White Beard
Active member
Much simpler than that.
Socialism was very popular in Germany during the Weimar period, and there were MANY different socialist organizations demonstrating, counter -demonstrating, and occasionally fighting. Hitler wanted to change the conversation, and he wanted attention, and he wanted traction. The easiest (and most effective, seen with the eye of history) tactic was to call *his* positions socialist - and grab news space, argue directly against ‘those other socialists’ (and eventually against ‘those socialists’).
And so, the NSDAP was born: the National Socialist German Works Party, aka the Nazi Party. Differences between the NSDAP and ‘common’ socialism: the emphasis on NATIONAL socialism made it clear that this was ‘no ordinary socialist crew’; the emphasis on GERMAN WORKS underscored the explicit nationalism of the party, and made it clear that they didn’t care about German workers - though he spoke often and exaltingly of the Volk, the German People, it was never about individual Germans, whatever they did: it was about the German work - the restoration of Germany to ‘respect and pre-eminence’ in Europe, about German science, German advancement, German expansion. Like the Reich, and the Fuhrer, the Volk was an entity in its own right, an instrument of fate, and divine will, driving forward to glory.
It worked, it got him attention, it got others (socialists) arguing with him; but the closest he ever got to anything recognizably socialist was the old US slaver notion that the enslavement of blacks “ennobled” even the least whites. Just so, ‘Aryans’ were the True Race, and it was *their* ascendency, *their* establishment, *their* benefit from the “socialist” fruits of the slave labor of millions. It’s frankly much closer to aristocratic feudalism - but that doesn’t sell well, even now - though today it’s disguised as ‘patriotism’ rather than ‘socialism’.
Nothing I’ve read has suggested that there were in fact *ever* any Nazi socialists...there’s more data on Hitler-loving Nazi Jews than on any genuine socialist party members. As for “the Night of the Long Knives”, that was a real thing. In early days, Hitler tagged Ernst Rohm to put together a street-fighting unit, the SA, who joined in the street demonstrations and turned them into bloody riots. Not an accident, that’s literally what they existed for: it was they who smashed up Jewish shops, they who hung Jews from lampposts, they who attacked Jews at more or less random, simply for being Jewish. It was the SA who carried out the Kristallnacht assaults: windows smashed, businesses looted, shop owners beaten and left in the street, all over Germany. Hitler’s first pet bully-boy brigade eventually outlived their usefulness, as Hitler rose in status, and so Hitler ordered their elimination - including his faithful dog, Rohm, and all his troops. *THAT* was the Night of the Long Knives.
No indication I’ve found that Hitler ever had a change of heart about ANYTHING, and as I’ve pointed out, there was never anything even remotely socialist about the Nazis except the name. I’m pretty sure he did NOT rise to power (on the back of Chancellor Bismarck) as a pretend socialist. Maybe that’s just hindsight born of personal interviews and study...but every indication is that the Nazis had nothing but contempt for socialism, ever. But I can tell you, the very modern myth of the Nazis being socialists is about the ONLY WAY to justify lumping socialism with either authoritarianism, totalitarianism, or despotism.
Hitler was, however, despotic, authoritarian, and totalitarian from the moment he gained power until the day he took his life. And, funny, those regimes across all history, look the same, use the same methods and tactics. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s probably not a budgie - doesn’t matter if it calls itself “Lemmy”, or “Eagle Prime”....
“By their fruits shall ye know them: for an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit, neither can a good tree bring forth evil fruit; therefore, it is by their fruits ye shall know them”
