I pit the idiots who say the Nazis were "Socialists".

[BrainGlutton]

@Trinopus

Far from new, alas, It was extant in the Vietnam War era, certainly, and I’m sure predates that. I used to hear it about the same time as the same people were very emphatic about “We’re a Republic, not a Democracy.”

IME, anyone who says that is not arguing but whining; and what they really mean by it, when they mean anything, is, “The U.S. is a federal state, not a unitary state.” I.e., a states’-rights position.

[BrainGlutton]

Wiki sez:

Political economy of Nazi Germany

Early in his political career, Adolf Hitler regarded economic issues as relatively unimportant. In 1922, Hitler proclaimed that “world history teaches us that no person has become great through its economy but that a person can very well perish thereby”, and later concluded that “the economy is something of secondary importance”.[9] Hitler and the Nazis held a very strong idealist conception of history, which held that human events are guided by small numbers of exceptional individuals following a higher ideal. They believed that all economic concerns, being purely material, were unworthy of their consideration. Hitler went as far as to blame all previous German governments since Bismarck of having “subjugated the nation to materialism” by relying more on peaceful economic development than on expansion through war.[10]

For these reasons, the Nazis never had a clearly defined economic programme. The original “Twenty-Five Point Programme” of the party, adopted in 1920, listed several economic demands (including “the abolition of all incomes unearned by work,” “the ruthless confiscation of all war profits,” “the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations,” “profit-sharing in large enterprises,” “extensive development of insurance for old-age,” and “land reform suitable to our national requirements”),[11] but the degree to which the Nazis supported this programme in later years has been questioned. Several attempts were made in the 1920s to change some of the program or replace it entirely. For instance, in 1924, Gottfried Feder proposed a new 39-point program that kept some of the old planks, replaced others and added many completely new ones.[12] Hitler refused to allow any discussion of the party programme after 1925, ostensibly on the grounds that no discussion was necessary because the programme was “inviolable” and did not need any changes. At the same time, however, Hitler never voiced public support for the programme and many historians argue that he was in fact privately opposed to it. Hitler did not mention any of the planks of the programme in his book, Mein Kampf, and only talked about it in passing as “the so-called programme of the movement”.[13]

Hitler’s views on economics

Hitler’s views on economics, beyond his early belief that the economy was of secondary importance, are a matter of debate. On the one hand, he proclaimed in one of his speeches that “we are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system”,[14] but he was clear to point out that his interpretation of socialism “has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism,” saying that “Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not.”[15] At a later time, Hitler said: “Socialism! That is an unfortunate word altogether… What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism.”[13] In private, Hitler also said that “I absolutely insist on protecting private property… we must encourage private initiative”.[16] On yet another occasion he qualified that statement by saying that the government should have the power to regulate the use of private property for the good of the nation.[17] Shortly after coming to power, Hitler told a confidant: “There is no license any more, no private sphere where the individual belongs to himself. That is socialism, not such trivial matters as the possibility of privately owning the means of production. Such things mean nothing if I subject people to a kind of discipline they can’t escape…What need have we to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings”.[18] He clearly believed that the lack of a precise economic programme was one of the Nazi Party’s strengths, saying: “The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all.”[19] While not espousing a specific economic philosophy, Hitler employed anti-semitic themes to attack economic systems in other countries, associating ethnic Jews with both communism (“Jewish Bolsheviks”) and capitalism, both of which he opposed.[20][21] Hitler also believed that individuals within a nation battled with each other for survival, and that such ruthless competition was good for the health of the nation, because it promoted “superior individuals” to higher positions in society.[22]

Not very socialist.

[marshmallow]

The Nazis were race-baiting big government worshiping interventionists who wanted to spread their ideology around the world. Eugenics was a progressive cause in the States. Unions something something brown shirts. Plus a bunch of the Nazis were flaming homofags. Sounds like a bunch of libs to me.

(that was the best attempt I could do without drinking turpentine)

[Jackmannii]

@Alessan

But then, it’s a very American conceit to assume that economics are the sole basis of the left/right dichotomy.

