I have heard this countless times, especially from libertarians and many GOP supporters, among others. The argument goes like this:
Clue #1
National Socialist Party of German Workers
Socialist Party of Workers?
Clue #2
A totalitarian state and free market economy regulated by the state coupled with social benefits and a big amount of state involvement in political, economic and social affairs
According to many, it wasn't a "right wing" political party, because "right wing" means "free unregulated market and no state involvement in political, economic and social affairs".
I'm not sure what to say, but to me, most self proclaimed "right wing" parties don't follow the "no state involvement" credo much anyway. Perhaps the left and right dichotomy is dead? Perhaps it was a "mixed" state? What do you think?
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[–] Bza1989 ago
As a general rule, anybody who says Nazism/Hitler was left-wing should be dismissed as an idiot who lacks even the most basic understanding or grasp of history, politics, and economics.
As Professor Richard J. Evans (world renowned historian and expert on Nazi Germany) has summarised, "it would be wrong to see Nazism as a form of, or an outgrowth of, socialism". Yes, the Nazi Party itself was named the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Many top Nazi officials (including Hitler) made claims about the Party being "socialist", egalitarian, anti-business and anti-capitalism, especially in the 1920s when they were campaigning for the popular vote. Nazis gained power by promising to alleviate a German economy mired in depression. But they also promised to restore German cultural ‘values’, reverse the hated Versailles Treaty, turn back the Communists, put Germans back to work, and restore Germany to world power status.
The key word was not "socialism", but "national". Hitler and his party preached nationalism and excluded anyone who wasn't fully German or considered superior. Nazis argued that the "Aryan Race" were the superior type of humanity, of which true Germans represented. Aryan Germans were distinguished as superior to other racial types, such as Mediterraneans, Persians, Chinese and Japanese, Romani, Slavs, Jews, etc. The last few mentioned (Jews, Slavs, Romani) were deemed to be subhuman, inferior, undeserving of any rights, and fit only for enslavement and extermination.
This central dogma of German/Aryan racial superiority was espoused throughout the Nazi party and was its central ideology. As Evans has written, this ideology "was light years removed from the class-based ideology of socialism", and can even be seen as "an extreme counter-ideology to socialism, borrowing much of its rhetoric in the process, from its self-image as a movement rather than a party, to its much-vaunted contempt for bourgeois convention and conservative timidity".
Once the Nazis formally came to power, their real nature became readily apparent. Numerous socialists, communists, trade union leaders were arrested and murdered, all organised opposition to the regime was eliminated, and democracy was dead. The Nazis continued Weimar-era social welfare programmes, but they were only provided to those judged to be "racially worthy". Workers strikes were outlawed, trade unions were replaced, and a totalitarian police state was constructed.
Above all, Nazis were German white nationalists and what they really stood for was the ascendancy of the "Aryan" race and the German nation, by any means necessary. They co-opted the name, some rhetoric, and even some precepts of socialism. But they did so for cynical purposes with vastly different goals. In practice, they were fascists and the key tenets of Nazi ideology and thinking place them firmly on the extreme right.
The claim that the Nazis actually were leftists or socialists in any generally accepted sense of those terms flies in the face of historical reality.
[–] downtownchinatown [S] ago
Are you saying that the "socialist" in its name was a mere propaganda method? The people who argue about them being "left wing" say they were in economic terms and because of the totalitarian methods, not because of the race relations campaign. I mean, these people basically argue that fascism is "left wing".
I mean, Hitler was against capitalism. But did Germany have a stock exchange and trade in international markets? They reduced them from 23 to 9, and in 1936 Germany banned all citizens from trading in foreign stocks. That doesn't sound right wing. However maybe we could call it fascist or right wing authoritarian, for a lack of a better term.
Still, I have a feeling that most people in the USA qualify "right wing" as "free market capitalist" nowadays, rather than solely conservative or fascist or any of those ancien regime/heterodox names.