(my post I) To paraphrase Moldbug, if we ask “Is Nazism socialist?” and “Are you a socialist?”, then the most interesting people are always those who answer “Yes, Yes” and “No, No” to those questions. Anyone else, socialist or otherwise, is trying to pass the hot potato of Nazism to his opponents. My answer is “No, No”. Applying the cladistic method, I classify Nazism as a species of German romantic nationalism whose undeniably socialist economics is an analogous structure produced by convergent evolution, as opposed to a homologous structure produced by common ideological ancestry with Marx.
(my post II) The root of our disagreement is the method we use to categorize ideologies. I’d highly recommend Moldbug’s Five Ways to Classify Belief Systems if you want to go further. You categorize them typologically - “What traits do they exhibit?” - and I classify them cladistically - “What did they descend from?”
Your approach is useful, but has the defect of frequently lumping things together that share a trait but which developed it independently, like wings in birds and bats. My approach, while no doubt being deficient in other areas, allows me to pick out the chain of memetic descent back into the past.
Doing this, one notices that Nazism’s chain of memetic descent does not stop at Hitler. That is, Hitler did not invent Nazism, he found it already developed and influenced its subsequent evolution. In fact, if anything Hitler is probably the reason they ended up being as socialist as they were, which fits with his history in the Bavarian Soviet Republic. No doubt Rohm and Strasser deserve some credit too, but that’s a side tangent.
The eye-catching traits of Nazism - hunger for eastern lebensraum, a desire to genocide Slavs for it, German Aryanism, a racial hatred for Jews - were all fully developed in the DAP and its predecessors long before Hitler arrived. The origins of these ideas lie not in Marx or Engels, but in de Lagarde, de Gobineau, von Treitschke, Ratzel, Haushofer, Stewart Chamberlain, Claß, von Seringand von Bernhardi - and that’s not even mentioning the kooky occult types who influenced Himmler and the SS, like Wirth, Schonerer, Lanz and von List. Apart from maybe Gobineau, I doubt you’ve heard of any of these names. If you look into them, you might be surprised at how influential many of them were in German politics, in some cases before Hitler was even born, and at how unsocialist practically all of them were.
If you look at Hitler’s ideological cousins and early rivals in the Conservative Revolution, men like von Salomon, Freyer, van den Bruck, Hans Grimm, Evola and von Stauffenberg, what’s immediately obvious is that they have a strong continuity on the racial and national side of things but little to no continuity on the socialist side of things. Hence, Nazism may be described as a form of romantic nationalism which gained socialist traits under Hitler’s leadership. If you remove Hitler and his socialism from the equation and somehow give it power in 1933, essentially zero of its atrocities would change, because they were all part of its German romantic nationalist heritage from the start.
Socialism, of which essentially the only variant surviving in 2024 is Marxism - you won’t hear anyone proclaiming themselves a Fourierist or a Bietrist today - is indeed a thoroughly evil ideology. But, in acknowledging this, one must avoid the fallacy that all evil ideologies spring from the same womb. Nazism was certainly influenced by socialism, but the bulk of its ideological heritage - including all the stuff normies know it for today - came from another source.
Your entire argument seems to be: Magoon did not use my preferred method, so even though both of our methods arrive at roughly the same conclusion, Magoon is incorrect.
Just because National Socialists arrived at Socialism via different intellectual paths from other socialists, that does not mean that National Socialists were not socialist.
Your argument does not in anyway undermine my claim that National Socialism was a form of Socialism. I think that you are so hung up on exclusively using a very underdeveloped classification method, and you seem determined to ignore the outcome (the stated opinion, the actions taken, and the outcome of those actions taken).
Not one of your points discounts a single one of the 40+ facts that I presented in the article.
Let me start out by saying where I agree with you one:
1) Yes, National Socialism was heavily influenced by German Romantic nationalism. I mentioned in the article, that one of the key tenets of National Socialism is nationalism, though I did not mention Romanticism.
