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[–] [S] 22 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Explanation: The Nazis were, formally, the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Some people take this to mean that the Nazis were, in some meaningful way, 'left' or socialist.

The truth is that they were neither. The name was made to appeal to the working-class by feigning interest in workers' issues, but the Nazis drew overwhelmingly from, and addressed the pet issues of, the disaffected middle class. While there were less capitalist-friendly factions in the party (notably, the working-class SA and the Strasserists), they were not what we would recognize as left-wing, instead representing a distinctly reactionary take on opposition to capitalism more in-line with Catholic conservatives expressing resentment of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century.

Those less-capitalist-friendly factions were suppressed in favor of Hitler's alliance with land magnates and capitalists in 1934, and so became moot in any case.

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    [–] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It's hard to know if the dipshits who say this are really that stupid or if they're ideological zombies just saying what they think will win an argument in the moment.

    But I think it's both.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    When Benny Shaps says it, I think it's about winning an argument but it's so hard to tell. I can imagine some people living in their bubble for so long that they start believing their own crap.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, I think there's a distinction between the "intellectuals" and the rank-and-file idiots.

    Shapiro once insisted that his wife told him vaginas should be bone-dry to win an argument, so I think you're right there.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Omg. If they believe that, and they believe that they’re the “right” wtf do they believe that’s more conservative than being a Nazi?!

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    It's like how the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is in fact a death squad that uses food as a lure for hunger games style massacres.

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  • 42 comments in c/historymemes@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] [S] 105 points 1 year ago (15 children)

    Explanation: The Nazis were, formally, the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Some people take this to mean that the Nazis were, in some meaningful way, 'left' or socialist.

    The truth is that they were neither. The name was made to appeal to the working-class by feigning interest in workers' issues, but the Nazis drew overwhelmingly from, and addressed the pet issues of, the disaffected middle class. While there were less capitalist-friendly factions in the party (notably, the working-class SA and the Strasserists), they were not what we would recognize as left-wing, instead representing a distinctly reactionary take on opposition to capitalism more in-line with Catholic conservatives expressing resentment of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century.

    Those less-capitalist-friendly factions were suppressed in favor of Hitler's alliance with land magnates and capitalists in 1934, and so became moot in any case.

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  • [–] 43 points 1 year ago* (13 children)

    All completely correct, but compared to today's Nazis, Hitler's NSDAP still had some socialist elements. Not that this was much more than propaganda, but in the Third Reich there were indeed housing estates and holiday resorts for workers, state job creation measures such as the massive expansion of motorways (mainly needed for war purposes, of course) and the like.

    Of course, the NSDAP was anything but a party concerned with the interests of the population, but even the few "socialist" measures imposed by Hitler's regime have been completely abandoned by today's Nazis.

    What I mean is that today's Nazis, especially the US variety, are actually almost worse because they are purely neo-capitalist fascists - in this sense, they can really only be called Nazis (National Socialists) to emphasize their ideological proximity to the inhuman Hitler regime - but there are actually no socialist elements left in their political programs whatsoever, not even a hint (same goes for the AfD, a unfortunately quite prominent neo-nazi party in today's Germany).

    Besides all the hate and racism, one thing they still have in common to this day is that they always pretend to be "defending" the interests of the working class or socially disadvantaged groups (if they fit their heinous racial ideology, of course) - but today that's even less true than it was in Hitler's day.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    The Nazis literally did the first mass privatization of public services and dismantled social services in germany when they took power, I wouldn't say they had some socialist elements.

    Even the elements they brought in, that people normally call socialist, but are just social-democrat creations, was because of the appeasement for the middle class, not the lower class.

    Itally did it too in the 20s, here's a source for the german part: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00473.x .

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    They had a socialist sub faction in the Strasserites who wanted to implement a sort of nationalistic class warfare. But they had lost the power struggle within the party by 1928 and by 1934 their last remnants were cleansed. The bulk of the Nazi leadership was never socialist and never interested in socialism.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yeah, and the GOP also has some socialist elements by virtue signaling to the "working class".

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago*

    They don't – they're just pretending. The same is true of the AfD in Germany, which is heavily oriented toward the GOP, or rather MAGA: these are capitalists who are supported by billionaires. Nothing in their programs can be called socialist, even superficially - but unfortunately the idiots who vote for these people don't read their programs (Project 2025 was known before the election; the AfD's election program is thoroughly neoliberal (by which I mean US style capitalism, deregulation, and the dismantling of the welfare state that still somewhat exists in Germany)).

