The Nazis were not a left wing liberal progressive party

They were a right wing conservative party. It doesn't matter that their name was "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" (National Socialist German Workers' Party). What matters is what they did. If you called yourself the "Capitalist Party" and then went around wiping out capitalism............

In 1934 Hitler had the left wing faction of the party assassinated in the "Night of the Long Knives" because they wanted to implement the 1920's "25 Point Plan". This is the plan everyone seems to refer to to claim that the NSDAP was left wing, liberal, progressive, whatever.

According to Ian Kershaw, widely respected historian of Hitler and the Third Reich, Hitler gave his underlings orders to implement non socialist economic policies. Hitler himself was very hands off in the day to day running of Germany.

It was the Industrial Elite of Germany who funded Hitler's rise to power.

 

You also forgot to mention that Hitler banned the communist party and jailed or exiled several of its leaders in a bid to win support from the Conservative party. This would have given him the coalition government needed in order to rule Germany.

 

Fascism is not really "left" or "right," the popular term today is usually "third position" which is meant to indicate this. The Nazi party was definitely socialist in it's aims and although they can't be said to have succeeded in enacting socialism, neither can any other country make that claim because socialism is impossible. Insofar as the Nazis were hostile towards "socialism" you've confused socialism with communism and maybe other socialist-leaning factions.

It's not all that long until we hit 100 years since the start of the Nazi's era and the fact that people are still attempting historical revisionism regarding the Nazi party is pretty sad. Nazism doesn't move young people today like it does old people and any educated older person can only look at the kind of drivel you've posted with scorn.

 

I have (*)(*)(*)(*)loads of books on the era. The only people who claim that the Nazis were left wing, socialist, etc are those who look at the name, maybe 1 or 2 policies out of bajillions, and then claims that's all they need to know that they were left wing, progressive, socialists, etc.

As I said, Hitler had those in the party who wanted to go through with the so called aims of the 25 Point Plan killed.

 

I didn't say they were left, I said they were third position socialists. Your claim that they were a "right wing conservative party" is wrong.

 

Those claimants tend to be from the far right of American politics, and it's a relatively recent (3-4 decades) delusion. It's like they're denying their inheritance or something.

 

It's scary when you're so far to the right that the Nazis look like they're left wing.

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Every political position fits on the left/right spectrum. It's either change or it's status quo/return to an idolised past.

 

Conservative by whose standards---American or European? They are different you know. Besides it's the Liberals who don't like Jews. And we know Hitler's opinion on that...

 

By left and right standards.

Left = for change

Right = status quo/return to idolised past

The Nazis were very big on idolising the past.

Not liking Jews was hardly a new idea.

 

Really? Really. Is that why most Jewish people self identify as liberal? They must be self hating then, right?

 

Fascism is associated with the left. Proof?

Michelle Obama's fascist school lunch program.
Michael Bloombergs anti large soda campaign.
Liberal's anti gun campaign
Funny how liberal states have more fascist regulations than conservative states..
I could go on but you get the point

 

They were anticommunist because communism was a different, competitive brand of revolutionary totalitarianism, not because they were "conservative capitalists." Just because coke competes with pepsi and tries to take over pepsi shelf space doesn't mean they both aren't sugary soft drinks. Industrialists DID prosper in Nazi Germany, but concluding from that that they had the same strong property rights of capitalism is fallacious. They did not have any meaningful property rights, no one in the whole fing country did, and they operated those plants and made those profits SOLELY AT THE DISCRETION OF THE NAZI PARTY which could take it all away at any moment, and often did so, tell them what and how much to make, tell them how much to charge. That's not capitalism, but socialism. The colloquial definition of socialism is a system of government where the state owns the means of production, and the de facto ownership the Nazis exercised over the entire country's production certainly qualifies as socialist. Certainly DOES NOT qualify as capitalism.

The nazis were socialists, and nazi germany was a socialist, totalitarian regime, and if you want to compound your error by claiming that they were somehow "capitalist socialists" then go right ahead and look like a moron.

Applying the terms "liberal" or "conservative" to other than political platforms in the now is fallacious.

Oh and it doesn't matter that the Nazis were radical leftist socialists, so f-cking what if they were? (but they were... since you started this thread and apparently don't realize that),and it wouldn't matter if they were "conservative capitalists" but they weren't.

