General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy do conservatives claim that Hitler was a leftist?
Hitler privatized public parks, never nationalized a single key arsenal, never nationalized any economic industries, privatized many businesses that benefited the state, and outlawed labor unions and killed their organizers and leaders. The original National Syndicalists were fiscally Third Position, but Hitler was right wing. He also outlawed abortion and killed homosexuals. He also purged the entire left wing in what is known as "The Night of the Long Knives." Eugenics and ultranationalism are far-right on their own, so even if he was a Socialist, he was a right wing socialist.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)those -isms are just more extreme versions of conservatism.
AProgressiveThinker
(248 posts)Not only this but Hitler was put into power by the Conservative Kaiser.
derby378
(30,252 posts)Germany hasn't had a Kaiser since the end of World War I.
Drale
(7,932 posts)to placate the Nazi's who had been gaining power.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)they are like children in a way - thus to become more and more conservative is to become better and better; they can't admit that the extreme of their philosophy might be negative.
In fairness, libertarian right wingers don't have as much in common with Fascism/Nazism.
Bryant
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)Initech
(100,102 posts)But if you bring up facts like that they'll call you a nazi faster than one could seig heil. :eyes
:
silverweb
(16,402 posts)[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]It suits their narrative.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)Canuckistanian
(42,290 posts)His party's name was a ruse to garner more of the centrist and center left vote. It was dishonest as hell.
But, once he was in, he dropped any pretense about being a progressive.
And there's no such thing as a "right wing socialist"
AProgressiveThinker
(248 posts)Right wing Socialism is a real thing. Examples of right wing socialism are types of eugenics where the master race lives in a Socialist system and corporatism is also right wing Socialism. Look this up.
Canuckistanian
(42,290 posts)I can't think of one. Romania during Ceausescu once had an extensive eugenics policy, but they were hardly right wing.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Also had an extensive eugenics policy with an unholy alliance. Right wingers and progressive groups supported eugenics for different reasons. The right wingers wanted to create a "Nordic Superior Race" and progressives wanted to keep people from suffering. Some in the middle supported the practices because they believed that the targeted populations (immigrants, people with various disabilities and people believed to be of poor moral character) were a drain on society and the common good.
Americans who came from "proper" backgrounds were encouraged to practice positive eugenics to reproduce (with each other) as much as possible, while marriage restrictions were enforced to limit the introduction of bad genes into the preferred race.
Progressives supported the practice of negative eugenics where they tried to limit the perpetuation of bad genes through forced sterilization and marriage restrictions, based on the idea that children should not born into conditions where they would suffer.
One supporter of American eugenics complained that "Hitler was getting ahead of us."
Once again, the good old days weren't all that good.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Alexander Graham Bell and Margaret Sanger also supported eugenics for what they believed were humanitarian reasons.
demwing
(16,916 posts)Of any leaning?
Ian David
(69,059 posts)But Hitler was neither Socialist nor left-wing.
ellenfl
(8,660 posts)both philosophies were used politically.
Ian David
(69,059 posts)But in theory, you could have Socialist financial policies, and still be on the far-right wing on everything else. Just because people have public roads and water systems does not mean they can't also have a dictatorship that imposes harsh rules and commits genocides.
ellenfl
(8,660 posts)conflate fascism with nazism. mussolini coined 'fascism' which defined the corporate controlled italian government of the time. in practice, it is the same as the 'socialism/communism' of germany in the 30s/40s and the ussr. it is actually where we are now headed, with the ruling class enjoying success while the rest of us become serfs.
paraphrasing inigo montoya to our rw . . . 'i don't think socialism/fascism means what you think it means'.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)think it does.
ellenfl
(8,660 posts)were not socialists. they weren't even communists. they were oligarchs and that's where i meant we are headed.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)is control by an elite. Socialism = worker control of production and consumption. Worker control disallows control by an elite to whom most of the benefits of socialized production accrue.
Ian David
(69,059 posts)Old and In the Way
(37,540 posts)Why else?
Dyedinthewoolliberal
(15,588 posts)Except to further an agenda that is oppressive and favors the wealthy...........
Warpy
(111,339 posts)and because they're profoundly ignorant people who think anything they shouldn't like is somehow "leftist."
