Were Nazi policies left or right wing?

In a recent posdcast with Destiny, Jordan Peterson dared to question the narrative that the Nazis were right wing, suggesting we should examine their policy.

If people stopped arguing semantics long enough to look into what the Nazis did, they would realize they were more socialist than Bernie Sanders could ever get away with.

The Nazis were the best coalition builders which is what politics is about. The political landscape they were working in was heavily socialist. Marx was from Germany. The first Marxist political party, the Social Democratic Workers Party was founded in Saxony in 1869.

When the Nazis won their election 77% of the vote went to the top three parties all of whom were socialist. The catholics had their own party, and were the 4th largest with 13% of the vote.

The backdrop for the Nazis' rise was the death of god and the emergence of the progressive era. The Nazis may not have been as socialist as some of their rivals, but they were elected by a socialist voter base and they expanded socialist policy more than anyone in German history.

The Nazi did not increase privatization, they doubled expenditure on nationalized companies before the war even started, abolished private charity in favor of a comprehensive welfare state, instituted strict regulations, banned the formation of small companies and engaged in aggressive debt financed infrastructure projects.

They also banned strikes and nationalized the independent labour movement, following the model of Vladamire Lenin. The soviets also had market mechanisms and a "mixed economy."

Nobody accused the Soviets of not being left wing because they were nationalist, but the Soviets were fiercely nationalist, culturally conservative and anti-semitic just like the German National Socialists.

The winning coalition always ends up incorporating some version of a nationalistic narrative or appeal to the country's history. Even supposed anti American progressives do it with the glorification of Abraham Lincoln and FDR.

If progressives didn't understand the value of suppressing this narrative they wouldn't have spent the last 8 years scrubbing the wikipedia page on the Nazis pre war economy, while conservatives and libertarians were arguing trying to figure out the deep meaning behind the inherently relative concept of left and right.

I don’t care what they call it, I only care about what it is.

Fortunately I have a 2016 archived Wikipedia page, from the brief period when it was better than your teachers but not yet politicized, that highlights the Nazis “Pre-war economy: 1933–1939.”

“The Nazis came to power in the midst of Great Depression. The unemployment rate at that point in time was close to 30%.[27] Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht, a former member of the German Democratic Party, as President of the Reichsbank in 1933 and Minister of Economics in 1934.[27]

At first, Schacht continued the economic policies introduced by the government of Kurt von Schleicher in 1932 to combat the effects of the Great Depression. The inherited policies included a large public works programs supported by deficit spending – such as the construction of the Autobahn network – to stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment.[28]

Hitler also spent large amounts of state revenues for a comprehensive social welfare system to combat the ill effects of the Great Depression, promising repeatedly throughout his regime for the “creation of a socially just state.”[29] In 1933, Hitler ordered the “National Socialist People’s Welfare” (NSV) chairman Erich Hilgenfeldt to “see to the disbanding of all private welfare institutions,” in an effort to socially engineer society by selecting who was to receive social benefits.[30]

Under this state-operated welfare structure, Nazis administrators were able to mount an effort into the “cleansing of their cities of ‘asocials.’”[31] Nonetheless, the NSV instituted expansive programs to address the socio-economic inequalities among most German citizens. Joseph Goebbels once remarked about the merits of Hitler’s welfare state in a 1944 editorial “Our Socialism,” where he professed: “We and we alone [the Nazis] have the best social welfare measures. Everything is done for the nation.”[32]

The Great Depression had spurred state ownership in most Western capitalist countries. This also took place in Germany in the years prior to the Nazi political takeover.

During the 12 years of the Third Reich, government ownership expanded greatly into formerly private sectors of strategic industries, aviation, synthetic oil and rubber, aluminum, chemicals, iron and steel, and army equipment.

The capital assets of state-owned industry doubled during this same period, whereby the nationalization caused state-ownership of companies to increase to over 500 businesses.[33] Further, government finances for state-owned enterprises quadrupled from 1933 to 1943.[34]

In other cases, where the Nazi administration wanted additional industry capacity, they would first nationalize and then establish a new state-owned and operated company.

