Political philosophies of the National Socialist Party: Left-leaning?

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I’ve been doing some study on the use of “nazis” as a kind of forumic nuclear weapon by left-leaning webizens, and I’m wondering if anyone could give me a hand.

I’ve always been of the opinion that the Nazis were rather more socialistically-inclined then otherwise (hence their full title), but information regarding this particular facet of political history seems a little hard to come by, or at least it has been for me.

Does anyone have any reliable resources I could access?

Thanks.
 
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Hospitaller:
I’ve been doing some study on the use of “nazis” as a kind of forumic nuclear weapon by left-leaning webizens, and I’m wondering if anyone could give me a hand.

I’ve always been of the opinion that the Nazis were rather more socialistically-inclined then otherwise (hence their full title), but information regarding this particular facet of political history seems a little hard to come by, or at least it has been for me.

Does anyone have any reliable resources I could access?

Thanks.
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The Nazi party started out tiny and was just one of many that shared the same general platform & philosophy. The full name, National Socialist German Workers Party, I assume was an effort to appeal to both the right and left.

From the fact that they fought street battles aginst the real Socialists and Communists I’d say they were (accurately) perceived as right-wing at the time. After Hitler became Chancellor with a very shaky coalition he purged left-wing elements from the Nazi party because they were looking for their payoff now that he had power. Hundreds of radical Nazi leaders were killed in “The Night of the Long Knives.” This helped shore up his support from regular conservatives (including the Catholic party) and the Army general staff.

I wouldn’t call the Nazis left-wing. The left, such as the Communists, had a more universal vision – “Workers of all countries, unite!” They certainly weren’t any less oppressive for that, but it is a difference.
Hitler and the Nazis wanted to exalt the “Aryan” race over all others according to their warped racial theories.
 
Left and right are really meaningless. Political philosophy can not be boiled down to a simple 1-dimensional polar opposites litmus test.

Not to stray too far from the topic but, this is the biggest problem with American politics today IMHO. Too many people are focused on left/right or liberal/conservative rhetoric (with a complete misunderstanding of what “liberal” really means, most of what passes as liberlism these days is socialism that any real liberal would despise).

As for the nazis being socialist, absolutely. Mussolini too. The Fascism of the 20s and 30s was extremely socialist and that’s exactly why Hitler got 95% approval by special vote to become supreme chancellor of Germany (fuhrer rather than just president). He promised to end the depression by providing jobs for everyone and restoring the glory of the German empire. Most Germans really weren’t anti-semitic racists (certainly not the extreme that Hitler took it), but they were willing to accept it in exchange for socialist promises.

It should be noted that the German constitution was modeled expressly after ours and Hitler still came into power there. Socialism is a very dangerous road and every nation that has started stumbling down it’s twisted path has wound up regretting it in the end. Look at most of Europe (what’s left of it I mean). Dwindling native populations are being overrun by immigrants who will be more than happy to undo all the work of the Socialists once they become the majority (which will be soon in some countries). France and Sweden think they have it all figured out now, but 50 years from, the French and the Swedish won’t even be in control of their own countries unless they change something.

The mistake again is in associating socialism with some imaginary leftism that people would like to think is akin to liberalism and therefore related to democracy or liberty. Socialism is all about control. Liberalism is all about freedom. Both could be considered “leftist” philosophies, but both are absolutely opposed to each other as well. Personally, I think the Democrats are more conservative than the Republicans these days, they’re certainly more afraid of change and individual Democratic politicians are far less likely to stray from partisan dogma and rhetoric (and their voter demographic is wealthier on average as well which kind of blows wide holes through most of their domestic platform issues if only voters would pay attention).

The outcome of the last couple elections show just how pathetic the Republicans are too. Beating the Democrats these days should be like shooting fish in a barrel what with the mountains of historic evidence that clearly demonstrate the futility of socialism, but Republicans usually win by a hair’s width anymore.

The inability of most people to see the distinction is how politicians like Clinton and Bush get elected. Until Americans learn the difference between liberal and socialist, US politics is essentially going to be an endless cycle of voters trying to choose the lesser of two evils.

