Were Nazis Socialists?

Recently it has come to my attention that there is a lie being pushed claiming that the Nazi were socialists. Making it worse, the education in this country is so atrocious that this lie is actually gaining traction.

Apparently since the word "socialist" is a part of the Nationalist Socialist Party moniker, this lie is gaining traction. Additional evidence pointed to by those pushing this revisionist nonsense is that the Nazi propaganda machine, including written mission statements and proclamations by Hitler himself, make promises which are indeed socialist. However, actions speak louder than words. And, Nazi actions were anything but socialist.

The meaning of "National Socialism" was essentially part of the Nazis' vision of Germany under siege from outside forces -- namely, the Jews. They intended to apply the principles of state ownership only to those businesses and industries -- i.e., international banking -- that were not specifically German; meanwhile, German-owned capitalist enterprises were given special preferences. As Paxton explains:

It turned out in practice that fascists' anticapitalism was highly selective. Even at their most radical, the socialism that the fascists wanted was a "national socialism": one that denied only foreign or enemy property rights (including that of internal enemies). They cherished national producers. Above all, it was by offering an effective remedy against socialist revolution that fascism turned out in practice to find a space. If Mussolini retained some lingering hopes in 1919 of founding an alternative socialism rather than an antisocialism, he was soon disabused of those notions by observing what worked and what didn't work in Italian politics. His dismal electoral results with a Left-nationalist program in Milan in November 1919 surely hammered that lesson home.

The pragmatic choices of Mussolini and Hitler were driven by their urge for success and power. Not all fascist leaders had such ambitions. Some of them preferred to keep their movements "pure," even at the cost of remaining marginal.

Beck-Ingraham Duet On Fox: Incoherent Ideological Babble Has The Ring Of Newspeak | Crooks and Liars

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Does anyone actually believe the Nazi were socialists?

Nobody likes nazis. So if some tenuous link can be found to make it seem like another ideology's problem, then its foisted on that ideology. The truth is there are no clear boundaries and fascism pretty much overlaps all other ideologies in some way.

But yeah, calling it socialist because of their name is stupid. Its like calling north korea democratic because they call themselves the democratic people's republic of korea.

They were self-proclaimed socialists, so I don't think it's too absurd for people to think that's true. I think we can all agree that in reality they were liberals.

RabidAlpaca said:

They were self-proclaimed socialists, so I don't think it's too absurd for people to think that's true. I think we can all agree that in reality they were liberals.

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They were fascists, which is more based on nationalism than liberalism. So that statement is untrue. While there was some overlap, it was minor.

RabidAlpaca said:

They were self-proclaimed socialists, so I don't think it's too absurd for people to think that's true. I think we can all agree that in reality they were liberals.

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I think the name, as much of a misnomer as it obviously is, does throw people. But, I am genuinely curious to know how you can call them "liberals"?

To qualify them using a single term would be over-simplifying. They had certain socialistic policies (which were responsible for their early political successes), but they also had fascist policies as well, combined with a large helping of imperialism and totalitarianism.

faithful_servant said:

To qualify them using a single term would be over-simplifying. They had certain socialistic policies (which were responsible for their early political successes), but they also had fascist policies as well, combined with a large helping of imperialism and totalitarianism.

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They have some elements of extremeboth left and right wing policies, that's for sure.

calamity said:

I think the name, as much of a misnomer as it obviously is, does throw people. But, I am genuinely curious to know how you can call them "liberals"?

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I'm obviously messing around. They were fascists/statists/assholes. The second and third of which might be considered by some to be very liberalesque.

tacomancer said:

They were fascists, which is more based on nationalism than liberalism. So that statement is untrue. While there was some overlap, it was minor.

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Nationalists indeed. But, from what I can see, they did not encourage any social programs short of the Hitler Youth which, of course, was an Aryan based military pipe dream to build a super race of blond haired blue eyed warriors. As for as "social programs", like feeding the poor or helping those in need, the Nazi were quick to send loafers to concentration camps which had signs saying "Work brings Freedom", hardly a left wing talking point. I've never considered Nazis to be socialists.

RabidAlpaca said:

They were self-proclaimed socialists, so I don't think it's too absurd for people to think that's true. I think we can all agree that in reality they were liberals.

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Our current terms are completely insufficient to use to define what the Nazis were, just as they are insufficient to define what the Romans, Goths, Qin, Aztecs or Russians were. Any time I see someone trying to say that they more like [insert current political party/slant of your choice], I can almost guarantee that the comparison will justified by cherry-picking facts to make it sound like they fit the person's personal bias.

calamity said:

Does anyone actually believe the Nazi were socialists?

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No, they were fascists.