In 1937 Hermann Göring targeted companies producing iron ore, “taking control of all privately owned steelworks and setting up a new company, known as the Hermann Göring Works.”[35] Those industries that somehow remained in private hands often received favoritism, subsides and various state assistance.

Nonetheless, Hitler was “an enemy of free market economics”[36] whose regime was committed to an economic “New Order” controlled by the “Party through a bureaucratic apparatus staffed by technical experts and dominated by political interests,” similar to the economic planning of the Soviet Union.[37]

By the late 1930s, taxation, regulations and general hostility towards the business community were becoming so onerous that one Germany businessman wrote: "These Nazi radicals think of nothing except ‘distributing the wealth,'” while some businessmen were “studying Marxist theories, so that they will have a better understanding of the present economic system."[38] In others cases, National Socialist officials were levying harsh fines of millions of marks for a “single bookkeeping error.” [39]

Although the Nazi Party election programs supported nationalization of major industries, the Nazi government included a few actual policies of privatization in the 1930s.[40] Between the fiscal years 1934/35 and 1937/38, privatization represented 1.4 percent of the German government's revenues.[41]

Among companies that were privatized, were the four major commercial banks in Germany that had all come under public ownership during the prior years; Commerz– und Privatbank, Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft, Golddiskontbank and Dresdner Bank.

Instead of making important investment decisions, and determining the use to which their funds were to be put, the private banks merely had to provide the technical facilities for covering government expenditure or financing new investment—the volume and composition of which had been previously settled by the government.[42]

Also privatized were the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Railways), at the time the largest single public enterprise in the world, the Vereinigte Stahlwerke A.G. (United Steelworks), the second largest joint-stock company in Germany (the largest was IG Farben) and Vereinigte Oberschlesische Hüttenwerke AG, a company controlling all of the metal production in the Upper Silesian coal and steel industry.

The government also sold a number of shipbuilding companies, and enhanced private utilities at the expense of municipally owned utilities companies.[43]

Meanwhile, the Nazis replaced the existing trade unions with the German Labour Front, controlled by the Party. Similar to Vladimir Lenin’s labor policies inside the Soviet Union, the National Socialists banned strikes, sacks and lockouts, essentially nationalizing the independent labor movement.[44] [45]

Furthermore, under Nazi “Germany the official unions have been made compulsory by law”, forcing every worker to join Hitler’s state-owned labor union.[46] The Chamber of Economics (whose president was appointed by the Reich minister of economics) absorbed all existing chambers of commerce.

By 1934 these two groups merged somewhat when the Chamber of Economics also became the economics department of the Labour Front. To aid this, a board of trustees run by representatives of the party, Labour Front and Chamber of Economics was set up to centralize economic activity.[47]

When it came to retail and small business, in order to coordinate workers and small businessmen, shop councils and the so-called Courts of Honour were set up to monitor retail units. Unlike Italian Fascism, Nazism perceived workers and employers in each enterprise as families; each with different roles. In real terms this meant that wages, working hours and general business practices were determined by worker councils (whose members ranged from 2 - 10) and employers, seeking a compromise.[48]

In June 1933, the "Reinhardt Program" for infrastructure development was introduced. It combined indirect incentives, such as tax reductions, with direct public investment in waterways, railroads and highways.[49] It was followed by similar initiatives resulting in great expansion of the German construction industry. Between 1933 and 1936, employment in construction rose from only 666,000 to over 2,000,000.[50]

Cars and other forms of motorized transport became increasingly attractive to the population, and the German motor industry boomed.[51] However, the government in Berlin banned many types of vehicles and allowed the production of only 19 different models of cars and trucks.[52] Combined with rubber shortages it created by 1939 a “drastic restrictions on the use of motor vehicles”.[53]”

Link to archived wikipedia with sources in substack.

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany.html?fbclid=IwAR3j_u9XzEi5hsBR0gbh1pgl98NKjn-4P2hKbR0nabgGNwLNqjiqYzrnrRo

1. ↑ Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (2008)

2. ↑ Lee, Stephen (1996). Weimar and Nazi Germany. Oxford: Heinemann. p. 86. ISBN 043530920X.

