Re: Was Hitler a Socialist?

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:36:21 -0400, Wilson <[email protected]>
wrote:

>On 8/24/2026 2:18 PM, Julian wrote:
>> Hitler was undoubtedly an anti-capitalist and a socialist in the modern 
>> sense of the word
>> 
>> 
>> 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
>
>Control is effectively ownership.

Oh, you mean like when you rent an apartment?
-- 
Noah Sombrero mustachioed villain
Don't get political with me young man
or I'll tie you to a railroad track and
<<<talk>>> to <<<YOOooooo>>>
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does not dare: Julian  shrinks in horror and warns others away