The ºÃÉ«tv Socialist German Workers' Party, pejoratively and more commonly known as the Nazi Party, terrorized Europe in the 1930s and '40s, systematically murdering six million Jews as well as millions of others.
Some social media accounts seize on the party's proper name in arguing the Nazis, who have become synonymous with fascism and the far right, were actually socialists.
Many of these assertions plainly or implicitly disparage current-day social democratic parties and their leaders by likening them to the Nazis. Such claims have circulated online for years.
However, historians point out the Nazi Party did not embrace socialism, as it is commonly defined, in any significant sense. Once in power, the Nazis were enemies of genuine socialism and aimed to wipe out the political left.
A recurring claim on social media
"Amazing how the Democrats are so willing to scream that Republicans are Nazis, but they are the ones who are pushing the socialist (Nazi) agenda!" said an Aug. 25 on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"The Nazi regime was a full-blown socialist regime with a completely socialized economy. So if socialism is far left extremism, so is Nazism," a Facebook user on Aug. 12.
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre last month on social media to mark Black Ribbon Day, an international day of remembrance for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism.
"May we never forget the countless atrocities committed by these socialist ideologies, and may we honour those who fought to liberate Europe," he said on X.
"Canada must always stand against socialism for freedom and democracy."
A 'cynical trick of language'
The ºÃÉ«tv Encyclopedia as "a political doctrine that criticizes the existence of social, economic and political inequality in society. Seeking to lessen class inequality, socialists call for a redistribution of power from the affluent owners to the working class."
It would be an enormous understatement to say that Hitler understood the value of language, reads an Encyclopedia Britannica , "Were the Nazis Socialists?"
"Propaganda played a significant role in his rise to power," the article says. "To that end, he paid lip service to the tenets suggested by a name like ºÃÉ«tv Socialist German Workers’ Party, but his primary — indeed, sole — focus was on achieving power whatever the cost and advancing his racist, antisemitic agenda."
It was hoped that the combination of nationalism and socialism would attract a class of society who was frightened by communism, and felt themselves to be patriotic Germans, who nonetheless had been failed by the traditional bourgeois liberal or conservative parties, said Kristin Semmens, an associate professor of history at the University of Victoria. "It was more a cynical trick of language and propaganda than a real commitment to socialist values."
The party drew support from the industrial elite, who supported the Nazis in large measure because they correctly saw them as opponents of socialism, she noted. "Hitler aligned himself with these 'accomplices' — the nationalist conservatives — against the left throughout the earliest years after the Nazis' seizure of power. Again, something he would not have done had he himself been a socialist."
Basic elements of capitalist economy remained
In 1933, once Hitler became chancellor, communists, socialists, democrats and Jews were purged from the German civil service, and trade unions were outlawed the following month, the Britannica article notes.
"That July Hitler banned all political parties other than his own, and prominent members of the German Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party were arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps."
Hitler ordered the 1934 murder of Gregor Strasser, the former leader of the party's left wing who had pushed for social reforms.
"(The Nazis) outlawed socialist parties, they burned books by socialist thinkers, and sent socialists to concentration camps," Semmens said. "The enemy of Nazism was 'true' socialism. The Nazis wanted to exterminate the political left."
It is true that the Nazi regime intervened heavily in the economy in the 1930s during the lead-up to the Second World War, said Pamela Swett, a history professor and dean of the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University.
"They do this because their main goal in these years is to prepare Germany for war. So they must intervene to push resources toward rearmament. However, the basic characteristics of a capitalist economy remained in place."
Private property and private ownership of industry remained, with the notable exclusion of Jews, whose property "was stolen from them in a variety of ways," she added.
Eli Nathans, an associate professor of history at Western University, said the Nazi regime simply seized the property it thought might be useful to it in conquered countries, from the gold reserves to the industries and raw materials and — as slave labourers — the population. "Perhaps one could call that socialism, but theft is more accurate."
While the Soviet variant of Communism was also aggressive and murderous, there are many variants of socialism whose adherents have made opposition to imperialism and racism a key part of their own policy goals, said Nathans.
"Almost all socialists in Europe in the 1930s feared and hated the Nazi Party and, for that matter, the Italian Fascist Party."
Nathans said that when highlighting similarities between Nazism and Soviet Communism, the term totalitarian would be more accurate than socialist.
Sources
Claims can be seen on X (), () and (), as well as on Facebook ()
ºÃÉ«tv Encyclopedia ()
Washington Post op-ed article ()
Encyclopedia Britannica article ()
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