The article by this Leyonhjelm wet is insulting. The National Socialist cause was never about socialism in the Marxist sense. It was about blood, soil, race, and nation. To call us “leftists” is a lie and an insult.

Hitler and the Party destroyed socialism and communism because they were Jewish tools to weaken our people. We banned their unions, executed their traitors, and built a racial state that protected the German Volk. That was not socialism. It was nationalsm, discipline and strength.

The AfD today carries some of that spirit. They stand up against mass immigration, against the dilution of German identity, and against the globalist elites who want to erase borders. This is not “far-right” in the way the media sneers. It is the natural instinct of a people who want to survive.

Normally, an association fallacy is when you smear your opponent by tarring them with some unsavoury figure or ideology.

What the right does with Nazism is almost the mirror image:

- They know the Nazis are universally reviled (often regarded as the worst regime in modern history).
- They know Nazism is historically and academically classified as far-right.
- But because that association tarnishes their own side, they scramble to reassign it to the left.

It’s like committing an association fallacy against themselves. They accept the “Nazis = worst evil” premise, but instead of grappling with the fact that Nazism grew from the far-right, they play a game of rhetorical hot-potato:

“Not ours, yours!”

That’s why they obsess over the word “Socialist” in the NSDAP name. It’s the only thin reed that lets them throw the association somewhere else, even though Hitler himself explained that he redefined “socialism” as national unity, not Marxist class struggle.

If Stalin had called his system “National Capitalism” while murdering kulaks, I doubt we’d see anyone on the right bending over backwards to claim him as one of their own. Funny how that “logic” only runs one way.

The irony, though, is that they don’t even need to do it. The crimes of Nazism don’t stick to modern conservatives any more than Stalin’s crimes stick to modern progressives.

Trying to disown Nazism is only necessary if you’ve already accepted the fallacious premise that today’s right must carry that stain.

"I take it you've given up on trying to prove that Hitler and the Nazis were a bunch of lefties,"

Quick says JD. Now that I've outed as making up quotes, let's go back to the beginning and try to do better this time.

First as regards Mein Kampf. I don't propose to offer quotes from to prove my point since its irrelevant. Remember that it was written a full decade before the Nazis gained power and 12 years before they really started to implement their socialist policies.

This is a precis of a much longer post I made a few years back on a different site...

The full name of the party—"National Socialist German Workers’ Party" (NSDAP)—explicitly included "socialist," reflecting an intent to appeal to working-class voters and differentiate from traditional capitalism. Adolf Hitler and other leaders, such as Joseph Goebbels, expressed opposition to capitalism, with Goebbels stating he would prefer Bolshevism over capitalism. This rhetoric positioned Nazism as a redefinition of socialism, combining it with nationalism to create a "national community" (Volksgemeinschaft) where individual interests served the state.

While private ownership nominally existed, the Nazi government exercised substantive control over what was produced, how, and at what prices, reducing owners to "government pensioners" , effectively turning private businesses into extensions of government policy.
This "socialism on the German pattern" reflected socialist systems by prioritising state planning over market freedom, even if it differed from Soviet-style full nationalisation. Businesses that resisted were seized, and owners replaced with Nazi loyalists, blurring the line between private and public.

In 1933, the Nazis nullified constitutional protections for private property (Article 153 of the Weimar Constitution), allowing expropriation without due process for "public welfare." These measures reflected socialist central planning, where property rights were subordinated to collective (national) needs.

The party's platform included several policies that echoed socialist ideas like state intervention for wealth redistribution, worker collective ownership, while rejecting Marxist internationalism.

Nazi ideology emphasized "the common good before the private good," contrasting with capitalist individualism. Hitler’s vision was a "German socialist" society with a planned economy where entrepreneurs acted as state representatives.

You haven't outed anyone, mhaze.

//Now that I’ve outed [you] as making up quotes…//

You nitpicked over an inconsequential difference of wording. Speaking of which:

“...the elimination of the Marxist poison from the body of the nation.” (Mein Kampf, Murphy translation, p. 551)

Here you go:
https://greatwar.nl/books/meinkampf/meinkampf.pdf

Because, let face it, you don't reeeeally have a copy of Mein Kampf, do you?

