EDITION Felipe van Deursen
It was much more to the right than to the left. Despite being called the National Party socialist of the German Workers, Nazism despised Soviet-style communism. It had more in common with economic liberalism, a traditionally right-wing banner, although it also had elements in common with the left. (see below).
More important than being on the right or the left, what really defined Adolf Hitler’s policies and goals was neither capitalism nor socialism: it was racism. Nazism, as it was consolidated in the 1930s, was characterized by a nationalism for the few, the “Aryan” Germans. Any other group that did not fit this could not participate in the German state.
RACIST MIXTUREBA
Understand the elements of Nazism
A ZONE
Nazism was clearly anti-communist, but it was also anti-capitalist. This kind of third way – which manifested itself, as we would say in the 21st century, “against everything that is there” – said that Karl Marx was hateful for being a Jew, and liberal capitalism was hateful for being led by Jews.
LIAR NAME
The “Socialist” in the party’s name was political propaganda, as workers formed the country’s electoral base. The idea was to attract this public, until then linked to the Social Democratic Party. The Communist Party of Germany was really leftist and had nothing in common with the Nazis.
OPPOSITION DESTROYED
Until it came to power, the Nazi Party had a socialist group. Their leader was Gregor Strasser, commander of the SA armed militia. But, not by chance, Strasser was killed in 1934, on the Night of the Long Daggers, an occasion that Hitler used to remove his opponents. Then the SA lost power to a new elite force, the SS.
COMPLICATED WORLD
The ideology of Nazism shows that the world was – and is – more complex than the traditional division between right and left. Capitalist leaders, such as Winston Churchill, and communists, such as Josef Stalin, agreed with concepts of racial superiority, which were fashionable at the time, but they never openly advocated the extermination of an entire people, as Hitler did.
RELATIVE CONTROL
The Nazis used the state to control the economy, but they never thought of socializing all assets. In practice, they were not totally against the capitalist liberals, as long as they were in favor of the “real Germans”, the “Aryans”. That is, what mattered in the name of the party was not the “Socialist”, it was the “National” – and “National” meant a specific group of Germans
CONSULTANCY Rodrigo Trespach, researcher and author of Stories Not (or Badly) Told: World War IIAdriano Gianturco, political science professor at Ibmec (Belo Horizonte, MG)
SOURCES Books Hitlerby Ian Kershaw, and Hitler’s Empireby Mark Mazower