Were the Nazis left-wing or right-wing

My co-host, liberalcommentator Dr. Patrick O’ Heffernan, raised this salient question during ourradio program The Fairness Doctrine. On October 26, we interviewed JoshuaRubenstein, the author of “Leon Trotsky-A Revolutionary Life.” Mr. Rubenstein mentionedwhat has become received wisdom which was that Stalin and the German Communistparty had helped to elect Hitler in 1933. I responded with the observation thatthe communists were probably motivated in their support for the Nazis by aninterest in turning Germany in a leftward political direction.

Rubenstein responded toPatrick’s follow-up question, in a condescending tone, that of course the Naziswere right-wing and that one should not be fooled by the word “Socialist” whichis part of the name of the National Socialist Nazi Party. Rubenstein based hisclaim that Nazism was right-wing on the claims that the Nazis were nationalistsand anti-Semites with the implication that these two principles should beconsidered as right-wing. This serious assertion, which constitutes conventionalthinking on the left, deserves a response.

Firstly, the right advocates,as I pointed out to Rubenstein, limited government and Hitler was not exactlyan advocate of limited government. The right understanding of nationalisminvolves an overall love of one’s home country whether that country is theUnited States, Canada, Mexico etc. The left understanding of nationalism, onthe other hand, involves a love of the State. In this sense the left ishyper-nationalist as opposed to the more conservative nationalism. The leftviews the State as a redemptive force that should be empowered to changesociety and to literally change human nature through programs thatre-distribute wealth from the private earner and through bureaucracies made upof “enlightened” experts who would use the force of law to inveigh themselvesinto all matters of the private lives of the citizen.

This, obviously, describesNazism to a tee. This also clarifies why the Nazis were “right-wing” in thatthey were to the right of the Communists who sought total control by the Stateover all aspects of human life in their quest to establish a world ant colony,what they called a “collective.” The Nazis supported State Socialism, a highdegree of public ownership within a super state. The Communists supported WorldSocialism, what they euphemistically referred to as Internationalism, andoutright total ownership of all property and business. This is why Communism isto the left of Nazism and Nazism is to the right of Communism. Both ideologiesand both systems are, obviously, to the left of the American system ofindividual rights and private ownership.

The second piece of evidencepresented by Josh Rubenstein in his assertion that Nazism is right-wing, thatNazism is anti-Semitic is more complex. It should be noted that there are anti-Semitesand racists on both the left and the right and in this regard the left ishardly pure. As a matter of philosophy, the right rejects anti-Semitism andracism as these tendencies represent “barnyard socialism” as was noted byconservative philosopher Ayn Rand. Indeed anti-Semitism and racism assigncollective characteristics to groups of people based upon their ancestry andthis idea runs contrary to the core conservative tenet which is respect for theinherent rights of the individual. Judaism and Christianity, when viewed asphilosophies, also reject racism as the Judeo-Christian understanding is thateach and every individual is uniquely created in the image of God and shouldnot be in any way viewed as part of any group. This view explains in part why bothNazism and Communism were anti-Jewish and anti-Christian.

Furthermore, it should benoted, the father of Communism, Karl Marx, was a vicious anti-Semite who referredto Jews in his 1843 book “On the Jewish Question” as “self-interested hucksterswho should be annihilated. Marx also profoundly influenced Hitler how creditshim with providing the foundation of his political education in his autobiographyMein Kampf.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm

Here are the 25 points of the Nazi party - they are clearly leftwing socialists, nationalists, and racists.

I once asked a liberal who insisted the Nazis were “right wing” what it was about them that was “right wing” and his response I remember to this day... “They wanted to KILL people.”. So there is THAT.

Then there is THIS........

1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.

2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations; and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.

4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.

5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.

6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the State shall belong only to citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen.

We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby men are appointed to posts by favor of the party without regard to character and fitness.

7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should not be possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.

8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately.

9. All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.

10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.

15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.

18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.

19. We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist ordering of the world, be replaced by German common law.

20. In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.

21. The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.

22. We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a national (folk) army.

23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press, we demand:

(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.

(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State. They must not be published in the German language.

(c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich.

Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand legal action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.

24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.

The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about from within on the principle:

COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD

25. In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.

The formation of professional committees and of committees representing the several estates of the realm, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority shall be carried out by the federal states.

The leaders of the party undertake to promote the execution of the foregoing points at all costs, if necessary at the sacrifice of their own lives.

Hitler himself made it quite clear:

"The Party is all-embracing. It rules our lives in all their breadth and depth. We must therefore develop branches of the Party in which the whole of individual life will be reflected. Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the Party as the representative of the general good. There will be no license, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself. This is Socialism - not such trifles as the private means of production. Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers. All that, you see, is unessential. Our Socialism goes far deeper..."
"The people about us are unaware of what is really happening to them. The gaze fascinated at one or two superficialities, such as possessions and income or rank and other outworn conceptions. As long as these are kept intact, they are quite satisfied. But in the meantime, they have entered a new relation; a powerful social force has caught them up. They themselves are changed. What are ownership and income to that? Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings."
Adolph Hitler - Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction pp 191-193

There's also an excellent discussion - and refutation - of the bogus 'Nazis were right-wingers' trope in Jean-Francois Revel's Last Exit to Utopia. This is noe of the Left's most persistent lies, and it should be overturned and shoved back in their faces at every opportunity.

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