//...since [Mein Kampf is] irrelevant.//

Yet you spent all of yesterday on what Hitler “said,” now tossed his book aside because it undercut you. Ideology written in the 1920s shaped the 1930s. You don’t get to dismiss the blueprint because it predates the house.

//...(NSDAP)—explicitly included "socialist," reflecting an intent to appeal to working-class voters and differentiate from traditional capitalism.//

- Notice how you had to smuggle in your own gloss: "...and differentiate from traditional capitalism."
- Volksgemeinschaft = ultra-nationalist anti-class myth, not left egalitarianism.
- Cherry-picking Goebbels' early Strasserite flirtations ignores that he later toed Hitler’s line. And Hitler crushed the Strasser wing in 1934.

//Private ownership but state control reduced owners to ‘government pensioners’.//

That is dictatorship, not socialism. Socialism means worker or public ownership. Under Nazism, ownership and profits remained private, provided you obeyed. Coercive corporatism is not left-wing.

//Businesses seized; owners replaced with loyalists.//

That is patronage and authoritarian capture, not socialism. Swapping in party cronies is not collective ownership.

//1933: Article 153 nullified, allowing expropriation for ‘public welfare’.//

And who got expropriated? Political and racial enemies. Allies in big business thrived. Confiscation as persecution or war prep is not worker redistribution.

//Platform echoed socialist ideas—redistribution, worker ownership.//

The 1920 program was agitprop. In power, Nazis did the opposite: smashed unions, banned strikes, froze wages, and handed industry to loyal industrialists. Rhetoric is not policy.

//Common good before private good; entrepreneurs as state reps.”

That is fascist corporatism: the state directs, capital executes, profits stay private. “Common good” meant racial-national goals, not egalitarian redistribution.

So, you still haven’t shown Nazism was left-wing. What you’ve described is authoritarian corporatism. Crushing unions, outlawing Marxists, and purging the Strasserites is not a left-wing project.

Try again.

John

Comparisons with Nazism and Stalinism are not recent attempts to smear the left (or right). In 1944, when both Hitler and Stalin were still in power, Hayek pointed out that fascism and communism were not ideological polar opposites, but had much in common. Both are collectivist ideologies that elevate the perceived group interest above the rights and freedoms of the individual. In both cases that group interest was crystalised in the ideology and actions of a single party that became the sole legitimate political entity. Both relied heavily on state control of the economy and society. Both had contempt for liberal democratic values. Both were rooted in a sense of collective grievance that fuelled hatred for the perceived class/race/national enemy that was used to justify oppression and the use of force. Both wanted to overthrow the status quo, and considered it legitimate to achieve that through violence. They hated each other and wanted to destroy each other. But they were like each other in many respects.

Proponents of 1940s style communism and fascism are pretty rare in western countries nowadays. But the modern ideologies that are often labelled “far left” or “far right” often have things in common with them - contempt for contemporary western culture, a sense of collective grievance based in group identity, a sense of betrayal by perceived elites; trashing established institutions and norms of behaviour; indifference to the rule of law; contempt for democracy; the cult of personality; excusing political violence.

It may be inaccurate to describe modern political movements as Nazi or Stalinist, but where there are points of similarity it is usually a bad sign.

Rhian,

I don’t disagree with you. Hayek was right that fascism and Stalinism shared authoritarian traits, and the “family resemblance” of totalitarian systems is real enough. Both crushed liberal democracy, elevated the party above the individual, and used violence to enforce conformity. On that level, yes, there are parallels.

Where I’d draw the line, though, is between similarities of method and differences of ideology. Stalin’s communism abolished private profit and built a class-based internationalist project; Nazism preserved profit, relied on big business, and pursued a racial-nationalist vision.

Both were brutal, but they were brutal in different directions.

And that’s why I’ve pushed back so hard on mhaze’s framing. It’s one thing to say “fascism and Stalinism had common authoritarian features” - I think most of us here would accept that - it’s another thing altogether to say “Nazis were left-wing.” That’s not a sober analysis of authoritarianism, it’s a rhetorical trick to smear the modern left.

So yes, I take your point on the dangers of movements that echo those traits today. But we should be careful not to let that sensible warning get blurred into the attempts of mhaze et al. to collapse everything into “the left = Nazis,” or the broader trope where left = authoritarian and right = liberty.

That’s what this is ultimately about for them, and it’s where the history gets misused.