# National Socialism vs. Socialism In One Country **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2012, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174 "2012-07-14T03:43:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/61 "2012-07-19T15:29:29Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > They called themselves _national_ socialist, had a socialist platform, but did not enact socialist policies. Furthermore, they changed their platform to remove this troubling eyewash as soon as they could. When did they renounce the platform? In February 1926 some people tried to change it some, but Hitler pronounced that a betrayal to those who died in the putsch, it was declared immutable later that year and was never changed. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/62 "2012-07-19T15:44:12Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > …as I said back in post 7: > > The Nazis were not socialists, and the only people who say they _were_ are American right-wingers who are attempting to discredit anyone to the left of themselves by equating them with Nazis. > > Here’s the test; for anyone who claims the Nazis were socialists: are you, by any chance, an American of the right-wing persuasion? Yes or no, be honest and give a straight answer. You made an assertion in post 7 and never bothered to provide any evidence for it at all. The evidence is all around, here is wikipedia on National Socialism “Large segments of the Nazi Party staunchly supported its official socialist, revolutionary, and anti-capitalist positions and expected both a social and economic revolution upon the party gaining power in 1933.” I am an American right winger, but that has nothing to do with the facts. Here is a test for you: present some evidence for your views. This is general questions, you can’t just state your opinions over and over, you need to cite facts. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/63 "2012-07-19T15:49:18Z")
Our evidence is history. The Nazis took power and didn’t do anything socialist. Your evidence appears to be that Hitler said they were socialist once and we can trust anything Hitler said. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/64 "2012-07-19T17:17:23Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > I am an American right winger, but that has nothing to do with the facts. It has everything to do with the fact that _the only people in the world_ who try to portray the Nazis as socialists are, as I said, American right-wingers. Nowhere else on Earth would that line be taken seriously, because everyone on Earth who isn’t a right-wing American can tell the difference between Nazis and Communists. Dude, listen: if the Nazis and the Communists were the same thing, why were they deadly enemies? Can you answer me that? Why, if they shared the same political philosophy, was the biggest part of the biggest war in the history of the planet a fight between Nazi Germany and the USSR? ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/65 "2012-07-19T17:22:54Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Here is a test for you: present some evidence for your views. This is general questions, you can’t just state your opinions over and over, you need to cite facts. Oh, and here’s my [cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims#Leftists): > [@](#): > > German communists were among the first people to be sent to concentration camps. They concerned Hitler due to their ties with the Soviet Union and because the Nazi Party was intractably opposed to communism. Rumours of pending communist violence were started by the Nazis as justification for the Enabling Act of 1933, the law which gave Hitler his original dictatorial powers. Hermann Göring later testified at the Nuremberg Trials that it was the Nazis’ willingness to repress German communists that prompted Hindenburg and the old elite to cooperate with them. Hitler and the Nazis also hated German leftists because of their resistance to Nazi racism. Many leaders of German leftist groups were Jews who were especially prominent among the leaders of the Spartacist Uprising in 1919. Hitler referred to Marxism and “Bolshevism” as a means of “the international Jew” to undermine “racial purity” and survival of the Nordics or Aryans (sometimes of all white Europeans), as well as stirring up socioeconomic class tension and labor unions against the government or relevant businesses. Within concentration camps such as Buchenwald, German communists were privileged in comparison to Jews because of their “racial purity.”[citation needed] Whenever the Nazis occupied a new territory, members of communist, socialist, or anarchist groups were thus normally among the first to be repressed, including summary executions. An example of this is Hitler’s infamous Commissar Order in which he demanded the summary execution of all political commissars captured among Soviet soldiers. And before you come back with an “All Wikipedia is made up” answer, check the inline cites on the page itself, which are to non-Wiki academic sources. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/66 "2012-07-19T18:05:57Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > I am an American right winger, but that has nothing to do with the facts. Nice slogan. It really sums up the movement. You should print up some t-shirts. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/67 "2012-07-19T19:44:31Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Oh, and here’s my [cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims#Leftists): > > And before you come back with an “All Wikipedia is made up” answer, check the inline cites on the page itself, which are to non-Wiki academic sources. That is off topic. The Nazis hated the communists because they were competing for power in Germany and because as I said in my first post communists were internationalists and Nazis were hypernationalists. By your logic the mensheviks were not socialist because they did not like communists. By your logic the Vietnamese were not communists because they invaded communist Cambodia and the red Chinese were not communists because they fought the Vietnamese. In this line of thinking Nazis were not socialists because they fought the Soviets, then they must not have been capitalists because they fought the French. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/68 "2012-07-19T20:13:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Our evidence is history. The Nazis took power and didn’t do anything socialist. Your evidence appears to be that Hitler said they were socialist once and we can trust anything Hitler said. “Your evidence is history” seems to be another way of saying you do not have any. I have cited the Nazi party platform which was never changed or repudiated in any manner. There is much more evidence here is an excerpt from a 1929 tract written by Goebbels, the section is called Why we are socialists" > [@](#): > > The bourgeois is about to leave the historical stage. In its place will come the class of productive workers, the working class, that has been up until today oppressed. It is beginning to fulfill its political mission. It is involved in a hard and bitter struggle for political power as it seeks to become part of the national organism. The battle began in the economic realm; it will finish in the political. It is not merely a matter of wages, not only a matter of the number of hours worked in a day — though we may never forget that these are an essential, perhaps even the most significant part of the socialist platform — but it is much more a matter of incorporating a powerful and responsible class in the state, perhaps even to make it the dominant force in the future politics of the fatherland. The bourgeoisie does not want to recognize the strength of the working class. Read the whole thing [here:](http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/haken32.htm) I have cited socialist actions which the Nazis took while in office such as wage and price controls, government control of hiring, government control of farming. Here is what James Burnham of the OSS wrote about the German economy in 1940. > [@](#): > > Outright state ownership and operation, advancing in all fields, are particularly ascendant in the extensive areas of new enterprise opened up during the Nazi rule…virtually all economic enterprise is subject to rigid state control; and it is control which we have seen to be decisive in relation to the instruments of production. Legal forms, even income privileges, are in the end subordinate to de facto control. > Even where private owners still exist in Germany, the decisions about “their” property are not in their hands. They do not decide what to make or not to make. They do not establish prices or bargain about wages. They are not at liberty to buy the raw materials they might choose nor to seek the most profitable markets. They cannot, as a rule, decide how to invest or not invest their surplus funds. In short, they are no longer owners, no longer effective capitalists… > > The regulation of production in Germany is no longer left to the market. What is to be produced, and how much, is decided, deliberately, by groups of men, by the state boards and bureaus and commissions. It is they that decide whether a new plant shall be built or an old plant retired, how raw materials shall be allotted and orders distributed, what quotas must be fulfilled by various branches of industry, what goods shall be put aside for export, how prices shall be fixed and credit and exchange extended. There is no requirement that these decisions of the bureaus must be based on any profit aim in the capitalist sense. If it is thought expedient, for whatever reason, to produce, for example, an ersatz rubber or wool or food, this will be done even if the production entails, from a capitalist point of view, a heavy loss. Similarly, in order to accumulate foreign exchange or to stimulate some political effect in a foreign nation, goods will be exported regardless of loss. A factory may be compelled to shut down, even though it could operate at a high profit. Banks and individuals are forced to invest their funds with no reference to the private and voluntary opinions about “risks” from a profit standpoint. It is literally true to say that the Nazi economy, already, is not a “profit economy.” They also set up a national labor union the DAF from wikipedia: > [@](#): > > Theoretically, the DAF existed to act as a medium through which workers and owners could mutually represent their interests. Wages were set by the 12 DAF trustees. The employees were given relatively high set wages, security of work, dismissal was increasingly made difficult, social security programmes were started by the Arbeitsfront, leisure programmes were started, canteens, pauses and regular working times were established, and therefore generally the German workers were satisfied by what the DAF gave them in repaying for their absolute loyalty. Anyone with an open mind can see that the evidence is clear. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/69 "2012-07-19T20:31:43Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > “Your evidence is history” seems to be another way of saying you do not have any. No, it’s my way of saying I base my beliefs on reality. > [@puddleglum](#): > > I have cited the Nazi party platform which was never changed or repudiated in any manner. I have news for you: Hitler was a bit of a fibber. Sometimes he’d say things he didn’t mean. Why did he do this? Well, this will surprise you but there are some people who were dumb enough to believe something a Nazi said. I could give a relevant example here but we’re in the wrong forum for that. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/70 "2012-07-19T21:36:02Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > They also set up a national labor union the DAF from wikipedia: > Anyone with an open mind can see that the evidence is clear. In actuality it was a license to politically destroy anyone who was intent on actual worker’s representation. It was also in the pockets of big business (well, businesses that supported the Nazis, at least.) I assume you are aware that you were not allowed to change jobs without your work papers, which were under control of your employer, right? Doesn’t sound like a very good set of worker’s rights there to me. ---
**Author:** ![Comprehension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Comprehension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Comprehension)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/71 "2012-07-19T21:56:56Z")
I understand that the general conception of Hitler is negative. If you have ever viewed Hitler’s speeches with subtitles he was a leader. He was very good at them too. If only his philosophy’s were different. Were did his underlining hatred of people of Jewish heritage stem from? ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/72 "2012-07-20T00:26:45Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > The Nazis were not socialists, and the only people who say they _were_ are American right-wingers who are attempting to discredit anyone to the left of themselves by equating them with Nazis. I tend to vote right of center, but I have to say that in terms of American, shall we say, jingoistic political discussions I think the American\*\* left-wing\*\* uses “Nazi” as a political epithet much more so than the right. Again, in a very superficial, shallow way, they equate right-wing conservatism with being racist, conformist, pro-military, anti-intellectual etc. and may continue down that path equating it to Nazi-extremism. Hard core conservatives might call Obama a communist, but hard core liberals will call Rush Limbaugh a Nazi. Left, right or center using the term ‘Nazi’ in (American) politics is like using the term nigger in race, it’s just a hateful insult with little to no connection to history. Those who sink to using it should remember that the only ones you’re really insulting are the tens of millions of people who suffered under the \*actual \*Nazis… ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/73 "2012-07-20T00:42:50Z")