3. ↑ Evans, Richard J. "Business, Politics, and War." The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin, 2006. 392. Print

4. ↑ R. J. Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 16

5. ↑ R. J. Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 155

6. ↑ R. J. Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 146

7. ↑ Overy, prepared by R.J. (1996). The Nazi economic recovery 1932-1938 (2. ed.). Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 42. ISBN 0521557674.

8. ↑ VarldensHistoria.se: "Frihet, jämlikhet och NAZISM" (PDF).

9. ↑ H .P. Willmott World War II, p. 18.

10. ↑ Lee, Stephen (1996). Weimar and Nazi Germany. Oxford: Heinemann. p. 85. ISBN 043530920X.

11. ↑ Henry A. Turner, Hitler's Einstellung, 1976, p. 90–91

12. ↑ Turner 1985, p. 73.

13. ↑ Lee, Stephen J. (1996), Weimar and Nazi Germany, Harcourt Heinemann, page 28

14. ↑ Turner 1985, p. 62.

15. 1 2 Turner 1985, p. 77.

16. ↑ Hitler's speech on May 1, 1927. Cited in Toland, J. (1976) Adolf Hitler Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday Speech. May 1, 1927. p. 224

17. ↑ Francis Ludwig Carsten, The Rise of Fascism, University of California Press, 1982, p. 137. Hitler quote from Sunday Express.

18. ↑ Konrad Heiden, A History of National Socialism, vol. 2, New York: NY, Rutledge, 2010, p. 85. First published in 1934.

19. ↑ A private statement made by Hitler on March 24, 1942. Cited in Hitler's Secret Conversations. Translated by Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens. Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc. 1953. p. 294

20. ↑ Richard Allen Epstein, Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty With the Common Good, De Capo Press 2002, p. 168

21. ↑ Turner 1985, p. 78.

22. ↑ Braun 1990, p. 78.

23. ↑ Lee, Stephen J. and Paul Shuter, Weimar and Nazi Germany, Heinemann, 1996, ISBN 0-435-30920-X, page 33

24. ↑ Bendersky, Joseph W., A History of Nazi Germany: 1919-1945, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, ISBN 0-8304-1567-X, page 159

25. ↑ Turner 1985, p. 76.

26. ↑ Tooze 2006, p. 635f..

27. 1 2 DeLong 1997.

28. ↑ Tooze, "The Wages of Destruction," 2007. Print.

29. ↑ Hitler’s speech to workers at Berlin’s Rheinmetall-Borsig factory, Oct. 10, 1940. Published in Götz Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State, New York: NY, Metropolitan Books, 2007, p. 13

30. ↑ Martina Steber and Bernhard Gotto, Visions of Community in Nazi Germany: Social Engineering and Private Lives, Oxford: UK, Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 92, p 2.

31. ↑ Michael Geyer, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 147

32. ↑ Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1942-1945, Vol. 2, Random House, Inc., 2001, p. 317. Goebbels’ “Our Socialism” editorial was written on April 30, 1944

33. ↑ Richard Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich, Clarendon Press (Oxford University Press), 1994, p.16

34. ↑ Richard Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich, Clarendon Press (Oxford University Press), 1994, p.16

35. ↑ Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power, 1933-1939, Penguin Press (2005) p. 372.

36. ↑ Richard Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich, Penguin Press (2005) pp. 1-2

37. ↑ Richard Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich, Penguin Press (2005) p. 118.

38. ↑ Günter Reimann, The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, Mises Institute (2014) p. 6. Letter from German businessman, first published in 1939.

39. ↑ Günter Reimann, The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, Mises Institute (2014) p. 12. Letter from German businessman, first published in 1939.

40. ↑ Bel, Germà. "Against the mainstream: Nazi privatization in 1930s Germany" p 1. http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf

41. ↑ Bel, Germà. "Against the mainstream: Nazi privatization in 1930s Germany". p 11. http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf

42. ↑ Otto Nathan "Nazi War Finance and Banking (1944)". p 5 - 26 http://www.nber.org/chapters/c9477

43. ↑ Bel, Germà. "Against the mainstream: Nazi privatization in 1930s Germany". p 7. http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf

44. ↑ Samuel Gompers and William English Walling, Out of Their Own Mouths: A Revelation and an Indictment of Sovietism, New York: NY, E.P Dutton and Company, 1921, p. 76.

