Was Hitler economically left wing?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Oh for God's sake. No.

This issue seems to be raised on the forum a couple of times every year and I'm now tired of bothering to refute it in any detail, so I'll just note a couple of points:

1. No credible historian of the twentieth century believes that the Nazi regime in general or Hitler in particular were 'left-wing' in any respect. This includes some rather right-wing economic historians who specialise in aspects of Nazi economic policy, so this is not an example of a notoriously lefty profession closing ranks.

2. Nazi economic policy was geared entirely towards rearmament (which was achieved via an extraordinarily complicated form of fraud) and not towards any remotely left-wing (however defined) objective. Contrary to what is frequently asserted, the standard of living for the working class in Germany actually declined during the pre-war Nazi period as wages were kept under tight control by means of... well... authoritarian rule.

3. German industrialists (most of them) did remarkably well out of the Nazi regime and this was intentional (more so, in some ways, than in contemporary economies). The examples of Krupp and IG Farben are well known, but they were merely extreme examples of a more general pattern. The close relationship between capital and the regime was good for both of them; as profits soared, so did corporate contributions to the Nazi Party (why, yes. This was a rather corrupt regime).

4. A Trade Union controlled by the government is not a Trade Union.

Fundamentally, you can only argue that 'Hitler was economically left wing' if you define 'economically left wing' as 'prepared to intervene in the economy in order to make it grow'. Which is absurd.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One of these days, one of these threads will send our Al on a murderous rampage.

I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.

I like the area I live in too much for that. You all better hope that I never read such a thread elsewhere though...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The DAF was not a "trade union" controlled by government a la the Soviet Bloc (which, of course, are no trade unions either as they served very few of trade unions' traditional functions - but then the Soviet Union's economic policies weren't sanely describable as left wing, whatever the rhetoric. As some western Communists noticed, to their horror, as early as the 1920s. And mostly kept mum about.) It was run by the employers - not just de facto; officially - and served none of trade unions' traditional functions.

Yes. This as well. Absolutely.

He was, certainly for his time, left of center economically.

'Certainly', you say? That's an interesting choice of word. So... how, exactly, are you defining 'left of centre economically'?

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Laissez-faire Conservatives? In Britain? In the Nineteenth Century?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

His goal makes no difference.  His actions do.

A ridiculous argument that - as far as I'm aware of - no credible historian of Germany in that period (or of social policy!) has ever actually made. It's also worth remembering that the social security system created by Bismarck in an (utterly unsuccessful, as it happens) attempt to blunt the rise of the SPD would not be described by anyone as a 'welfare state' if it existed today. For one thing, it only covered a minority of the population and didn't include unemployment payments.

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What do you think that word means?

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Being in favour of more state intervention in the economy than the people running Britain and France in the late nineteenth century is not saying a lot!

And, in any case, has little to do with any reasonable definition of 'left' and 'right' both at the time and now.

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Beyond irrelevant.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's so nice not to have to worry about refuting large sections of horror because someone else has done so already.

So just a little bit to deal with:

As for the initial Nazi Party manifesto, it is relevant to the underlying ideology.  There was not any great love for big business or large landowners.  Hitler abandoned it, and that was partly responsible for the "Night of the Long Knives."  He supported business when it was in his interest, but there was no great love for it.

Let's take this in little sections.

1. Nazi underlying ideology = virulent nationalism/militarism, an especially nasty take on popular racial theories, anti-semitism (part of the former but enough of an issue, obviously, to deserve a mention on its own) and anti-socialism, combined with weird fetishes regarding leaders, action, and so on. Everything else was window dressing or a cynical attempt to win support (both electorally and in terms of powerful individuals and interest groups). If you think Hitler or any other leading Nazi gave a sh!t about whatever drivel the party adopted as its platform in its early years, then you should probably avoid further comment on the issue. Because there is just a little bit of a consensus over this.

2. Yes, the Nazis did not have much in the way of 'great love' for big business or for large landowners (or, indeed, for anyone other than themselves. Trite, I know, but essentially true). They weren't even vaguely hostile to them though, and formed a mutually beneficial (in the short term) relationship with both, especially the former. Which is what matters. Not what was in some badly written platform that wasn't even relevant when it was drafted.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

[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.