I see a lot less of that these days, I guess because the _far_ left wing looks at Obama failing to do everything in their litany of foreign and civil libertarian policy wants, and conclude that he isn’t too much better than the previous administration. I don’t agree with them on that, but a lot of the GOP = Nazi talk died down a few months after Obama came in. Whereas Democrats = Nazis wasn’t nearly as prevalent, but reaches the heights of convolution and absurdity. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/74 "2012-07-20T03:39:32Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > One of the early things Hitler did was outlaw all labor unions. Hardly the act of a true socialist. To establish a government monopoly on unions and communist government didn’t allow rival trade unions to exist either-just look at Solidarity. That said Nazis both had full socialists (like Strasser and Rohm) and Hitler wasn’t particularly leftish because he needed the support of industrialists to make war material for him and the old officer class to help build up a German army. When Hitler was about to kill himself, he did regret not being more ruthless against the business class in his final testament. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/75 "2012-07-20T07:39:14Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > To establish a government monopoly on unions and communist government didn’t allow rival trade unions to exist either-just look at Solidarity. But the Soviet Union, on paper, was formed from workers unions that then came together and created a government - it’s literally what a soviet union is. So the basis of the Soviet government was that the government came from and was controlled by the workers. > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > That said Nazis both had full socialists (like Strasser and Rohm) and Hitler wasn’t particularly leftish because he needed the support of industrialists to make war material for him and the old officer class to help build up a German army. When Hitler was about to kill himself, he did regret not being more ruthless against the business class in his final testament. There may have been some socialist rhetoric in the early days but Hitler had Rohm and the Strassers killed. Same thing with what Hitler may have written in his final days in the bunker - it didn’t reflect what he actually did when he was in power. My point is that you have to judge the Nazis by what they did not by what they said. While they may have sometimes made socialist talk, they didn’t act like socialists. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/76 "2012-07-20T08:10:51Z")
I think what it comes down to is what I said before: right wing Americans want to define the Nazis as “socialist” so as to disparage anyone to the left of themselves, and to deflect attention from the very real fact that the Nazis were, by any fact-based definition, right wing. Now, you can get together with a bunch of your pals and decide that red and blue are the exact same colours, and you can maybe even get yourself elected to something and enact a local law that legally defines red and blue as being the same thing. But the fact remains that **everyone else in the entire world** defines those words as being entirely different things. You go around arguing that the sky is red and everyone will dismiss you as stupid and/or crazy. You can argue your definition of the words till you’re blue (or red, since they’re the same colour) in the face, but you’re not going to change the fact that the entire rest of the world defines those words in a different way. OK, by the definition of a far-right fringe group, the Nazis were socialists. By the definition of **the entire rest of the world** the Nazis were a far-right party. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/77 "2012-07-20T08:16:28Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > I think what it comes down to is what I said before: right wing Americans want to define the Nazis as “socialist” so as to disparage anyone to the left of themselves, and to deflect attention from the very real fact that the Nazis were, by any fact-based definition, right wing. I think the point is that some right wing people want to hold to the simple faith that the right is always 100% right and the left is always 100% wrong. And the Nazis call that simple faith into question by being an example of a right wing movement that was undeniably wrong. So to defend their beliefs, they just move the Nazis into the left column. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/78 "2012-07-20T08:35:38Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think the point is that some right wing people want to hold to the simple faith that the right is always 100% right and the left is always 100% wrong. And the Nazis call that simple faith into question by being an example of a right wing movement that was undeniably wrong. So to defend their beliefs, they just move the Nazis into the left column. Agreed. My point was to make it clear that the US is the only place on Earth where that wouldn’t be instantly laughed off the agenda. And I’m not disparaging Americans in general, the majority of whom _do_ understand and acknowledge the differing meanings of the words in question. ---
**Author:** ![medicated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@medicated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/medicated)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/79 "2012-07-20T11:02:19Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There may have been some socialist rhetoric in the early days but Hitler had Rohm and the Strassers killed. He didn’t do a very good job of it. Otto Strasser died in 1974 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174/80 "2012-07-20T11:24:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > One of the early things Hitler did was outlaw all labor unions. Hardly the act of a true socialist. I’m sure that Mao and Stalin would have been glad to know that they were not true socialists, since they, too, outlawed all trade unions. If this a standard of what constitutes a True Scotsman it’s worthless, since the most notorious and self-proclaimed socialists in world history all fail to meet your standard. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-socialism-vs-socialism-in-one-country/628174.md?page=5)