Was Hitler economically left wing?

[minionofmidas]

Yet he modeled the German constitution on the US Constitution.

There are hardly any similarity between the German constitution of 1871 and the US Constitution. Only thing they have in common is, that both constituted a federal state, but besides that, nothing.

I think suffrage was identical, for example.

The US Constitution has nothing to say about suffrage.
Meanwhile, in Germany the people were allowed an equal* vote for the one parliament that didn't wield real power.

*more or less

One similarity is that both constitutions were, by design, technically possible but ridiculously difficult to legally amend.

[republicanism]

Tariffs were common, including in the US, so that is not an issue.  I am to familiar with the 1872 law, though wasn't similar the role of landed gentry and nobility in Britain at the time.

Right, but it were conservative forces in Britain and the US that supported this politics of tariffs and noble privilege, too. Just as Bismarck was a conservative, what is my point.

That might have been a factor in Hanover, but Hanover was never known as a conservative bastion.

It was, but that's not important to this question.

In the same period, Bismarck was anti-colonial. 

In parts for conservative reasons, of course.
Colonies meant a stronger and more influential navy, probably at the expense of the army. While the army was in the hands of the Prussian nobility, in the navy lots of commons / bourgeois (not sure about the right English term for "not-blue-blooded") made their career.
Bismarck didn't like the whole idea of colonialism because it meant more openness for oversea influence, an orientation towards the west. Emotionally, he was much closer to Russia, Habsburg, the "Old Europe".

I'm not saying Bismarck was an enlightened 19th Century liberal, but he wasn't, either for German or the world, the ultra rightest political leader either.

Oh, I wouldn't say either that he was the "ultra rightest political leader". He was a German 19th century conservative, no more and no less.

[J. J.]

Tariffs were common, including in the US, so that is not an issue.  I am to familiar with the 1872 law, though wasn't similar the role of landed gentry and nobility in Britain at the time.

Right, but it were conservative forces in Britain and the US that supported this politics of tariffs and noble privilege, too. Just as Bismarck was a conservative, what is my point.

That doesn't make him conservative; it makes him main stream for his day.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Tariffs were a signature policy of most European conservatives in the 19th century (and would remain so deep into the twentieth).

[J. J.]

Tariffs were a signature policy of most European conservatives in the 19th century (and would remain so deep into the twentieth).

And in America.  However, you had liberals like Joseph Chamberlain supporting it.  If you look at his domestic policy, it was possibly the most left wing anywhere at the time.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Tariffs were a signature policy of most European conservatives in the 19th century (and would remain so deep into the twentieth).

...but...but...tariffs are taxes! Taxes are left-wing!!11!

Paleocons STILL support tariffs. I doubt anyone considers Pat Buchanan left-wing, but he's always advocated protectionism and high tariffs.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Tariffs were a signature policy of most European conservatives in the 19th century (and would remain so deep into the twentieth).

And in America.  However, you had liberals like Joseph Chamberlain supporting it.  If you look at his domestic policy, it was possibly the most left wing anywhere at the time.

By the time he was loudly trumpeting the cause of Tariff Reform from the top of a very tall clock tower, 'Radical Joe' had long since ceased to be a Liberal. As I think you know very well. Actual left-wingers in Britain at that time (the early Labour Party and points leftwards, along with the more radical sections of the Liberal Party associated politically with Lloyd George and intellectually with Hobson, Hobhouse and the Hob of radical journalism that was the Manchester Guardian) were generally supportive of free trade, albeit in a fairly unthinking way.

[specific_name]

I would consider this question a litmus test for whether or not you understand history and economics. If you answer "yes" you do not and ought to study up. This topic comes up every few months because most people are unable to understand the environment of the 1930's or the origins of the Nazi Party (especially in relationship to German History). The ideas that came to epitomize the NSDAP are from sources far further back than Marx; generally speaking there is an explicit rejection of Marxian thought in almost all foundational texts of the party. To even bother refuting this assertion feels like spoon feeding lazy people who want to score cheap political points, "Hitler was a lefty." Yes, perhaps if your historical understanding does not extend beyond WWII flicks and a poor reading of Hayek or some other fool cut from the same cloth.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Absolutely not window dressing to the SA, who wanted a "Second Revolution."  There was an element of the Nazi Party that put "socialist" and "workers" into NSDAP.  Now, Hitler was not part of that element, and that element lost out, violently, in 1934.  I've made that distinction.

And why this element lost out, or rather was mercilessly purged and literally destroyed? To allow a permanent alliance between Hitler and business/military establishment. Hitler used those people you were talking about to gain power and then dumped. Very left wing of him

[All Along The Watchtower]

I'd like to know how corporatism is at all left-wing.