2) Yes, National Socialism had “undeniably socialist economics.” Glad that we agree on that key point.
3) Yes, National Socialists were influenced by prior non-Socialist thinkers, but that can be said of all forms of socialism. I really do not understand why you seem to think that ideologies are only influenced by one or two thinkers.
4) Yes, the cladistic method of tracing the origins of ideas is very interesting. You are welcome to use it. My article, however, was not meant to trace the ideological origins of National Socialism, but to answer the question of whether they were Socialist.
5) Yes, convergent evolution plays a role, but that in no way undermines my claim. It actually strengthens it. Your own argument of convergent evolution shows the weakness of using the cladistic method exclusively. I agree that both Marxist and National Socialists converged on Socialism, but often for different reasons. But that just proves my point in a different way.
6) Yes, there were other thinkers at the time who had similar thinking. Not sure why you consider this evidence against my argument.
7) Yes, the TIK videos influenced me to post on this topic, as did the events in Gaza, but my I had already read widely on the topic before hand. TIK and I used the same secondary resources and came to similar conclusions.
8) Yes, if you define Communism, which is the only pure form of Marxist regime, as the only form of Socialism, then the National Socialists are not Socialists. But I said that in the article. This conclusion has the very unfortunate consequence of saying that the vast majority of people who identify as socialists are not actually socialists. That is just not plausible.
Now, here is where I disagree with you:
1) If you were to make the claim that National Socialism is a socialist ideology that had different intellectual origins than Marxist Socialism, then I would agree 100%. So why not just say that? You seem determined to ignore the outcome and solely focus on the historical roots. That is a flaw in your logic and a weakness of the cladistic method.
2) I do not find the cladistic method for ideologies to be anywhere near as useful as you do. In fact, I think it is far more useful to look at the outcome (the stated opinion, the actions taken, and the outcome of those actions taken). To convince me, Moldburg needs to show me a definitive cladistic diagram with all ideologies. My guess is that it will look like a pile of spaghetti.
3) The cladistic method comes from biology where there are by definition just two and only two parents. That is rarely true for ideologies.
4) Prove to me your claim that your method “allows me to pick out the chain of memetic descent back into the past.” Draw a clear cladistic diagram that accounts for all beliefs of Hitler and the National Socialists.
5) I never claimed that Hitler invented National Socialism.
6) I never claimed that “Nazism’s chain of memetic descent stopped at Hitler”
7) I do not know whether “Hitler is probably the reason they ended up being as socialist as they were.” If so, then that only strengthens my claim.
8) Your claim seems to be that because not all of their beliefs stem from other socialists, so then they were not socialist. Well, Marxism was heavily influenced by Hegel, who was clearly not a socialist. By your logic, then Marxist were not Socialist, which is obviously not true.
9) Following the memetic descent is actually very difficult. It is very difficult to know how a person or group of people formed an opinion. It also misses that people can add their own original thinking that cannot be traced back or they can arrive at the same conclusion using different information. Most importantly, it ignores the material reality that shapes all ideologies. That is why it is much better to look at the outcome (the stated opinion, the actions taken and the outcome of those actions taken).
10) I really do not understand how you can claim that there are no Socialists today that are not Marxist. The overwhelming majority of self-proclaimed socialists in the West are not Marxist.
11) I never claimed that “all evil ideologies spring from the same womb” except perhaps psychological temperament.
-- "Not one of your points discounts a single one of the 40+ facts that I presented in the article."
That was never my intention. My problem is not with the facts or the interpretation which your methodology produced with them. My problem is with the methodology itself, for reasons which I'll be reiterating again and again below.
Agreements:
(1) I mention it because I mean specifically "Romantic Nationalism" as one phrase. Romantic Nationalism is a subset of nationalism which is rooted in ideals such as blood & soil, race and national character. Those are the roots of Nazism right there. The fact that, per your view, Nazism also happens to be a form of Socialism has little to do with them, so perhaps it's worth using a system which allows us to take note of that difference in a meaningful way.