No such assumption is made, except by ignorant furriners who mistakenly think they know what’s going on in the U.S. :dubious:

There’s a shitload of social issues that go into that “dichotomy”, but maybe you’ve been too busy with war to notice.

[Alessan]

Everything I know about the United States I know from this board.

Well, and from Buzzfeed too, although I’d like to think the SDMB is a bit more reliable.

[Trinopus]

re “We’re a Republic, not a Democracy” –

@BrainGlutton

IME, anyone who says that is not arguing but whining; and what they really mean by it, when they mean anything, is, “The U.S. is a federal state, not a unitary state.” I.e., a states’-rights position.

Yep. That’s pretty much it.

(It’s also a cute bash against the Democratic Party.)

I’ve always liked the “American’s Creed” which says we’re a “Democracy in a Republic,” whatever the hell that means. But it was passed by Congress, so it’s official!

[adaher]

@BrainGlutton

Wiki sez:
Not very socialist.

Hitler didn’t care much about economic issues, but the Nazi party actually did have socialists in it. Goebbels was a socialist. And the socialist part wasn’t a lie or propaganda. Goebbels knew Hitler and many other Nazis weren’t interested in the socialism part and were working to convince them:

when the 27-year-old Goebbels joined the party in late 1924 the most important influence on his political development was Gregor Strasser, who became Nazi organizer in northern Germany in March 1924. Strasser (“the most able of the leading Nazis” of this period)[24] took the “socialist” component of National Socialism far more seriously than did Hitler and other members of the Bavarian leadership of the party.[citation needed]
Goebbels, German Federal Archive photo

“National and socialist! What goes first, and what comes afterwards?” Goebbels asked rhetorically in a debate with Theodor Vahlen, Gauleiter (regional party head) of Pomerania, in the Rhineland party newspaper National-sozialistische Briefe (National-Socialist Letters), of which he was editor, in mid-1925. “With us in the west, there can be no doubt. First socialist redemption, then comes national liberation like a whirlwind … Hitler stands between both opinions, but he is on his way to coming over to us completely.”[25] Goebbels, with his journalistic skills, thus soon became a key ally of Strasser in his struggle with the Bavarians over the party program. The conflict was not, so they thought, with Hitler, but with his lieutenants, Rudolf Hess, Julius Streicher and Hermann Esser, who, they said, were mismanaging the party in Hitler’s absence. In 1925, Goebbels published an open letter to “my friends of the left,” urging unity between socialists and Nazis against the capitalists. “You and I,” he wrote, “we are fighting one another although we are not really enemies.”[26]

In February 1926, Hitler, having finished working on Mein Kampf, made a sudden return to party affairs and soon disabused the northerners of any illusions about where he stood. He summoned 60 gauleiters and party leaders, including Goebbels, to a meeting at Bamberg, in Streicher’s Gau of Franconia, where he gave a two-hour speech repudiating the political programme of the northern wing of the Party which saw themselves as having more in common with the Communists than the “bourgeoisie”.[27] For Hitler, his position was opposed to the direction of the “socialist” wing, stating it would mean “political bolshevization of Germany”

Joseph Goebbels

So it wasn’t a lie, so much as Hitler decided to move the party away from socialism.

[adaher]

Rhoem was also a socialist:

Along with Gregor and Otto Strasser, Joseph Goebbels, Gottfried Feder and Walther Darré, Röhm was a prominent member of the party’s radical faction. This group put emphasis on the word “socialist” and “workers” in the party’s name; putting them ideologically closer to the Communists. They largely rejected capitalism (which they associated with Jews) and pushed for nationalization of major industrial firms, expansion of worker control, confiscation and redistribution of the estates of the old aristocracy, and social equality. Röhm spoke of a “second revolution” against the “Reaktion” (the National Socialist label for conservatives) to follow the violent Nazi “first revolution” purging of left-wing Communists and Socialists.

All this was threatening to the business community in general and Hitler’s corporate financial backers in particular, including many German industrial leaders (which, the leaders hoped, would reap huge profits from the coming Nazi military buildup); so Hitler swiftly reassured his powerful industrial allies that there would be no “second revolution.” Many “storm troopers” were of working-class origins and expected a radical program. They were now disappointed by the new regime’s lack of socialistic direction and its failure to provide the lavish patronage they had expected.