The only people who try to foist upon us this notion upon us that they are socialists are unintelligent hacks with a childish understanding of the world. All they know is that they are on the good team, the other team is bad,and so they need to identify anything bad with the other team. It gets pretty silly at times, none any more than their peurile need to identify Nazis as being left wing.

The day people learn to remove their identity from the political label they claimfor themselves is the day they begin to understand politics. Until then, they are only playing cowboys and indians.

tacomancer said:

They were fascists, which is more based on nationalism than liberalism. So that statement is untrue. While there was some overlap, it was minor.

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Gardener said:

No, they were fascists.

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No, the Nazis were not fascists. Though both are right wing, there are some profound differences:

-fascists never had a doctrine of racial supeoritiy and were not anti semetic. Many fascists (Italians, Spaniards, Argentinians and Lebanese) were either totally non "aryan" by Nazi standards, or barely "white" by common standards of the day.

-fascist political ideology was supportive of conservative Christianity (usually Catholicism). The Nazis were not supportive of Christianity and based alot of their religous beliefs on psuedo paganism.

calamity said:

Does anyone actually believe the Nazi were socialists?

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German industialists forced them to de-emphasize the "socialism" in National Socialism. A poster on another forum described the Nazis as being "state capitalists". Something like enterprises are still private, but the state can direct the activities of larger companies.

calamity said:

Recently it has come to my attention that there is a lie being pushed claiming that the Nazi were socialists. Making it worse, the education in this country is so atrocious that this lie is actually gaining traction.

Apparently since the word "socialist" is a part of the Nationalist Socialist Party moniker, this lie is gaining traction. Additional evidence pointed to by those pushing this revisionist nonsense is that the Nazi propaganda machine, including written mission statements and proclamations by Hitler himself, make promises which are indeed socialist. However, actions speak louder than words. And, Nazi actions were anything but socialist.



Does anyone actually believe the Nazi were socialists?

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Why are you using a 5 years old conservative attack piece from of all places, the far left "Crooks and Liars" website, to try and have a serious discussion? Even the majority of the sources they used to compile their piece came from other far left blogs.

calamity said:

Nationalists indeed. But, from what I can see, they did not encourage any social programs short of the Hitler Youth which, of course, was an Aryan based military pipe dream to build a super race of blond haired blue eyed warriors. As for as "social programs", like feeding the poor or helping those in need, the Nazi were quick to send loafers to concentration camps which had signs saying "Work brings Freedom", hardly a left wing talking point. I've never considered Nazis to be socialists.

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People tend to make the mistake of large government = socialist when while socialism may result in a large government, the two are not the same thing. Also people tend to think social programs = socialism when almost any modern political ideology world wide has had some sort of program or legal method to help the poor. The truth is that reality is far more nuanced than people want to treat it to gain cheap shots against those beliefs they dislike.

RabidAlpaca said:

I'm obviously messing around. They were fascists/statists/assholes. The second and third of which might be considered by some to be very liberalesque.

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I see. Statist assholes come in many stripes though, of course.

A Jewish shop owner may very well see it differently. Maybe from their view, the government may very well have been that of socialist nationalization as the Nazi came to take away their shop and then, later, their entire family. I need to look and see what happened to Jewish business, but I am certain the government did not try to run them, as would be the case in socialism, but rather just gave those shops to Germans.

Grim17 said:

Why are you using a 5 years old conservative attack piece from of all places, the far left "Crooks and Liars" website, to try and have a serious discussion? Even the majority of the sources they used to compile their piece came from other far left blogs.

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Because not a whole lot of sources are discussing this subject in the here and now. Like I said, it recently came to my attention that people actually believe the Nazi were Socialist. Until then, I had no idea that this was even a discussion worth having. Now, I am genuinely curious what other people think.

faithful_servant said:

To qualify them using a single term would be over-simplifying. They had certain socialistic policies (which were responsible for their early political successes), but they also had fascist policies as well, combined with a large helping of imperialism and totalitarianism.

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when you strip away the goose stepping and polished jack boots, nazis are just another strain of a sickness called authoritarian collectivism where everyone is treated like an expendable worker bee by the elite assholes who command the hive. Communists, fascists, etc-pretty much all the same if you are one of those worker bees

Cryptic said:

No, the Nazis were not fascists. Though both are right wing, there are some profound differences:

-fascists never had a doctrine of racial supeoritiy and were not anti semetic. Many fascists (Italians, Spaniards, Argentinians and Lebanese) were either totally non "aryan" by Nazi standards, or barely "white" by common standards of the day.

-fascist political ideology was supportive of conservative Christianity (usually Catholicism). The Nazis were not supportive of Christianity and based alot of their religous beliefs on psuedo paganism.


German industialists forced them to de-emphasize the "socialism" in National Socialism. A poster on another forum described the Nazis as being "state capitalists". Something like enterprises are still private, but the state can direct the activities of larger companies.