(3,4,5,6) And I would contend that the vast majority of their ideological influences came from romantic nationalists. Were they influenced by socialists - sure, enough that they are indisputably socialists by your methodology. Within the scope of your methodology, I have no ground to disagree on. But since the bulk of their ideas came from a non-socialist tradition, I think it's more productive to use a methodology which describes Nazism as primarily something else with a secondary dose of socialism.
(8) I wouldn't define Communism in that way. It's just that all surviving forms of socialism, which includes communism and social democracy (its founders were acolytes of Marx, they explicitly stated their ideas were only a modification on Marx), are based entirely or almost entirely on Marxist ideology.
Disagreements:
(1,2) If I were to do it your way, then I wouldn't disagree. But since those non-Marxist roots turn out to be kinda important for determining how most of the ideology of Nazism works, I find your way unsatisfying because it doesn't convey much information beyond the basics about its economics. Even then, you don't get a complete picture. For example, Generalplan Ost undeniably had an economic element to it, yet you can't explain Generalplan Ost as simply an outgrowth of socialism, and you can't dismiss it as not a core part of the ideology either, so it has to be accounted for.
(2) The outcome can certainly be described as socialist. It can also be described as a lot of other things that the word "socialism" just doesn't cover. When socialism is the majority of an ideology's contents, that's fine. But when the reverse is true, you have to start looking at it as Something Else with socialism mixed in, otherwise you will only ever be able to talk about Nazism in a partial manner.
(3) True, but there is very little besides Marxism and Romantic Nationalism at play in Nazism. Languages are just as complex as ideologies, and yet we still use cladistics to describe them because most are trivially classifiable as descendants of one or two parents, so I see no problem here.
(4) I can't do that with anything near accuracy in text form, and you know that. Still, the names I mentioned previously would comprise the great majority of that diagram.
(5,6,7) That was bad wording on my part, overemphasizing what didn't need to be emphasized. The point was that the vast majority of the ideological contents of Nazism came from people who were not Marxists, or even socialists by any definition.
(8) "not all" is a far cry from "most". This isn't some small part of the ideology, it's the bulk of its ideas.
(9) You are vastly overblowing the extent to which this stuff is difficult to trace. When Houston Stewart Chamberlain is an intimate friend of Hitler's and is credited by Hitler as heavily shaping his own worldview, and it's obvious from reading HSC just what Hitler took from him, we don't need to guess. Nor do we need to guess when HSC cites Gobineau, Ratzel and a bunch of other people by name in his own work. The chains of connection are obvious. And as the example of Generalplan Ost showed, the outcomes are also entirely easy to trace back. Really, it's simple: if HSC and his ilk were talking about the racial inferiority of the Slavs and how Germany's natural destiny is to genocide the Slavs for lebensraum, and Marx and his ilk are not, which of the two groups can you blame more for Generalplan Ost?
(10) If you mean social democracy, then see (8) in the agreements section. Suffice to say, it's Marxist and its founders admitted as such. Failing that, I don't know of any other ideology that you could be referring to. Whatever it is, it can't be Western.
(12) I brought it up because it outlines 5 different ways to organize ideologies and why that can be very useful.
I agree with you that the doctrine of National Socialism is not fully explained by the concept of Socialism. I never made that claim. Nor does that fact invalidate my claim.
I clearly stated in the article that the ideology comes from a fusion of Nationalism, Socialism and Anti-semitism. Just because that I did not go into detail on the other two parts of the ideology does not mean that National Socialism is not a form of Socialism.
You clearly believe that the National Socialist implemented socialist economic policy. You do not seem to disagree that they also established socialist social policies. Nor do you disagree that they thought of themselves as socialist and had socialist policies in their platform.
Let’s stop dancing around the main point, and acknowledge the obvious.
So let me translate for you as what you should be saying “ Yes, National Socialists were clearly socialist, but socialism does not fully define their beliefs. Let me give some additional context that includes German Romanticism.”