Ernst Röhm

[GIGObuster]

Yet another conservative that is blind to timelines. Röhm and others were mentioned already to show what took place once the Nazis were in power. Besides being murdered anyone that insisted on pushing for plain socialism after the Nazis gained or had total power was sent to the concentration camps.

[adaher]

We agree on this. Hitler was never a socialist and he held the reigns of power, so once he had total control, the Nazi Party ceased to be socialist. BUt it would be misleading to say the “socialism” in the party name was just for propaganda effect, like “People’s Republic”. The Nazi party started out socialist.

To reverse Little Nemo’s argument, the left has always needed Nazism and fascism to be right-wing to counter the reality of where extreme leftism leads: genocide and totalitarianism. The problem with that is that in most parts of the Western world, being an extreme rightist doesn’t lead to totalitarianism, it leads to decentralization and weak government. Which while bad in many ways, had nothing to do with the evils of 20th century totalitarianism. The right simply has no connection to those crimes and the left hates that. They shouldn’t: the American and Western European versions of left-wing thinking have never had much tolerance for socialism beyond the welfare state and maybe nationalizing some key industries(while leaving the rest of the economy in private hands). It’s only the true socialists who should be lumped in with the tyrants of the world.

[Little_Nemo]

Shocking as it may seem to modern Americans, there are places were voters embrace the idea of socialism. Hitler and the Nazis claimed to be socialists not because they had any genuine intent in that direction but because they felt it would gain them popular support in their rise to power.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

We agree on this. Hitler was never a socialist and he held the reigns of power, so once he had total control, the Nazi Party ceased to be socialist. BUt it would be misleading to say the “socialism” in the party name was just for propaganda effect, like “People’s Republic”. The Nazi party started out socialist.

Wrong, I read about the period and on the days when the socialists and communists in Germany could still gather to make speeches and make protests many pointed back then how duplicitous and misleading the Nazis where, in the end they showed how they duped even people like Röhm.

[adaher]

@Little_Nemo

Shocking as it may seem to modern Americans, there are places were voters embrace the idea of socialism. Hitler and the Nazis claimed to be socialists not because they had any genuine intent in that direction but because they felt it would gain them popular support in their rise to power.

The history doesn’t bear that out. Like most political parties, the Nazi Party had factions. Hitler’s faction simply won the argument, and being a totalitarian party, that means the losers of the argument lose their heads. Happened exactly the same way in Communist countries.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

To reverse Little Nemo’s argument, the left has always needed Nazism and fascism to be right-wing to counter the reality of where extreme leftism leads: genocide and totalitarianism. The problem with that is that in most parts of the Western world, being an extreme rightist doesn’t lead to totalitarianism, it leads to decentralization and weak government. Which while bad in many ways, had nothing to do with the evils of 20th century totalitarianism. The right simply has no connection to those crimes and the left hates that. They shouldn’t: the American and Western European versions of left-wing thinking have never had much tolerance for socialism beyond the welfare state and maybe nationalizing some key industries(while leaving the rest of the economy in private hands). It’s only the true socialists who should be lumped in with the tyrants of the world.

Regarding the fascists not being on the extreme right, that is pure horseshit; I did see and in person already how the dictators in Latin America turned. Not only in El Salvador, but in many countries in the previous century.

You should read what Jacobo Timerman had to endure at the hands of those extreme rightists that did not exist in your world.

http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/2326.htm

And once again, most of the world, and specially the Europeans do think that what a few right wing Americans are telling us about the Nazis not being the extreme right wing to be poppycock.

[adaher]

Also, even Hitler still maintained some aspects of socialism:

Völkisch equality

The Nazis advocated a welfare state for German citizens (able Germans of Aryan racial descent) as a means to provide social justice and eliminate social barriers between the German people.[2] The Nazis provided equal access to education for talented children of workers and peasants.[3] Hitler claimed that equality of opportunity for all racially-sound German males was the meaning of the “socialism” of National Socialism.[3]

The Nazis sought to dismantle what they deemed to be an unnatural hierarchy of the middle class and nobility who had allegedly jealously kept their wealth and titles while failing to justify their hierarchical position through their actions in World War I.

