Re: Was Hitler a Socialist?

On Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:18:58 +0100, Julian <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Hitler was undoubtedly an anti-capitalist and a socialist in the modern 
>sense of the word

As if anything so debatable could be undoubtable.

>
>A recurring theme in Elon Musk’s posts on X in recent months has been 
>his claim that Hitler was a socialist. He has received both a great deal 
>of support and a great deal of criticism on the platform, but hardly any 
>of those taking part in the debate have seriously examined the issue. 
>Critics of the thesis point out that the means of production were not 
>nationalized in National Socialist Germany. They also argue that the 
>fact that Hitler had communists and Social Democrats imprisoned in 
>concentration camps speaks against this thesis.
>
>The second argument is not convincing. Stalin, too, had tens of 
>thousands of fellow communists murdered, denouncing many of them as 
>“Trotskyists,” or “fascist agents.” But what about the argument that the 
>means of production were not nationalized on a large scale in National 
>Socialist Germany?
>
>For traditional socialism, which is based on the teachings of Karl Marx, 
>the nationalization of the means of production is indeed the central 
>objective. But National Socialism was a form of modern socialism that 
>took a different approach.
>
>In May 1937 Hitler declared that he told German industry what it had to 
>produce under the Four-Year Plan. If industry said it was unable to do 
>so, he would “take that over myself, but it must be done.” If industry 
>complied, however, he was glad not to have to take it over himself.
>
>That such statements by Hitler were not empty threats became clear to 
>the industrialists no later than on 23 July 1937, when Göring announced 
>the formation of the AG for Ore Mining and Iron Smelting Hermann Göring. 
>The development which had begun with Hitler’s and Göring’s repeated 
>threats finally led to the creation of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring, 
>which by 1940 employed 600,000 people. The plant in Salzgitter finally 
>became the largest in Europe.
>
>Some theorists – both on the left and among libertarians – recognized as 
>early as the 1940s that National Socialism represented a new form of 
>anti-capitalism. The economist and sociologist Friedrich Pollock had 
>earned his doctorate with a dissertation on Karl Marx’s theory of money 
>and was a co-founder of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt 
>am Main. Ludwig von Mises was known to be, together with von Friedrich 
>August von Hayek, the most important representative of the Austrian 
>School of National Economics. Both were staunch opponents of National 
>Socialism and emigrated to the United States.
>
>In an article on the economic system of National Socialism published in 
>1941, Pollock acknowledged that the legal institution of private 
>ownership had been maintained, but argued that its actual function had 
>fundamentally changed. In his words, this amounted to “the destruction 
>of all the essential traits of private ownership, saving one exception.” 
>Even the largest companies, he noted, had lost the right to decide 
>freely where to invest or when to discontinue unprofitable production; 
>these rights had effectively been transferred to the ruling groups.
>
>This is one of the most lucid analyses of the economic structure of 
>National Socialism, and it corresponds with what Ludwig von Mises wrote 
>in The New York Times on June 21, 1941. Mises argued that the German 
>system of socialism, or Zwangswirtschaft, retained some capitalist 
>institutions only nominally. Private ownership formally continued, but 
>entrepreneurs had effectively been reduced to the status of shop 
>managers, while the government determined what and how they produced, as 
>well as prices and trading partners. He summarized the system as 
>“socialism with the outward appearance of capitalism” – comprehensive 
>planning and government control of economic activity, while retaining 
>the labels of a market economy.
>
> From 1940 at the latest, Hitler increasingly became a proponent of the 
>state planned economy – partly because he was convinced of the 
>superiority of the Soviet Union and its economic system. In his 
>monologues to his inner circle (known as “table talks”) on 27/28 July 
>1941, Hitler said that “A sensible employment of the powers of a nation 
>can only be achieved with a planned economy from above.” About two weeks 
>later, he remarked that economic planning was still at an early stage 
>and envisioned building an encompassing German and European economic order.
>
>The statement that economic planning was still at a very early stage is 
>important because it shows that Hitler was not thinking at all of a 
>reduction of state intervention – not even for the time after the war – 
>but, on the contrary, intended to expand the instruments of state 
>control of the economy even further.
>
>Yes, Hitler was not a socialist in the classical Marxist sense. But he 
>was undoubtedly an anti-capitalist and a socialist in the modern sense 
>of the word. In this respect, Musk is right.
>
>
>Rainer Zitelmann
-- 
Noah Sombrero mustachioed villain
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or I'll tie you to a railroad track and
<<<talk>>> to <<<YOOooooo>>>
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