45. ↑ Edmund Clingan, Introduction to Modern Western Civilization, Bloomington: IN, iUnivere, 2011, p. 207

46. ↑ Gaetano Salvemini, The Fate of Trade Unions Under Fascism, Chap. 3: "Italian Trade Unions Under Fascism", 1937, p. 35

47. ↑ Michael T. Florinsky, Fascism and National Socialism: A Study of the Economic and Social Policies of the Totalitarian State (1936) pp 102-5. online

48. ↑ Florinsky, Fascism and National Socialism (1936) pp 140-42.

49. ↑ Braun 1990, p. 83.

50. ↑ Braun 1990, p. 84.

51. ↑ Braun 1990, pp. 83–84.

52. 1 2 Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power (2006) p. 424.

53. ↑ Evans, The Third Reich in Power p 364.

54. ↑ Braun 1990, p. 85.

55. ↑ Tooze 2006, p. 217.

56. ↑ Carr 1972, p. 49-52.

57. ↑ Overy, Richard "Misjudging Hitler" pages 93–115 from The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered edited by Gordon Martel Routledge: London, United Kingdom, 1999 pages 98–99.

58. ↑ Kershaw, Ian Hitler Nemesis W.W. Norton: New York, New York, United States of America, 2000 pages 18-20

59. ↑ Overy, Richard "Misjudging Hitler" pages 93–115 from The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered edited by Gordon Martel Routledge: London, United Kingdom, 1999 page 98.

60. ↑ Carr 1972, pp. 56–57.

61. ↑ Dawidowicz 1976, p. 32.

62. ↑ Messerschmidt, Manfred "Foreign Policy and Preparation for War" from Germany and the Second World War Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990 pages 623–624

63. ↑ Overy, Richard "Misjudging Hitler" from The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered edited by Gordon Martel Routledge: London, United Kingdom, 1999 page 103

64. 1 2 Tooze 2006, p. 220.

65. ↑ Braun 1990, p. 86.

66. ↑ Braun 1990, p. 101.

67. ↑ Braun 1990, p. 102.

68. ↑ Golson, Eric. "The Economics of Neutrality" (PDF).

69. ↑ Schweitzer 1964, p. 265.

70. ↑ Perry, Matt "Mason, Timothy" pages 780-781 from The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing edited by Kelly Boyd, Volume 2, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing, 1999 page 780

71. ↑ Mason, Tim & Overy, R.J. "Debate: Germany, `domestic crisis’ and the war in 1939" from The Origins of The Second World War edited by Patrick Finney, Edward Arnold: London, United Kingdom, 1997, p.102.

72. ↑ Overy, Richard "Germany, ‘Domestic Crisis’ and War in 1939" from The Third Reich edited by Christian Leitz Blackwell: Oxford, 1999 pp.117-118.

73. ↑ Tooze 2006, p. 420.

74. 1 2 Tooze 2006, p. 422.

75. ↑ Ericson, Edward E. (1999), Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Economic Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933–1941, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0-275-96337-3, pp. 202-205

76. ↑ Tooze 2006, p. 423.

77. ↑ for a critical assessment of Speer's performance see, however, Tooze 2006, 552ff.

78. ↑ Christoph Buchheim (27 Jun 2006). "The Role of Private Property in the Nazi Economy: The Case of Industry". The Journal of Economic History: 390–416.

79. ↑ Arthur Scheweitzer (Nov 1946). "Profits Under Nazi Planning". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 61 (1): 5. doi:10.2307/1882401.

80. ↑ Braun 1990, p. 114.

81. ↑ Braun 1990, p. 121.

82. ↑ Gójski, Andrzej (August 2004). "Etapy i cele niemieckiej polityki bankowej w GG. Plany niemieckie wobec Generalnego Gubernatorstwa w latach 1939-1945" (PDF) (in Polish). Bank i Kredyt. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-05.