Socialism is a direct attack on the family as an organizing unit of society. It attempts to replace the role of the family with mechanisms of the state – public schools, health care, retirement, all are roles that used to filled by the family. Hitler definitely was a socialist in this regard. From the Hitler Youth to one of Europe’s first state-subsidized health care systems, the Nazis used the tools of socialist control to their own ends. It saddens me to see any Christian supporting socialist reforms (no, I’m not a Republican, I’m a liberal who knows what the word really means). It might be important to note that Republicans and Democrats are essentially the same party. They’re both offshoots of the old Whigs.
 
For his own people Hitler desired the very best and therefore he melded policies from industrial centres with those emergent in the countryside. He was nothing short of a genius in achieving this for a time,the People’s Community was to be where Germans would live irrespective of social class or caste, peasants would stand by teachers and students, factory workers eat the same meals as the bosses and young and old would unite in order to rescue the country from the misery caused by inflation and economic failure. “In solcher Not die uns zusammen droht”

In that plight which threatens us all…

But his motivations were thoroughly impure, he intended to displace other races considered inferior in order to establish the huge Volksgemeinschaft and we also see an unbelievably evil idea that warfare is the creator of human solidarity not love and peace which is surely the point of the Gospel.
 
didymus writes:
From the fact that they fought street battles aginst the real Socialists and Communists I’d say they were (accurately) perceived as right-wing at the time …

So they did fight. At times before 1932 and almost all the time afterward. But they also cooperated in strikes against the Weimer Republic. National Socialism tapped out middle class support early and recruited from the communist party (so long as the communists were not Jewish). You can view the posters asking communists to join the NSDAP at the Hoover Institute.

Yes they were “(accurately) perceived as right-wing” --by Stalin. Nazism was the right wing of a global socialist movement. Stalin used the term “fascist” rather than what Nazis called themselves because he had the true system he believed. He also knew a conflict was certain with Germany. In addition his brother-in-law, Lazar Kaganovich (who oversaw the murder of over 7 million in the Ukraine between 1931 and 1933) and other top officials were Jewish ( The old Bolsheviks murdered in the purges and who were Jewish were called “parlor Jews” --international Jews–by the Russian “Ghetto Jews” who supported Stalin).

The end of Roehm was not the end of the socialist aspect of National Socialism at all–it was merely the end of the democratic phase of the movement (every socialist totalitarian state has used “democracy” as cover. Hitler was confident enough to drop the pretense is all).

On the 20th century origin of Fascism:

Fascism is Leftist (Mussolini)

Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks, London, T. Butterworth, 1940:

"There is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separates us from it. There is, above all, genuine, revolutionary feeling, which is alive everywhere in Russia except where there are Jewish Marxists. I have always made allowance for this circumstance, and given orders that former Communists are to be admitted to the party at once . . . ". . .more here.

Willi Münzenberg, an agent of Stalin who served in the Reichstag with Goering, boasted that National Socialist was brown on the outside, red on the inside.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Arthur Koestler who knew both systems well agreed there was no moral and little practical difference between communism and fascism.

Let us not forget one more fact: When Stalin and Hitler signed a nonagression pact, many socialists in American turned from anti-fascists into peaceniks overnight. The CIO even called strikes at munitions factories in the USA to slow down arms shipment to the UK during the Battle of Britain.
 
Yes, the National Socialist Party was a socialist party. They were certainly of the extreme political left. It largely due to the pro-Communist sympathies post-WWII that have led to the mischaracterization that Nazism is a rightist ideology.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
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mlchance:
Yes, the National Socialist Party was a socialist party. They were certainly of the extreme political left.
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While it is unfair to suggest the extreme left in the West today wants to go anywhere near where the Nazis went, they do share certain beliefs…

A Little Secret About the Nazis
by Richard Poe

They were left-wing socialists. Yes, the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany, otherwise known as the Nazi Party, was indeed socialist, and it had a lot in common with the modern left. Hitler preached class warfare, agitating the working class to resist ``exploitation’’ by capitalists – particularly Jewish capitalists, of course. Their program called for the nationalization of education, health care, transportation, and other major industries. They instituted and vigorously enforced a strict gun control regimen. They encouraged pornography, illegitimacy, and abortion, and they denounced Christians as right-wing fanatics. Yet a popular myth persists that the Nazis themselves were right-wing extremists. This insidious lie biases the entire political landscape, and the time has come to expose it . . . .continued here
From LifeSite.net:

