Leftists have denied the obvious for over 100 years: that a National Socialist German Workers’ Party was, in fact, socialist.

This has always been a foundational lie of the left.  It undergirds many of their other lies and false narratives.  Obviously, if the “NSDAP Is Socialist and Nationalist,” as stated in Chapter 5 of Adolf Hitler’s Second Book, it means that it was leftist, despite the constant lies to the contrary, sweeping away much of the usual smears and propaganda.

The video we’re presenting details many of the points we’ve made over the years, from Rainer Zitelmann, the author of a groundbreaking book on Hitler’s National Socialism. 

He points out that we should avoid using the ancient word that’s been exploited by the left to obscure the fact that the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was socialist.  Because if there’s one thing leftists are good at, it’s lying with language.  The author points out that the Original Social Justice Warrior didn’t espouse a traditional version of socialism of the state directly owning the means of production.  Government control was exerted over privately owned corporations with the threat of nationalization — a modern form of socialism, where taxes and regulations control privately owned corporations.

The following is from a Townhall article on his book:

In Hitler’s view, the entrepreneur was nothing more than a representative of the state and had to unconditionally fulfill the objectives it set. One of the most important means of reaching this objective was Hitler’s constant — open or veiled — threat of nationalization. If Germany’s entrepreneurs were incapable of achieving the objectives the National Socialist state had set, Hitler threatened time and again, then the state would take this task into its own hands. His actions in the case of the foundation of the Hermann-Göring-Werke and the Volkswagen Werke demonstrated that this was no empty threat.

Another section of the article describes what would place Hitler easily within the ranks of the fascist far left of today:

Hitler’s objective was the creation of a “national community” in which class barriers were to be abolished. Existing traditions, “class conceit” and “class consciousness” were to be broken down by a process of continuous re-education. The process of ideological leveling was to be accompanied by an actual equalization in many sectors of life.

It’s also important to note a curious point that applies to the last election.  The author discusses at length the tendency of the leftist upper-crust “intellectuals” to impose socialism on the people from the top down — for their own good.  Citing the example of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, he states these were intellectuals who studied in Paris at elite universities, wrote doctoral dissertations about perfect socialism, and then went back to Cambodia with horrific results.  This is a theme that keeps on repeating itself — leftist intellectuals seek to impose what they think is an “ideal society” on the people — and the people rightfully reject it.

Farther on in the video, the author addresses the commonly repeated lie that National Socialism couldn’t possibly be made up of socialists because they were rivals with the communists, and for leftists, somehow that proves something.  Except that there are many examples of rivals have that the same ideology.  We saw the same thing take place in the old Soviet Union, where the Bolsheviks persecuted the Mensheviks and the S.R.s.   

Finally, one last, very important note: In the chapter entitled “Why does the idea of socialism survive its failures?,” the author makes the point that although we have the facts on our side, the left has emotions and slogans.  He notes that we have to take a page from leftists to beat them at their own game.

The left always has to lie and obfuscate, as was seen in the last election.  If leftists have to deal with the facts and truth, they will lose.  We just have to make sure that we can use their word-war tactics against them, engaging with the truth to beat their lies.

D Parker is an engineer, inventor, wordsmith, and student of history, former director of communications for a civil rights organization, and a long-time contributor to conservative websites.  Find him on Substack.

Image: Sasha Suseshi via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).