[SonOfDarkSkies]

And the NAZIs primary vehicle to power was angry labor unions.

Shirer would disagree with that point.

The Nazi/Hitler rise to power was due to the use of street violence (the SA) and alliances with the Army, the political elite, big business, and the junkers/agricultural estates (in that order).

Hitler paid only lip service to the labor unions and gave them the stiff arm by placing all authority with management to control wages and employment. In fact shortly after coming to power, Hitler abolished trade unions.

Long story short, attempts to clarify the political spectrum so as to link Hitler to socialism and communism is a silly exercise and there is a tremendous amount of disagreement with it among political scientists and historians. The NAZI party might have started out with many socialist components but Hitler is quite difficult to place on the spectrum. He was a malignant narcissistic monster who could and did move quite nimbly around the political spectrum when he thought it would gain him more power.

If Hitler had an ideology other than himself, it was German nationalism and antisemitism.

[Michael Eden]

Obviously, you're right about the SA. But the SA thugs p쑰primarily went to and broke up the opposition's rallies. Hitler HIMSELF obviously had his own rallies. In addition to attacking his rivals, he had to establish his own base - and the backbone of that base was working men. Hitler most certainly DID reach out to the working man who had been previously attracted to communism, arguing that under the Marxist class system "workingmen have no country." I'm looking at page 70 of Liberal Fascism, in which Goldberg interacts with Shirer. Shirer says the Nazis aimed first to "destroy the left" before they went after the traditional right. And Goldberg says the reason for the this was that "the Nazis could much more easily defeat opponents on the left because they appealed to the same social base, used the same langugage, and thought in the same categories." Goldberg says on page 72, "In short, the battle between the Nazis and the communists was a case of two dogs fighting for the same bone."

[Michael Eden]

Obviously, you're right about the SA. But the SA thugs p쑰primarily went to and broke up the opposition's rallies. Hitler HIMSELF obviously had his own rallies. In addition to attacking his rivals, he had to establish his own base - and the backbone of that base was working men. Hitler most certainly DID reach out to the working man who had been previously attracted to communism, arguing that under the Marxist class system "workingmen have no country." I'm looking at page 70 of Liberal Fascism, in which Goldberg interacts with Shirer. Shirer says the Nazis aimed first to "destroy the left" before they went after the traditional right. And Goldberg says the reason for the this was that "the Nazis could much more easily defeat opponents on the left because they appealed to the same social base, used the same langugage, and thought in the same categories." Goldberg says on page 72, "In short, the battle between the Nazis and the communists was a case of two dogs fighting for the same bone."