The Nazis Were Leftists, Deal With It
Currently Accepted Political Definitions Place the Nazis firmly on the Left
The right consists of free-market capitalists, who think the individual is the primary political unit, believes in property rights, and is generally distrustful of the administrative state and government solutions to social problems. They view family and civil institutions such as church as needed checks on state power. These people don’t think government should force a business to provide employee birth control or think law should coerce bakers to make cakes against their conscience. They think the solution to bad speech is more speech; the solution to gun violence is more guns. These people talk about “freedom” — the method individual decisions. (The counterexample might be gay marriage but that is a positive right (give me something) instead of a negative right (leave me alone)).
The left believes the opposite. These people are distrustful of the excesses and inequality capitalism produces. They give primacy to group rights and identity. They believe factors like race, ethnicity, and gender compose the primary political units. They don’t believe in strong property rights. They believe it is the government’s responsibility to solve social problems. They call for public intervention to “equalize” disparities and render our social fabric more inclusive (as they define it). They believe the free market has failed to solve issues like campaign finance, income inequality, minimum wage, access to healthcare, and righting past injustices. These people talk about “democracy” — the method of collective decisions.
By these definitions the Nazis were firmly on the left. National Socialism was a collectivist authoritarian movement run by “social justice warriors.” That this brand of “justice” benefited only some based on immutable characteristics perfectly aligns with the modern brand. The Nazi ideal embraced identity politics based on the primacy of the people or “volk” and invoked state-based solutions for every possible problem. It was nation-based socialism — the nation being especially important to those who bled in the Great War.
Evidence the Nazis were leftists goes well beyond the views of one scholar. Philosophically, Nazi doctrine fit well with the other strains of socialism ripping through the Europe at the time. Hitler’s first “National Workers Party” meeting while still an Army corporal featured the speech “How and by What Means is Capitalism to be Eliminated?”
https://medium.com/@PaulHJossey/the-nazis-were-leftists-deal-with-it-b7f12cc53b6f