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    all correct. but to be fair: not even the left of that time actually cared about the working class.

    the ideologically motivated for sure, pretty sure you would have found them on the extreme right too - somewhere. but the regimes, which sprung out of any ideology of that time cared nothing than in propaganda for working people and the weak.

    nowadays it is difficult as well, to find any social security better than lip service and improvement of statistics.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    That may be true, but what I can say is that people in Germany are much better off today, much, much better - if you have even a modicum of common sense, it's incomprehensible to me how this shit can still be going on today.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    not arguing against that. just pointing out that regimes of that time used to do a lot of talking, if it comes to taking care of their people. not that much of doing.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    And you are absolutely right to emphasize this, precisely because the lessons of history seem to have been forgotten in the US, Germany, and elsewhere in the world: Think for yourself, inform yourself independently and according to comprehensible, objective criteria (which is entirely possible today, unlike in the past), and do not believe politicians unquestioningly - no matter what "coleur" they might come in.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Die Heimat and III. Weg both still call for Hitlerite Kraft durch Freude and other programs solely benefiting the "ethnic German worker".

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Yes, but none of that will be implemented if the goddamn Nazis take over the government. IMO they are even worse now: in the Third Reich, these programs actually existed - even if they didn't serve the population, of course, but rather the military buildup.

    The best example for how Nazis act now is Trump and his henchmen: These crooks are arming themselves too (the budget for the guy's secret police force (ICE - for fighting a civil war if needed) is set at an astronomical 75 billion), but it's not the state that's paying for it; it's being financed through not even well-hidden tax increases (tariffs, which are nothing more than an increase in value added tax). So: no cheap workers' housing estates, no "Kraft durch Freude" (there were holiday home estates for workers on Sylt, where today the high society vacations), but even worse living conditions for the idiots who voted for Trump.

    Please don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that anything about the NSDAP was even remotely desirable. I'm saying that the MAGA Nazis and their equivalent in Germany, the AfD, are even worse when it comes to the lie that these parties are fighting for "the little people."

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  • Those less-capitalist-friendly factions were suppressed in favor of Hitler’s alliance with land magnates and capitalists in 1934

    An event known as "The Night of the Long Knives". Interestingly enough, Hitler's purge acquired that name because he himself used the phrase (which dates to the Middle Ages) in a post-purge speech, only he used it to describe the alleged actions that Ernst Roehm and the other SA leaders had been planning to carry out against Hitler. Journalists and historians thought otherwise and attached the phrase to Hitler's actions.

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  • [–] 126 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 31 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    You mean to tell me North Korea isn’t a democracy?

    /s

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    nO tRuE sCoTsMaN

    Lol I fucking hate this.

    Every so often, I see a "Socialism will never work", and I say USSR and China isn't really socialist and that socialism can be democratic, some reactionary always be like "oooh look at me, me big smart, me can read a logical fallacies wikipedia page 🤓" then proceeds to incorrectly apply the logical fallacy.

    Then sometimes they call me a tankie.

    But its actually funny because on the same thread, the actual tankies come and claim that China is an "Actually Existing Socialist" country.

    🤣

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I don't know why, how or when did the FaScIsM Is lEfTiSt mUsSoLiNi wAs a lEfTiSt narrative get so popular but it is the stupidest shit I've ever heard.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago

    Hey a PugJesus political post I can upvote. Nice.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago*

    As a liberal/centrist I do agree that that is one of the top dumbest political takes. And I've heard "my side" do it way too many times.

    It's perfectly ok to hate nazis and communists for different reasons. You don't have to discover a unified theory from your butt.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Nazism was a right wing movement of Christian Nationalists

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    National socialists that only wanted socialism for their true Christian evangelical Germans. And no one else. Catholics sort of stood up to them, which is why we have vague references to religious institutions resisting nazis. But yeah Christians went balls deep almost immediately into being nazis.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago*

    Maybe a few catholics with an actual spine and a conscience stood up to the Nazis, but the catholic church as such supported them. Guess who played a major part in organising the "rat lines" for smuggling wanted Nazi war criminals into South America after WW2?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    Everyone knows Hitler was unable to lie

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  • [+] -50 points 1 year ago* (8 children)

    Per definition anything bad that happens under the name socialism isn't socialism. It's the only ideology that has no downsides!

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    tbf yes normally there is a lot of special pleading around here but in this case the nazi's were socialists in the same way the democratic republic of north korea is a democracy

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  • [–] [S] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Nah, I mean, when decentralized workers' control in Anarchist Catalonia led to many local workers' councils prioritizing their own desires over the war effort even in the face of a literal fascist victory, that's a pretty distinct and socialist downside, for example.

    But when a bunch of ghouls slap a coat of red paint or a few words on an ideology, that ain't enough to qualify as socialist.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago

    When you butcher the definition of socialism, it’s easy to find downsides. Socialism has downsides, but when you’re arguing with somebody on the right, they generally have no idea what the definition is. So all the downsides they bring up have nothing to do with socialism.

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