It should also be noted that while lefties like to point out how the rich and business ended up supporting Hitler, that in the end he screwed them the same way he screwed the socialists:

Documents such as the Four Year Plan Memo have often used by right historians such as Henry Ashby Turner and Karl Dietrich Bracher who argue for a “primacy of politics” approach (that Hitler was not subordinate to German business, but rather the contrary was the case) against the “primacy of economics” approach championed by Marxist historians (that Hitler was a “agent” of and subordinate to German business).[54]

The British Marxist historian Timothy Mason, who was a leading expert on the economic history of Nazi Germany argued that after the 1936 economic crisis, a “primacy of politics” prevailed with business interests being subordinated to the Nazi regime. In a 1966 essay, Mason wrote “that both the domestic and foreign policy of the National Socialist government became, from 1936 onward, increasing independent of the influence of the economic ruling classes, and even in some essential aspects ran contrary to their collective interests” and that “it became possible for the National Socialist state to assume a fully independent role, for the “primacy of politics” to assert itself”.[55] Mason used the following to support his thesis:

that after the 1936 economic crisis, German industrialists were increasingly excluded from the decision-making process[56]
that after 1936, the German state came to play an increasing dominant role in the German economy both through state-owned companies and by placing increasing larger orders[56]
that the expansion of armament-related production supported by a highly economically interventionist state led to those capitalist enterprises not related to armaments to go into decline[56]
the decline in effectiveness in economic lobbying groups in the Third Reich[56]
that though every major German industrialist called for a reduction of working class living standards from 1933 onwards, before 1942 the Nazi regime always ignored such calls, and sought instead to raise working class living standards[56]

[adaher]

@GIGObuster

Now this pure horseshit, I did see and in person already how the dictators in Latin America turned. Not only in El Salvador, but in many countries in the previous century.

Latin America isn’t the West. Right-wing in the Latin American context tends to involve military control. That was my earlier argument: what constitutes left may be the same pretty much everywhere, but since right-wing denotes “conservatism”, it is different depending on what you’re trying to conserve. In America, that would be the tradition of the founders, which means less government. You can’t get to Hitler or Mussolini with less government.

And once again, most of the world, and specially the Europeans do think that what a few right wing Americans are telling us about the Nazis not being the extreme right wing to be poppycock.

They were the extreme right wing: for Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. While there are still some Nazis in Germany, for the most part even the German right has more in common with the American tradition of conservatism than fascism.

[Frank]

@adaher

While there are still some Nazis in Germany, for the most part even the German right has more in common with the American tradition of conservatism than fascism.

Heh. The German right has more in common with American liberalism than it does with American conservatism. Wake up, and pay attention, you fucking numbskull.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

Also, even Hitler still maintained some aspects of socialism:

Völkisch equality - Wikipedia

It should also be noted that while lefties like to point out how the rich and business ended up supporting Hitler, that in the end he screwed them the same way he screwed the socialists:

It should be noted here that a lot of that “equality” was after getting rid of the ones that were not equal. Also that a lot of the efforts to the welfare were geared to make better soldiers for the Reich.

The rich and businessmen kept their companies or got them back in the end, no such deal was coming from the communists.

There is also the fact that the Nazis did not do much to discourage the industrialists from continuing to make consumer products, it was until the war turned sour that then there was pressure to drop that and to move all industry to work for the war effort.

But it was too late to save the fascists.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

Latin America isn’t the West.

:rolleyes:

Incidentally, you historical nincompoop, there were a lot of right wingers in your “west” that supported those fascists.

[adaher]

@Frank

Heh. The German right has more in common with American liberalism than it does with American conservatism. Wake up, and pay attention, you fucking numbskull.

Please, allow for a little bit of nuance in your arguments. It’s true that the Christian Democratic Party has more in common with American liberalism than American conservatism, but like most political parties there are factions inside parties, plus smaller parties, and the “extremists” in most of those right-wing parties won’t lead Germany to Nazism. They’ll lead Germany to the dreaded “Americanism”. Oh the horror!