-- "I agree with you that the doctrine of National Socialism is not fully explained by the concept of Socialism. I never made that claim. Nor does that fact invalidate my claim."
Yeah, that's the neat thing. Neither of our claims invalidates the other, because it's all a matter of what method you use to categorize ideologies. You made the post, I made the restack, you asked for clarification, and this is the result.
If nothing else, I hope I've at least given you an interesting list of names to research if you're ever inclined to plumb the true depths of 19th-c. Germanic evil.
“Yeah, that's the neat thing. Neither of our claims invalidates the other, because it's all a matter of what method you use to categorize ideologies”
Bullshit. This is pure sophism. I made the claim, and you attacked my integrity. When I called your bluff, you changed the subject.
Researchers should use the method that is appropriate to the question. I chose the question, not you.
And reasearchers should also choose multiple methods. Your method only works for a different question.
All your replies were a response to an article that I DID NOT WRITE. The topic of my article was not “Understanding the intellectual origins of the National Socialist ideology.” If it were, then your responses would be on target. That was not the topic of my article.
You just claim that since National Socialism did not descend from Marxism (which you define before hand as the only real Socialist ideology), then by definition National Socialism is not socialism. Of course, because you defined it that way! I dealt with that argument and agreed to it in the original article. Your claim means that almost every socialist movement was not actually socialist.
I call bullshit.
You also claim that because National Socialism was heavily influenced by German Romantic Nationalism, therefore it cannot possibly also be a socialist ideology. This is exactly the problem your method. It does not accept the possibility of influence coming from different categories. So ditch the methodology, not reality!
You are committing a logical fallacy that starts from a circular definition and a weak methodology and refusing all others. Accepting only one method of inquiry is not good history and it is not good social science.
The only thing that you convinced me of was that the cladistic method is only good for understanding the intellectual heritage of an ideology but nothing else about an ideology. It tells you very little about the ideology itself. Your view acts as if material reality does not exist. It is only intellectual heritage. That is simply not true.
And to claim that there is only one solid methodology in historical research is just dogmatic and narrow-minded. Particularly when you are defending one as obscure as cladism. The very fact that you have to fall back on "convergent evolution" proves it. For regimes, material reality matters more than intellectual heritage.
1) You made the claim, I made an observation, and you came to me looking for a fight because you were pissed that the observation *sounded true*. Which, now that I've gauged your reaction, it seems I was right.
2) I would say that my method DOES in fact work for this question, and it produces more interesting results for what I'm after, which is who inspired whom to do what. That was why I made the restack.
3) All my replies were a continuation of a discussion we had in the restack, which is premised on my dispute over METHODS. The entire point is that you "should've" written a different article, if for no other reason than that this conclusion has been done to death already.
As an aside, I never claimed that Marxism is the "only true type of socialism". I claimed that, due entirely to various historical accidents, it is the last variety left standing, and that all socialisms today are influenced by Marxism. All humans today are descended from homo sapiens, but that doesn't mean the Denisovans or Neanderthals weren't true humans - they're just all extinct.
edit: oh, one thing I missed. No, my claim doesn't mean that almost all socialist movements weren't actually socialists. It only indicates that about a small minority of movements, the biggest ones being Nazism and FDR's New Deal.
edit2: Also, I did not claim that there is only one solid methodology in historical research. Never. Go back through this entire thread, back into the restack. You won't find any such claim. And convergent evolution is not a "fallback", it is a natural feature in evolution.
Am I right in believing that you deleted my response because it made your claim look ridiculous?
edit: but, in case you didn't and I merely misclicked when I made that post, I'll summarize it by saying that all the variants of socialism mentioned there are either non-Marxist but extinct today, or are alive today but were developed by Marxists as an amendment of Marxist ideas. The one exception is Gandhian socialism, which was developed from the ideas of John Ruskin.