That's why.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)marmar
(77,090 posts)ny
magellan
(13,257 posts)But the only socialism the Nazis promoted was the community working together for the nation (not for the people) -- and only as long as the community was made up of healthy hetero Aryans. That's why white supremacist groups latch onto Nazi symbols and revere Hitler.
moondust
(20,006 posts)National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) (Nazi Party)
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)National Socialism is not the same thing as "Socialism". THey dont believe in virtually any of the same policies.
moondust
(20,006 posts)Selectively picking and choosing words and phrases out of context without regard for their intended meaning is a shameless tactic of the rabid right.
Another example:
ellenfl
(8,660 posts)TampaAnimusVortex
(785 posts)Your bringing up the concept of policies, which ones in particular are or aren't socialist here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program#The_25-point_Program_of_the_NSDAP
One could argue the following points sound fairly socialist, either directly or indirectly:
13
14
15
16
18 - not directly socialist, but highly anti-capitalistic
So, I wouldn't say they don't believe ANY of the same policies... They didn't just call themselves socialists randomly.
That said, most of what is listed there is simply fascist rather than socialist or communistic.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)Like DPRK Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea... North Korea
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)demwing
(16,916 posts)And isolating him in history is dangerous
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)the Hitler's power when he began isn't the same as when he was at the height of his power.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)we can call a modern manifestation of fascism in it's earliest forms, fascism? I don't think so. I'd rather fight fascism BEFORE they come for me.
And I'm doing some research on fascism and the Tea Party organizations for a future article. So far with just a few minutes, I've found four correlations between the Teabaggers and the fascists. I'm sure there will be more.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Here's some good info: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitler.htm
Rex
(65,616 posts)and b) some of them know the others are that stupid.
unblock
(52,317 posts)if hitler somehow had a good reputation, they would claim him as their own in a heartbeat.
magellan
(13,257 posts)...and for busting unions, the right would be in paroxysms of Nazi worship, not trying to disavow any connection to him.
unblock
(52,317 posts)Deep13
(39,154 posts)Just like the word "Democratic" is in North Korea's official name.
That's about as deep as EW thinking gets.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)conservative thinking (yes, an oxymoron) is incapable of getting past the window dressing.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Governments were just much more powerful in the 1930s than today, all over the place. To the extent that some people view the right/left distinction as one about power of government (it's not, really), then every government in the 1930's would be to the "left" of every government today.
eridani
(51,907 posts)--did a hell of a lot of Keynsian spending to get out of the Great Depression. Hitler included.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Government spending was a much larger portion of the economy, and so government had a much more direct say in things, all along the political spectrum.
But please do note that Keynesianism isn't simply "big government". It's just government that runs deficits in recessions and surplusses in expansions. Nobody's ever actually tried this except Bill Clinton.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)that socialism is a BAD THING, even though they aren't quite sure what it is.
By their logic, Cream of Wheat is a dairy product.
treestar
(82,383 posts)The Cream of Wheat reference is perfect.
This saves them from comparisons to the Nazis and that they share some similar goals. The can conveniently compartmentalize the evil Nazis and socialists and therefore leftists and hide from the fact their views are the ones that lead towards that path.
Mr.Bill
(24,319 posts)to define Socialism, or Communism. I haven't found one yet who could.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,836 posts)and therefore he must be a leftist.
Dash87
(3,220 posts)Comparing Nazi Germany to present day American politics is a little silly, and I doubt Hitler would approve of either party.
It's interesting, though - if they wanted a valid version of a leftist murderer, they could actually use Stalin - Leftist Authoritarian, killed more people than Hitler did. What either man has to do with present day American politics is a the real question (spoiler: nothing)?
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)If you want to use Lenin for an example of a leftist authoritarian, that at least works. But Stalin was every bit as much a reactionary fascist as Hitler was, and as with the Nazis, the "leftism" was just a veneer of slogans and gestures.
Dash87
(3,220 posts)Stalin was hardline Communist / Authoritarian, and while having similarities to fascism, he was not a fascist. The two were both authoritarian murderers, but their ideologies were fairly incompatable with each other.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)But yes, they called it communism mostly for marketing reasons (the movement they coopted was leftist in nature.)