 

Their economic policies aren't exactly what you would call "right wing" while they maintained a private sector, it was the state that determined wages and work hours, and ultimately it was the state that was in charge of manufacturing. And while select private sector industries remained, that is not to say they did not drastically limit the private sector. Their economy was to the left of Keynesian economics, which is already considered to be liberal economics

Their social polices on the other hand were thoroughly, and radically right winged/authoritarian

edit:

It's also worth noting that Hitler himself was not raised to be anti-Semitic, at a younger age he had Jewish friends and was appalled by the idea of antisemitism. It wasn't until his days of living as a homeless man that he adapted the idea that Jewish ideology was to blame for wealth disparity

 

oh you didn't know?

http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Jews-Karl-Marx/dp/0806529539

 

The Nazi party started off as entirely leftist. Over time they changed their stances on some positions because it became clear that they needed the support of the industrial elites in Germany. This also is around the time that they started to ramp up their anti-Jewish effort. It should also be noted that even though the Nazis let people keep their companies and even profit from them (unless you were Jewish or some other undesirable of course) if the Nazi party ordered your company to build something for the war effort, then you built it. Something similar happened in the US where for a few years our economy could technically no longer be described as capitalist because the legal, economic and social pressure to produce war goods meant a dramatic shrinking of the consumer goods productions during that time. Even if a company wanted to take advantage of ripe opportunities they wouldn't dare because of the backlash.

In the end the Nazis ended up being a unique amalgamation of different and often conflicting ideologies. The Volkswagen car was economical and was going to be the utlimate working partyman's car. The Nazi propaganda machine constantly pumped out images praising laborers in Germany. The Nazi party also happened to be very environmentally focused with plans to set aside vast areas of real estate to be unspoiled. These views were held at the same time as their incredibly nationalistic view of themselves and their belief in the infallibility of their military might.

 

You mean if it is not socialist it is not left wing? ^_- Well anyways, by modern American standards the Nazis were definitively left wing economically (further left than the Democrats), and definitively right wing socially (further right than the GOP).

And the Night of Long Knives was a series of murders totalling somewhere in the 80s which did include left-wing Nazi leaders (who you wouldn't call "left-wing" except relatively), but also conservative anti-Nazis. But that should all be an aside, since the primary purpose of it was not to eliminate left-wing Nazism (it's not like there were just two of them), the primary purpose was to consolidate his power. The main target were the Brown Shirts and their leader Rohm. This had many aspects (Hitler appealing to the general military which was wary of Rohm, curtailing the unruliness of the Brown Shirts, getting rid of Rohm who was a serious potential rival), but the main point of it was the consolidation of his power, namely by 'dealing with' the Brown Shirts.

btw, just as an interesting aside Strasserism, which refers to the left-wing Nazi leader Strasser (who was killed in the Night of the Long Knives), is the basis for current neo-Nazism. So what you're trying to tell us is that the current neo-Nazis are left wing? ^_- Imo, it comes down to this: the Nazis were economically left-wing, and they were socially right wing. In both, they were authoritarian (which is generally considered in US politics to be 'left-wing', as juxtaposed to libertarianism).

 

