Hi SilentZ; Re: "Whatever, Joe. I don't think you'll find any sources from the 1930s or 1940s that would call fascists or Nazis "leftists." Soviets, yes."
The term is not leftist versus rightist, it's "socialist" versus "capitalist". And they were socialist. As to whether they were "left wing" or "right wing" well that depends on how you define "wing".
The name of the Nazi party has the word "socialism" in it. They were elected in the depths of the Great Depression when socialst political organizations were making gains all over the world. The Socialist party in the US took better than 2% of the vote for President in 1932, I think this was their best showing ever. Similarly the Nazis were elected in 1933 in Germany, where the Depression was far worse than in the US.
Take a look at their big red flag. Are there any countries with big red flags that are *not* socialist? The red flag is the traditional blood red flag of socialism and dates to the revolutions of around 1848 if I recall correctly. Their red flag is why they are called "reds" for God's sake:
In Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler defined the symbolism of the swastika flag: the red represents the social idea of the Nazi movement, the white disk represents the national idea, and the black swastika, used in Aryan cultures for millenia, represents "the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of creative work, which always has been and always will be anti-Semitic".
en.wikipedia.org
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Founding of the Nazi party with its socialist origins emphasized:
On 5 January 1919, Drexler created a new political party and proposed it be named the "German Socialist Worker's Party", but Harrer objected to using the term "socialist"; the issue was settled by removing the term from the name, and it was agreed that the party be named the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP).[30] To ease concerns among potential middle-class nationalist supporters, Drexler made clear that unlike Marxists, the party supported middle-class citizens, and that the party's socialist policy was meant to give social welfare to German citizens deemed part of the Aryan race.
While attending a party meeting on 12 September 1919, where Gottfried Feder was speaking on 'How and by what means is capitalism to be eliminated?', Hitler got involved in a heated political argument with a visitor who questioned the soundness of Feder's arguments and who proposed that Bavaria should break away from Prussia and found a new South German nation with Austria. In vehemently attacking the man's arguments he made an impression on the other party members with his oratory skills and, according to Hitler, the "professor" left the hall acknowledging unequivocal defeat.
Hitler became the DAP's 55th member and received the number 555, as the DAP added '500' to every member's number to exaggerate the party's strength.
It was in this speech that Hitler, for the first time, enunciated the twenty-five points of the German Worker's Party's manifesto that had been drawn up by Drexler, Feder, and Hitler. Through these points he gave the organisation a much bolder stratagem[38] with a clear foreign policy (abrogation of Versailles, a Greater Germany, Eastern expansion, exclusion of Jews from citizenship), and among his specific points were: confiscation of war profits, abolition of unearned incomes, the State to share profits of land, and land for national needs to be taken away without compensation.[41] In general, the manifesto was antisemitic, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, anti-Marxist, and anti-liberal.[42] To increase its appeal to larger segments of the population, in February 1920 the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party – NSDAP)
...
en.wikipedia.org
Here are the socialist planks in the Nazi party platform:
7) We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens.
9) All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
10) The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all.
11) Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. [I.e. living off of investments] Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.
12) In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13) We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14) We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
15) We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
16) We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms ...
17) We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.
18) We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
20) The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession.
21) The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness [think Michelle Obama] by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
en.wikipedia.org
This was not a matter of "the Nazis had one or two planks that were somewhat socialist". No, the Nazis were an anti-capitalist socialist movement identical to socialism today except for one thing. They were also racist.
Like any political party, the Nazis competed against other parties for voters. To that end, they suppressed other parties when they were in power. Their voting base was the same portion of the public that tended to vote socialist and/or communist so these were the parties that the Nazis suppressed most strongly.
In Germany, as in pretty much everywhere in the world, the urban vote tends to be left-wing while the rural vote is right-wing. So the Communists and the various Socialist parties dominated Berlin. Goebbels was assigned the task of winning those votes. This was key to the Nazi takeover. Let Der Spiegel tell you about what he did:
In Goebbel's view, their task was the "conquest of the street." In the melting pot of Berlin, these primarily young men were supposed to reconcile and embody two previously hostile worldviews: nationalism, which Goebbels believed had to be "reshaped in a revolutionary way," and a "true socialism" free of Marxism.
spiegel.de
The reason the leftists can't win the middle class in America today is that they present themselves as a bunch of hippies. What Hitler did was promote a combination of socialistic economic values with conservative morality values. In terms of economics, the party was socialist as opposed to capitalist. In terms of the "culture wars" they were conservative as opposed to liberal. And in terms of who should benefit from the state, they racist as opposed to color-blind. But yes, there is no question that they were socialist.
Probably someday the Democrats will win the last battle to make the US socialist (economically, as in what Hitler supported) and the Republican party will give up resisting stuff like Obamacare just like the Republicans already gave up the battle against social security (which is one of the Nazi planks listed above). My leftie friends hope that when this happens, the US will become a one-party state with leftist democrats elected forever. But that has never happened before in any other country. Instead, the two parties will begin competing on the basis of "culture war values". It was values that got Reagan elected. And it is the culture war values that distinguish the Nazis from what you think of as "socialist".
-- Carl
P.S. The Jews know a lot about the Nazis and you can read about what they think on their websites. For example:
In 1919, Anton Drexler, Gottfried Feder and Dietrich Eckart formed the German Worker's Party (GPW) in Munich. The German Army was worried that it was a left-wing revolutionary group and sent Adolf Hitler, one of its education officers, to spy on the organization.
jewishvirtuallibrary.org |