There's this great dialogue in "the kindly ones" about this... Not to say that they were rightists, but these details can explain a lot.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)Conservatives are fond of rewriting history. In their view FDR's new deal was just an elaborate setup for the crash of 2008. Slave owners were nice guys who were loved and treated their slaves well. Women were happier at home. Blah blah blah
defacto7
(13,485 posts)over and over... it changes the facts... It's like prayer, only you pray to the media.
ArcticFox
(1,249 posts)Whatever they accuse others of, you can bet they're ask over it themselves.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)the man rewrote the whole political science theory because he could not tolerate the notion that anything on the right side of the political spectrum could be bad or wrong. You can find it by goggling the "Ludwig Von Mises Institute..."
Read that, and I you survive the mandatory 15 point drop in your IQ, you will understand that part of the "Big Lie" foisted by conservatives on the rest of the world.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Are you implying that Hitler was a leftist, or those in the thread are to biased to criticize the right, which is the gist of the biblical reference.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)that anything on bad or wrong could be on the left side of the political spectrum.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)And I suspect we might even find some at the center.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Mass murderers are extremist in some sense pretty much by definition. If you don't differ widely from other people, why kill them?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)The Reich government was more active in the economy than the American Right would like the US government to be, so there are plenty of examples to cherry pick (though they often wrongly attribute to Hitler aspects of the German welfare state that date back to Bismark).
Zoeisright
(8,339 posts)And they're fucking insane.
David__77
(23,503 posts)But Hitler was most certainly pro-capitalist, not a socialist. In the Nazi party, the Strasser brothers represented the socialist (though racist and reactionary) forces.
Hitler waved a red flag, talked about the evils of the bourgeoisie, the merits of the working class, and his devotion to "socialism." That's why some feel that they can get away with talking of him being a leftist.
Hitler was pro-capitalist, saw class division as a natural outgrowth of innate ability, opposed women having a role in the sphere of public administration, and of course was a genocidal imperialist and racist! Not "leftist" per most people's definition.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)It probably adds to the confusion, though, how there is a hate group called "National Socialist Movement", so it's easier for most rank-and-file RWers to associate socialism and Left-wing politics with evil.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)I believe there was an interesting book a while back on how a lot of France's welfare policies are left over from Vichy too, which was well reviewed (although I haven't read it myself, and I'm not enough of a historian to comment on the accuracy of that)
eridani
(51,907 posts)The only thing Hitler added was a lot of Keynsian infrastructure spending. Most governments in the 30s that tried that found that it worked, so they did it some more. Including Hitler.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)Adam Tooze, the wages of destruction excellently destroys the notion that the nazis promoted welfare socialism. war socialism it might be called, i guess.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Both our own interstate highway system and the autobahns were sold as necessary for "defense," but were mostly used as civilian infrastructure.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)Last edited Mon May 13, 2013, 08:36 AM - Edit history (1)
... it does therefore have a keynesian aspect, i agree. Socialism it is not. Socialism, imho, is public consumption, bit only when directed to wellfare. Military spending is therefore not Socialism per se.
I did not write this in disagreement with you. rather to just expand on the theme.
edit: the autobahn had almost NO civilian use. Contrary to our highways, it was a purely military project.
Kolesar
(31,182 posts)A program that was copied in the US by Social Security
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)A typical welfare state seeks to lessen, if not erase socioeconomic divisions between the castes of the society. Everyone is entitled to receive the benefits the state offers.
The Nazis didn't do that. They had a welfare system... which only German citizens of aryan descent could take part in. The entire concept is founded on hardening and reinforcing existing caste stratification, and reinforcing the dominance of the already-dominant caste. Further, the Nazis operated as a meritocracy; their "welfare" was not a case of caretaking the less fortunate, even among those who were among the "in" caste (remember, the first victims of the Holocaust were the handicapped and mentally ill) - it was about rewarding those "brutes" who performed the best. This actually ended up creating caste stratification within the "herranvolk" caste, with the ill-abled or inept at the bottom, the better-abled above them, and the people already well-off at the top.
JHB
(37,161 posts)...that appealed to socialist-favoring workers. For instance, from their original "25-Point Program" of 1920:
11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. 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, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality.
