Were the Nazis Socialists?

Every time someone dares to ponder this question online, a tidal wave of unhappy socialists hits back. Accusations of stupidity, the distortion of history, and a lack of understanding tend to follow. Some imply darker motives, such as Nazi sympathisation. These flare-ups intrigued me—The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

I remember being quite shocked many decades ago when I first discovered that the word Nazi stood for National Socialist. The word is a portmanteau, meaning it was created by merging two other words. Nazis were, by definition, members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. They saw themselves as socialists. Adolf Hitler always referred to himself as a socialist and even personally added the word Socialist to his party’s name, alongside the word Workers. It all feels a bit socialistic to me.

It has to be conceded that Hitler was not a trustworthy man, so it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he utilised socialism to pursue his goals. But let us forget, for a moment, that the first political party Hitler tried to join was the German Socialist Party and that he helped found the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Let us start by defining what Socialism means. It is an economic and political system where the community, or the state, owns the general means of production for the benefit of the people.

Followers of a Welshman, Robert Owen, began calling themselves socialists in 1841. Owen is looked upon as one of the founders of the Co-operative Movement in Britain. He said that workers should own the companies they worked for and share the profits among themselves.

To most people today, Karl Marx is seen as the father of socialism—his name being synonymous with a particular vein of socialism, known as Marxism. His fundamental idea was that the world consists of two opposing classes—the working class, or proletariat, versus the richer capitalists, who exploit the workers.  He thought that when the workers realised their exploitation, they would revolt and take over ownership of production. He believed that the workers when in power, would not exploit others. His ultimate aim was communism, which he defined as a stateless, classless society based on free enterprise.

On the 24th of February, 1920, Hitler declared a 25-point policy programme for the German Workers’ Party. A few weeks later, the party changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Throughout the 1920s, others sought to change the 25 stated policies within this programme. Hitler suppressed every instance of programmatic change.

This list of policies is worth reading to see what Hitler was ultimately aiming to achieve. By differentiating the 25 Points into two categories, it is evident that the majority of policies lean towards socialism: socialist-oriented, 14; nationalist-oriented, 11. Hitler wanted to expand old-age welfare, break the slavery of rent, nationalise businesses, create profit-sharing, and reform land ownership—all socialist aims that are still embraced today. Evidently, Hitler was not a capitalist—he berated capitalism. He referred to it as the activity of “democratic warmongers and their Jewish-capitalist backers.” He believed that his war against Britain was a war against capitalism; the German welfare state against the plutocratic-capitalist Britain. He even linked the war with anti-colonialism and the Arab struggle against Britain in Palestine. When socialists acquire a new mantra they run with it forever, regardless of facts. #FreePalestine

“Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxists have stolen the term and confused its meaning… We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national.” – Adolf Hitler, 1923

Thus, it is evident that Hitler and, by extension, the Nazi party, were socialists - just a different kind of socialist compared to the usually accepted definition of today. The Nazis stated that they wanted a type of socialism that only benefited the German state and people—national socialism—and so produced a blatantly biased approach to socialism. Some would argue that all forms of socialism tend towards nationalism and racism— just look at what the Chinese government is doing to the Uyghurs or the genocide in Cambodia, where ethnic and religious minorities were systematically targeted. All this would sound very familiar to a Nazi living a hundred years ago. Unsurprisingly, socialist countries tend to emphasise strong boundaries - not very international, of them. Unless, of course, it is to prevent their own citizens from wandering off to a better life in a capitalist country.

It is occasionally said that Hitler could not have been a socialist because he executed many socialists. Again, this is true—Hitler killed many socialists. He was an equal-opportunities psychopath; an early proponent of equity. It did not matter what race, colour, or creed you were, if he did not like you, then you died. We know he did not like internationalist socialists—he considered them an enemy. He also did not like communism, which he referred to as “Bolshevik-plutocratic world conspirators and their Jewish wire-pullers.” When it came to competition, he eradicated it.

Socialism arrives out of revolution. Once over, the purge begins. If we want to talk about the top murderers of other socialists, then we must start with Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Reaching the top of any socialist state requires a level of brutality not within most people. Northern Ireland has a history of Protestants and Catholics murdering each other—both groups claim they are Christian. Sunnis and Shiites are both Muslim sects and kill each other every day in the Middle East. Many ideologies split and follow different paths, yet claim affiliation with the same ideology. The Nazis followed their own version of socialism, but socialism it was. The sharing of resources within a defined group has always been practised in a historical sense. It was our way of life when we lived in small tribes. We shared food for we were all related and pulled together to survive. I believe this innate sense of a very basic type of sharing socialism is programmed into our DNA. This is why the idea of a socialist utopia will not die.

There is a huge difference between sharing in a small family-oriented tribe and sharing in a nation-state of millions. Even after the undisputable atrocities of 20th-century socialism, the idea of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” still reverberates and remains popular. It seems we cannot fight our DNA. This is not an academic paper, and I am no historian; I wrote this article for my own benefit and pursuit of knowledge. It is a complicated topic that could take a lifetime to unpack and analyse. But from where I am standing, in the broad use of the term socialist, the Nazis were definitely socialists. Our political divide should no longer be viewed as a left/right spectrum, for this makes no sense in today’s world, but rather as statism versus individual liberty. Through this lens, you will find the Nazis sat very comfortably alongside all the other socialists.