planning and authoritarian rule independently, but we didn’t get that. We got the fucking holocaust.

I’ll agree with what others have said in the thread about how the right/left paradigm is limited and flawed. It doesn’t account for the one thing that was actually common between the monsters of the 20th century; dissolution of the identity and rights of the individual. For all the spergery of the traditional American right, I’m glad at least that there’s a long legacy of individualism and distrust of the state, because without those things you get the unchecked hyperpatriotism that led to fascism.

To summarize, the USSR sucked because communism requires brutality and collectivism excuses that same brutality. Nazi Germany sucked because independent of means of social/government control, that government was leveraged to do horrific things based on a reactionary ideology.

That’s not giving either the right or left wing elements of Hitler’s regime a pass, just identifying the central issues.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The problem is that no one defines Socialism (or fascism) before saying someone is acting according to that ideology.
So if your definition of Socialism is gibbs then yeah, Hitler was a socialist.
If your definition of Socialism is creating a system where society is equal in ownership, then no, Hitler is not a socialist.

 

[The best and greatest]

Its really hard to pin down a cohesive ideology from a lunatic in various stages of declining mental health throughout his career as a government leader but I think Hitler is best viewed through a Machiavellian framework.

Hitler was an opportunistic despot who said whatever he had to and appealed to whomever he had to in order to acquire power because the ends justify the memes. Of course once he actually gets power there are no ends he will not go to in order to maintain his grip over his people even if it means getting lots of them killed and his homeland destroyed. Maybe there was some part of him that thought he was only doing what was right for "his people" and maybe that made it easier for him to dress up his personal ambitions, but on the whole Hitler was a pretty thoroughly cynical person at heart (and deeply prideful to boot) His personal thinking was steeped in realpolitik which was a common thread between all the great despots of the 20th century if you think about it.

 

[Jewthulhu]

Wrong, socialism is when the government does stuff

Centralist Socialists believe property should be controlled by a central government, but that view is more common among Stalinists or Maoists than the average Socialist/Communist. Also, with the exception of some people in academia or on the internet, most people calling themselves a Socialist in the political sphere are actually advocating for a mixed economy or welfare state rather than actual Socialism. In either case, neither description fits National Socialism, since it is a free-market system allowing capital accumulation that is opposed to a social welfare system. The "government does stuff" only in a Keynesian sense, like creating and funding large-scale projects to stimulate the economy (e.g. the Autobahn).