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Nazi definitely were unique. I agree we cannot call them fascist per se, as were say the Italians. Nazi were nationalists who demanded racial purity, and eventually they became warmongers who thought they could build a third European empire on par with the original Roman Empire, following directly behind the Christian Holy Roman Empire which was crushed in WW1.

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What is socialism? Which interpretation you consider of it?
Socialism as in UK labor party? Then no, they weren't socialists.
Socialism as in, socialists as the ruling party of France? No, they weren't socialists.
Socialism as in the minority ruling party, the SD, in Germany? No, they weren't socialists.

What socialism are you talking about? Socialism as in the thing that applied to the communist agenda? Well then, I ask you, what's the difference? The USSR and the fascists had a single party state. They both had mock elections when they had them. They both had dictators and they both curbed peoples' freedoms especially free speech. That's like, totalitarianism.

The problem with this forum is that people use the term "socialism" so loosely it's like the village bike.

Can you consider their platform to be socialist? Sure. After all, they nationalized stuff, they had a vast bureaucracy and an expansive intrusion of the state into personal affairs. Less so than the commies from an economic standpoint, but they controlled the media, they controlled education, there was no real opposition left and they had a dictator with a cult of personality.
Communism and fascism are 2 sides of the same coin. The only reason we tell them apart is because fascists propaganda was saying that they're there to fight the totalitarianism of the communists and viceversa. In essence, it was a game of "pot, calling the kettle black" with one another. "we're not a single party totalitarist regime with a repressive legislature, they are and we need to fight against them!"

TurtleDude said:

when you strip away the goose stepping and polished jack boots, nazis are just another strain of a sickness called authoritarian collectivism where everyone is treated like an expendable worker bee by the elite assholes who command the hive. Communists, fascists, etc-pretty much all the same if you are one of those worker bees

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The Nazi never really practiced collectivism....not even as the war was being lost. Instead they promoted individual achievement, albeit for the state. It was a rather odd place, with strange goals, when viewed from our current perspective.

Frank Bajohr’s work on Aryanization as well as on corruption has persuasively demonstrated that the acquisitive spirit (or, to put it bluntly, plain greed) of numerous individuals was a very important feature of the period and by no means tangential to the Nazi project. In her study of women’s roles in occupied Poland, Elizabeth Harvey highlights “an environment structured by competitiveness and an emphasis on individual performance and efficiency.” She shows that motivations to participate in the practice of occupation often lay beyond the dichotomy between an unqualified commitment to the Nazi cause and mere material interests. Career motives, the prospect of new experiences and activities, relative female independence, and self-realization could quite easily mix with a belief in the mission of Germanization. Shelley Baranowski has even argued that there was a “Nazi version of cultivating individuality” that was expressed in the discourses and practices of leisure.

Kraft durch Freude contributed decisively to Nazism’s popularity because it offered, or at least promised, the quintessential assets of consumerism: pleasure, comfort, and choice.

...These analyses suggest a need to reassess the relationship between individuality and collectivity between 1933 and 1945. It seems as though Nazism capitalized on more universal features of individualism in the twentieth century, particularly in the realm of consumption and career advancement. At the same time, the ways in which self-interest and self-realization were implicated in the persecution of domestic minorities and the dominance of occupied Europeans point to a more specifically “Nazi version” of individuality, to borrow Baranowski’s apt formulation.

Was Nazism Collectivistic? Redefining the Individual in Berlin, 1930-1945 | Moritz Föllmer - Academia.edu

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calamity said:

Nazi definitely were unique.

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I think what makes them so strange, is that their ideology constantly changed depending on the moods of the masses and whether or not the Germans were winning militarily.

For example:

- 1920, people are dying of malnutrition and many blame the industrialists for the war. Many think socialism is a good alternative. So yes, we are National Socialists.

Then.... Yikes, the industrialists dont like any kind of socialism and as things are getting better, socialism has lost its mass appeal. So... we are no longer "socialists".

- We are winning the war. Our empire is for "Aryans" only - and there are not many aryans around besides us.

Then.... Yikes, we are losing. OK, Aryans now include right wing or pro German French, Slavs, Croats, Indians, Arabs, Chechens, Circassians etc. Of course, some "Aryans" are more "Aryan" than others...

Rainman05 said:

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What is socialism? Which interpretation you consider of it?
Socialism as in UK labor party? Then no, they weren't socialists.
Socialism as in, socialists as the ruling party of France? No, they weren't socialists.
Socialism as in the minority ruling party, the SD, in Germany? No, they weren't socialists.

What socialism are you talking about? Socialism as in the thing that applied to the communist agenda? Well then, I ask you, what's the difference? The USSR and the fascists had a single party state. They both had mock elections when they had them. They both had dictators and they both curbed peoples' freedoms especially free speech. That's like, totalitarianism.