83. ↑ Dr Waldemar Grabowski, IPN Centrala (31 August 2009). "Straty ludności cywilnej" [Polish civilian losses]. Straty ludzkie poniesione przez Polskę w latach 1939-1945. Bibula – pismo niezalezne. Retrieved 9 February 2016.

Według ustaleń Czesława Łuczaka, do wszelkiego rodzaju obozów odosobnienia deportowano ponad 5 mln obywateli polskich (łącznie z Żydami i Cyganami). Z liczby tej zginęło ponad 3 miliony. Translation: According to postwar research by Czesław Łuczak over 5 million Polish nationals (including Polish Jews and Roma) were deported to German camps, of whom over 3 million prisoners perished.

1. 1 2 "Filie obozu Gross-Rosen" [Subcamps of Gross-Rosen, interactive]. Gross-Rosen Museum (Muzeum Gross Rosen w Rogoźnicy). Retrieved 15 May 2015.

2. ↑ List of Subcamps of KL Auschwitz (Podobozy KL Auschwitz). The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, Poland (Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Oświęcimiu), 1999-2010 (Polish)

3. ↑ Compiled by S.D. Stein (2000). "Background and Introduction: German Crimes in Poland, Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. Volume I, Warsaw 1946". Howard Fertig, New York, 1982.

1. ↑ Holocaust Encyclopedia (20 June 2014). "Stutthof". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 17 May 2015.

2. ↑ "Forgotten Camps: Stutthof". JewishGen. Retrieved 15 May 2015.

3. ↑ "Stutthof (Sztutowo): Full Listing of Camps, Poland" (Introduction). Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 15 May 2015.

Source: "Atlas of the Holocaust" by Martin Gilbert (1982).

1. ↑ Ireneusz Bujniewicz (2009). "Możliwości finansowe PKP w przebudowie i rozbudowie kolejnictwa" (PDF file, direct download 363 KB). Kolejnictwo w przygotowaniach obronnych Polski w latach 1935–1939. Wydawnictwo Tetragon Publishing. p. 22. Retrieved 8 February 2014.

2. ↑ Michał Kubara; Beata Mamcarczyk; Marcin Paździora; Sandra Schab (2012). Sosnowiec (PDF file, direct download 9.97 MB). Katalog Zabytków Techniki Przemysłowej Zagłębia Dąbrowskiego. Zagłębiowska Oficyna Wydawnicza Publishing. pp. 84–85. ISBN 978-83-928381-1-1. Retrieved 9 February 2014.

3. ↑ Teresa Masłowska (2 September 2007). "Wojenne Drogi Polskich Kolejarzy" (PDF file, direct download 644 KB). Czy wiesz, że... Kurier PKP No 35 / 2007. p. 13. Retrieved 8 February 2014.

4. ↑ Marc Buggeln (2014). Slave Labor in Nazi Concentration Camps. Index of Companies. OUP Oxford. p. 335. ISBN 0191017647 – via Google Books, preview.

5. ↑ Sohn-Rethel, Alfred (1978). Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism. CSE Books. pp. 52–63. ISBN 0-906336-01-5.

6. ↑ Michael Thad Allen, The Business of Genocide, The University of North Carolina Press, 2002. p. 1

7. ↑ Anna Elisabeth Rosmus (2004). "Mass Murder of the "Offspring of Alien Descent"". Wintergreen: Suppressed Murders (hardcover). Translated by von Tannenberg, Imogen. University of South Carolina Press. pp. 1 to 34. ISBN 1-57003-509-1.

8. ↑ Projekt "Krieg Gegen Kinder" (2004). "War Against Children". Database with information on over 400 confinement institutions in Nazi Germany for the children of Zwangsarbeiters (in German). Archived from the original on September 13, 2008 – via Internet Archive.

9. ↑ Webster and Frankland,The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany 1939-1945, Volume IV page 516

10. ↑ Rich Overy in Modern History Review April 1999, The Bombing of germany – A Reappraisal page 30