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.
19. We demand substitution of a German common law in place of the Roman Law serving a materialistic world-order.
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, 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.
This continued through the Strasser wing of the party, favoring the brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser.
This populist and antisemitic form of anti-Capitalism was further developed in 1925 when Otto Strasser published the Nationalsozialistische Briefe, which discussed notions of class conflict, wealth redistribution and a possible alliance with the Soviet Union. His 1930 follow-up Ministersessel oder Revolution ('Cabinet Seat or Revolution') went further by attacking Hitler's betrayal of the socialist aspect of Nazism, as well as criticizing the notion of Führerprinzip.[3] Whilst Gregor Strasser echoed many of the calls of his brother, his influence on the ideology is less, due to his remaining in the Nazi Party longer and to his early death. Otto, meanwhile, continued to expand his argument, calling for the break-up of large estates and the development of something akin to a guild system and the related establishment of a Reich cooperative chamber to take a leading role in economic planning.[4] Strasserism, therefore, became a distinct strand of Nazism that, whilst holding on to previous Nazi ideals such as ultranationalism and anti-Semitism, added a strong critique of capitalism and framed this in the demand for a more "socialist-based" approach to economics.
It is disputed, however, whether Strasserism effectively represented a distinct form of Nazism. According to historian Ian Kershaw, "the leaders of the SA (which included Gregor Strasser) did not have another vision of the future of Germany or another politic to propose." But they advocated the radicalization of the Nazi regime, and the toppling of the German elites, calling Hitler's rise to power a "half-revolution," which needed to be completed.
To keep a long story short, their faction was eliminated during the Night of the Long Knives purge.
So, during the 1920's there's an argument to be made that they were socialists, as long as you remember that it was a faction of the party, with an opposing faction. And it was the Strasser faction that was put to the knife, by Hitler loyalists.
But Hitler, particularly once he consolidated power and didn't have to "play nice" to anyone? Calling him "leftist" or "socialist" is so ignorant it's more of a vacuum than a gap in knowledge. It actively sucks in garbage.
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Hitler himself was not a socialist - he just gladhanded the socialist-leaning elements of his party, and sucked people in with the rhetoric in the early years, until he had enough power that he could use the long knives on them.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)Hitler didn't end up in the DAP because he was attracted to Socialism. They sent him there to spy on them and then he decided to coopt the party. But even the DAP outspoken brand of Socialism was völkisch in nature and therefore, in Marx' terminology, reactionary, not revolutionary. Bourgeois pseudorevolutionism.
MattBaggins
(7,904 posts)They never get past the Nationalsozialismus name.
They have no idea was the SA was, nor what the Röhm-Putsch was truly about.
Downtown Hound
(12,618 posts)Bush was a great president, all Muslims are evil, tax cuts for the rich are the magic ingredient that will make all of us prosperous, and global warming is a hoax:
IT'S BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING STUPID!
Arkana
(24,347 posts)and immediately assume Hitler must have been some sort of commie pinko.
That's literally all it is. They're like Pavlov's dogs--trained to foam at the mouth at a certain sound.
War Horse
(931 posts)sarisataka
(18,770 posts)They don't like what they see
Zen Democrat
(5,901 posts)It's probably because the RW radio thugs always say that the Nazis were "National Socialists." That S-word hangs them up every time.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)It's diabolical and completely insane. That's what the far right is. My question is why true conservatives would stand for what's going on.
LeftishBrit
(41,210 posts)(a) they think everybody and everything that's bad is 'leftist'; (b) Hitler did call his party 'National Socialist' and they can't get beyond the word; (c) some right-wingers equate leftism with state authoritarianism.
samsingh
(17,601 posts)The Magistrate
(95,255 posts)Wrote a book claiming both Hitler and Mussolini really were progenitors or inheritors of the Progressive movement, and that Liberalism really was, therefore, Fascism and Nazi-ism, and the ditto-heads just lapped it up....
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)and that is awkward
damnedifIknow
(3,183 posts)Since it was the right wing in Germany that brought Hitler to power.
emulatorloo
(44,182 posts)Along with projection. That's what fuels the Republican Lie Machine.