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Totalitarian yes. But as you state, they were not socialist by any definition we use today.

The problem with this forum is that people use the term "socialism" so loosely it's like the village bike.

Can you consider their platform to be socialist? Sure. After all, they nationalized stuff, they had a vast bureaucracy and an expansive intrusion of the state into personal affairs. Less so than the commies from an economic standpoint, but they controlled the media, they controlled education, there was no real opposition left and they had a dictator with a cult of personality.
Communism and fascism are 2 sides of the same coin. The only reason we tell them apart is because fascists propaganda was saying that they're there to fight the totalitarianism of the communists and viceversa. In essence, it was a game of "pot, calling the kettle black" with one another. "we're not a single party totalitarist regime with a repressive legislature, they are and we need to fight against them!"

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Yes...the Nazi made it a point to be the alternative to communism. In fact, that was the major rallying cry that brought Hitler to power.

calamity said:

The Nazi never really practiced collectivism....not even as the war was being lost. Instead they promoted individual achievement, albeit for the state. It was a rather odd place, with strange goals, when viewed from our current perspective.

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This is where people like you don't get a handle on things.

Capitalism is an economic model. It deals with the economy. It doesn't have a social agenda or a moral agenda for that matter. It doesn't have a civic agenda or whatever. It's just about the economy and how it should run.There are various capitalist theories about various branches of the economic model proposed by various people but they all share the same fundamentals. Ofc, because society is intertwined and there are separate bubbles, if given the chance, one aspect will permeate into another, like how a lot of people buy politicians through lobby groups. But that more to do with human nature and more to the point, the perversities of human nature rather and the weaknesses of a political system than with capitalism as an economic model.

Communism is not just an economic model. It's a political model. It's a civic model. it's a societal model. Communism is an ideology that affects everything in life not just the economy. It's a political ideology intetwined with the way the economy should run and how the society should be structured and organized. So capitalism is just 1 thing, communism is all things.
There are different schools of communism but almost all are totalitarian in nature.

Fascism is again, a totalitarian ideology. fascism is again, a complete ideology that branches on everything. It affects everything from the economy to civic life to politics and how a country is run. There are branches of fascism that are just about the economy, so facist economics if you will. Some of them can be observed today as various kinds coorporatism.


Economically the USSR and the fascists +nazis were different. One allowed for private enterprise and private ownership to some extent, the other didn't and controlled all the important aspects of life. Including the means of production. That's what "the people owning the means of production" means, it means that the state owns it. The people who work in the factory are workers for the state. nazi economics didn't need the state to own factories and farms, well, it allowed for them to be owned by the private individuals with whom they arranged contracts. Like Daimler, it was a private company owned by private individuals who had contracts to make tanks. Similar to how Boeing has contracts with the USA govt to make war planes or something. Same principle. It's not a nazi principle or a US principle, it's just how it's done. It's not evil.

But politically and societally, what was the ****ing difference between nazis +fascists and commies? They both were totalitarian regimes with aggressive ideological agendas being pushed in education, propaganda media and all that good stuff of a repression regime.

calamity said:

Recently it has come to my attention that there is a lie being pushed claiming that the Nazi were socialists. Making it worse, the education in this country is so atrocious that this lie is actually gaining traction.

Apparently since the word "socialist" is a part of the Nationalist Socialist Party moniker, this lie is gaining traction. Additional evidence pointed to by those pushing this revisionist nonsense is that the Nazi propaganda machine, including written mission statements and proclamations by Hitler himself, make promises which are indeed socialist. However, actions speak louder than words. And, Nazi actions were anything but socialist.



Does anyone actually believe the Nazi were socialists?

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Of course they were, just like the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea runs a democracy and a republic.

calamity said:

Recently it has come to my attention that there is a lie being pushed claiming that the Nazi were socialists.

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Wow. You would have to ignore what the Nazi's claimed to come to such a conclusion.

We are socialists. We are enemies, deadly enemies, of today’s capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, its unfair wage system, its immoral way of judging the worth of human beings in terms of their wealth and their money, instead of their responsibility and their performance, and we are determined to destroy this system whatever happens!

[...]

Gregor Strasser
From "Motherhood and Warriorhood".
German politician and prominent figure in the Nazi Party.​

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Those Damned Nazis (1932)

[...]

Why Are We Socialists?

We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state.

[...]​

Why Do We Oppose the Jews?

[...]

What does anti-Semitism have to do with socialism? I would put the question this way: What does the Jew have to do with socialism? Socialism has to do with labor. When did one ever see him working instead of plundering, stealing and living from the sweat of others? As socialists we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation’s goods.

[...]
​

Joseph Goebbels​

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You may not like their version of what a socialist was, but it doesn't make their claims a lie.