Current Medical Euthanasia and Eugenic Abortion Practices Echo Nazi Past

. . .Planned Parenthood foundress Margaret Sanger shared her eugenic ideals with the Nazi’s in the early 1930s. Due to the negative press over her association with the Nazi’s Sanger changed the name of her organization from the Birth Control League to Planned Parenthood . . .more here
A must read by Rabbi Daniel Lapin:

The Hitler Letter
 
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David_Paul:
While it is unfair to suggest the extreme left in the West today wants to go anywhere near where the Nazis went, they do share certain beliefs…

A Little Secret About the Nazis
by Richard Poe

They were left-wing socialists. Yes, the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany, otherwise known as the Nazi Party, was indeed socialist, and it had a lot in common with the modern left. Hitler preached class warfare, agitating the working class to resist ``exploitation’’ by capitalists – particularly Jewish capitalists, of course. Their program called for the nationalization of education, health care, transportation, and other major industries. They instituted and vigorously enforced a strict gun control regimen. They encouraged pornography, illegitimacy, and abortion, and they denounced Christians as right-wing fanatics. Yet a popular myth persists that the Nazis themselves were right-wing extremists. This insidious lie biases the entire political landscape, and the time has come to expose it . . . .continued here
From LifeSite.net:

Current Medical Euthanasia and Eugenic Abortion Practices Echo Nazi Past

. . .Planned Parenthood foundress Margaret Sanger shared her eugenic ideals with the Nazi’s in the early 1930s. Due to the negative press over her association with the Nazi’s Sanger changed the name of her organization from the Birth Control League to Planned Parenthood . . .more here
A must read by Rabbi Daniel Lapin:

The Hitler Letter
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Very interesting reading…especially the last two links!
 
Karin…Rabbi Lapin is great. He defended Mel Gibson when the ADL and the New York Times were attacking “The Passion”. He takes a lot of guff for his principled stance regarding our faith.

The below sound similiar to what is being done to Christianity by some in America?

New Meanings for “Inherited” Customs?

. . .We have no reason to forget that not long ago, the reigning pope called German Christmas customs “pagan,” and that the German bishops worked hard to change his opinion. They apparently saw these “pagan customs” as most valuable psychological props. Since, however, the highest office called them a “nonessential element” of Catholic ritual, one cannot hold it against us if we rely on this judgment and keep these customs alive for the day when they fully and finally are eliminated from the church’s religious rituals . . .full text
----1937 Nazi article on how to take Christianity out of Christmas and other Christian holidays:
 
David_Paul…Your links easily illustrate that Nazism was just another flavor of communism.
 
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MEP:
Left and right are really meaningless. Political philosophy can not be boiled down to a simple 1-dimensional polar opposites litmus test.

Not to stray too far from the topic but, this is the biggest problem with American politics today IMHO. Too many people are focused on left/right or liberal/conservative rhetoric (with a complete misunderstanding of what “liberal” really means, most of what passes as liberalism these days is socialism that any real liberal would despise).
Click to expand...
Absolutely!! Except that identifying something as “socialist” is just as meaningless, unless one identifies which socialism. Some “socialist” ideals can be seen as positive, such as the notion that the economy should benefit more than just the elite. Other “socialist” positions that deal with central planning and control are more problematic.

Most of the posts that follow MEPs are an illustration of Godwin’s Law.
 
I have to agree that the whole notion of “left” & “right” needs a serious rethinking.The real split is between totalitarianism vs democracy.
I woke up to this, when, once upon a time, someone pointed out to me that if left wing & right wing were accurate descriptions, that meant that if you crossed Adolf Hitler with Josef Stalin, you would come up with Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, & George Washington.
What we really need is a new vocabulary for politics.Without it, we will remain unable to analyze the subject…Not to mention, that we will continue to fall into the hands of all kinds of people with agendas.
 
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