The Nazi Party platform, 1920
http://users.stlcc.edu/rkalfus/PDFs/026.pdf
~~~~~~~~~~~~

PROGRESSIVE SUPPORT FOR ITALIAN AND GERMAN FASCISM


Just as progressives were generally enthusiastic about socialist movements in the Soviet Union and Europe, they were also overwhelmingly supportive of the fascist movements in Italy and Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. “In many respects,” writes journalist Jonah Goldberg, “the founding fathers of modern liberalism, the men and women who laid the intellectual groundwork of the New Deal and the welfare state, thought that fascism sounded like ... a worthwhile 'experiment'”:

• H. G. Wells, one of the most influential progressives of the 20th century, said in 1932 that progressives must become “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazis.” Regarding totalitarianism, he stated: “I have never been able to escape altogether from its relentless logic.” Calling for a “‘Phoenix Rebirth’ of Liberalism” under the umbrella of “Liberal Fascism,” Wells said: “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis.”
• The poet Wallace Stevens pronounced himself “pro-Mussolini personally.”
• The eminent historian Charles Beard wrote of Mussolini’s efforts: “Beyond question, an amazing experiment is being made [in Italy], an experiment in reconciling individualism and socialism.”
• Muckraking journalists almost universally admired Mussolini. Lincoln Steffens, for one, said that Italian fascism made Western democracy, by comparison, look like a system run by “petty persons with petty purposes.” Mussolini, Steffens proclaimed reverently, had been “formed” by God “out of the rib of Italy.”
• McClure’s Magazine founder Samuel McClure, an important figure in the muckraking movement, described Italian fascism as “a great step forward and the first new ideal in government since the founding of the American Republic.”
• After having vistited Italy and interviewed Mussolini in 1926, the American humorist Will Rogers, who was informally dubbed “Ambassador-at-Large of the United States” by the National Press Club, said of the fascist dictator: “I’m pretty high on that bird.” “Dictator form of government is the greatest form of government,” Rogers wrote, “that is, if you have the right dictator.”
• Reporter Ida Tarbell was deeply impressed by Mussolini's attitudes regarding labor, affectionately dubbing him “a despot with a dimple.”
• AACP co-founder W. E. B. DuBois saw National Socialism as a worthy model for economic organization. The establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, he wrote, had been “absolutely necessary to get the state in order.” In 1937 DuBois stated: “there is today, in some respects, more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past.”
• FDR adviser Rexford Guy Tugwell said of Italian fascism: “It's the cleanest, neatest, most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I've ever seen. It makes me envious.”
• New Republic editor George Soule, who avidly supported FDR, noted approvingly that the Roosevelt administration was “trying out the economics of fascism.”
• Playwright George Bernard Shaw hailed Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini as the world’s great “progressive” leaders because they “did things,” unlike the leaders of those “putrefying corpses” called parliamentary democracies.​

According to Goldberg, progressives' affinity for fascism was quite understandable because, contrary to popular misconception: “[F]ascism, properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left.”

(Excerpt)

Read more:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1223

You were saying? It's well known that Progressive Leftists accepted and supported National Socialism and when the rise of Nazism occurred, all Progressive Socialists applauded and supported Nazism, even in America. The German-American Bund was made up of Democrats who openly showed racial bias toward Blacks, Jews and Hispanics. You've made another poor attempt at revising history.
"Many racial and ethnic groups including blacks, Mexican Americans and Chinese Americans were unable to take advantage of New Deal programs because of discrimination and citizenship requirements".

1920s-1940s: Nazism and World War II - US news - Gut Check ...
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24714316/ns/us_news-gut_check/t/s-s-nazism-world-war-ii/
... (shown left) on Long Island for ... One such party, the German-American Bund, which thrived during the mid-1930s, openly espoused Nazi ideology.

~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left ...
http://rrpec.org/documents/GoldbergReview.pdf
Liberal Fascism: The Secret History ... properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, ... ˝Progressive .....were ...

 

I don't care what the current situation in the US is. Left and right wing are not US invented terms (no matter how much the right wing in the US thinks they are in their revisionism of history to place everyone that they disagree with on the left) and is not viewed from the present US situation but what was the situation in the place (in this case, Germany) at the time. Anything else is revisionism.

 

He also killed conservative leaders, and former Chancellors. The Nazis genuinely hated Communism and Capitalism. Which is so funny, because we think of those two terms as being such clear left and right indicators, and yet people argue back and forth about whether the Nazis were left-wing or right-wing. They don't fit neatly into either.

You're right to say they aren't quite socialist, but you'd be even more wrong if you tried suggesting that they were what today (in US politics) is considered the opposite (capitalist). They were something different. In the traditional textbook idea of socialism, the state controls the means of production. The Nazis actually, to my knowledge, privatized a handful of public companies, and did so more often than the inverse. However, that's hardly intrinsically capitalist. The Nazis/fascists allowed private ownership (since they believed that the profit motive had some genuine effect) but still heavily controlled those companies, w/o owning them. Further, the Nazis had this odd dual thing where they supported the profit motive but insisted on loyalty to the state, which is why the Nazis dealt harshly with private businessmen who they thought weren't acting enough in the interest of the public. Now does that acceptance of profit but harsh criticism of a lot of profit sound more like the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street? Just curious.

And 'fascist' isn't a position, it's a set of positions. The fascists (or at least the Nazis) were economically left, socially super-paleocons (or 'right').

 

If an industrial elite (which is an hidden elite) slows down and eventually stops industrial innovation and is using politics to shifts that innovation to the civilian population, that will set civilians (the masses) in motion.
While breaking apart big industry, which is again going to set civlians politically in motion (an hierarchy collectively in motion is a mass event, and it's happening out of sight)... but if you see that this process is going on, it will cause an (hidden) awakening in the people, and if an awakening happens in a majority of the population it will be a collective awakening. Then you have an heirarchy in action (an 'army') a mass happening, that will lead to historical trouble.

So the industrial elite should start to innovatie as soon as possible, but ofcourse they won't, because that will also cause a political fight (against the managers, because the industrial elite is hidden from the people), so resistance in the population, it does the same again, it sets millions politically in action, and that is revolutionary.

 

I've made no claim about the Nazis compared to current US politics. That's been the Americans in here unable to view anything outside of their tiny little bubble.

 

Didn't say you did.

 

Everyone else seems to be. Too many Americans seem to think that left/right was invented by Americans during the Cold War instead of being something that came from the French Revolution. Had nothing to do with socialism.

 

"US" was actually in no way critical to my points. So your post is moot.

 

It's not a uniquely American thing, despite the attempts by some non-Americans to suggest that t is an an attempt to disparage Americans. did you know that decimate came from Latin, meaning to reduce by one tenth? When a legion was rebellious they would only punish one in ten (drawn by lots ), but the punished were killed. But when we say "decimate" today, we don't mean to kill one tenth as a punishment. Likewise, when people say things like "left wing" today, they don't care much about what the phrase meant to the first person to use it. They care about what meaning it carries today.