To clarify, what makes the "Yes, Yes" and "No, No" answers interesting as opposed to "Yes, No" or "No, Yes" is the fact that they have to deal with the fact that it's not sitting on the opposite side of the political spectrum from them. For example, a leftist who believes Nazism is a form of socialism, however evil it might be, has to think harder about his ideology than a leftist who simply casts it to the right and says "No True Socialist!"
-- "I am not worried about what other people have to deal with."
No, I think that's actually this article's primary concern and that I was right in my initial assessment: you only delved into Nazism because you wanted to pwn leftists, and in order to do so you had to stick to a very narrow path of inquiry and deny the pertinence of any other information, because doing it any other way would introduce complications and deny you the hard-hitting polemic you desired.
And I will go one step further: since TIK essentially did all the work for you, including providing a detailed bibliography, this endeavor was easy for you so long as you stuck to all the points he laid out in his 5 hour long video. The fact that you can't stray from them at any point suggests that you have no interest in doing anything but rehash his work for a smaller audience. Even if it is flawed, TIK's work on this matter is phenomenal and his diligence is a credit to his quality as a historian, whereas you were just momentarily treading in his footsteps because you saw an opportunity to do cheaply what it took him a herculean effort to do. You have nothing of your own to add, no new information and no new insights on existing information. On the other hand, I am interested in new information, which is why I recommend the cladistic model in this instance.
It is not a "very narrow path of inquiry." I looked at the stated intentions, the party platform, the acts passed, the economic policy and the social programs. I then implicitly compared them to all other self-declared socialist movements and claimed that they were not that different. So any definition of socialist that is not exclusively Communist must include National Socialism. That is not narrow.
I also did not "deny the pertinence of any other information." I just did not mention it in the article, otherwise it would have been far too long. When you raise other influences, I repeatedly agreed with you.
No, I did not write a "hard-hitting polemic." If I wanted to do that, it would have been a very different article.
I never claimed to be doing original research in primary sources. I had been reading those books before TIK made his videos. We used the same secondary resources and came to the same conclusion. Plus I clearly referenced TIK videos. I do also add material.
If TIKs videos were phenomenal, then it is very unclear why you object to my methods and conclusions.
I have been very patient with you, despite you starting this conversation with a public insult to my integrity as a writer of history. It ends now.
I have heard most of this crap before. Fascism is a reactionary ideology, and hence of the right, not the left. Hitler himself did not like using the term socialist in the party name, and only reluctantly agreed to it. The “socialism” here was not real. It was used to con the working classes and win them away from the real socialists. Fascism controls capitalism. It does not abolish it as socialism does. And fascism allows the accumulation of wealth, which is anathema to socialism. The German war machine was supplied with armaments and supplies from private enterprises that retained their wealth, not by state-owned industry. Fascism and socialism are both authoritarian, but that is where the resemblance ends. And, yes, National "Socialism" is fascism.
Your credibility is highly tarnished when you start out with "I have heard most of this crap before." It is not clear to me that you actually read the article, as you do not mention any of my 40 points of evidence.
As I mentioned in the article, the Left-Right spectrum is not useful in categorizing Totalitarian ideologies. In only makes sense for those who work within the boundaries of Liberal Democratic Capitalism.
Hitler use the term "National Socialism" throughout his life in public and private. There is not the slightest evidence that Hitler did not like the term.
Fascism and National Socialism are two different ideologies, though they have many similarities.
Many Socialist movements do not abolish capitalism once they come into power, nor do they end the accumulation of wealth.
No, National Socialism has far more similarities than being authoritarian:
German reactionaries of the 1920s and 30s supported the restoration of the Kaiser and his regime. Hitler and the National Socialists were contemptuous of them and made their movement illegal.
The National Socialist regime was nothing like anything else that had ever existed in German history so they cannot be defined as "reactionary."
So, no, the National Socialists were not reactionary. They were revolutionaries, and they said that again and again. They supported the National Socialist Revolution, and they implemented it.
Hindenburg and the German industrialists supported the Nazis and were largely responsible for putting them in power. In other words, the Nazis were totally creatures of the right.
Really. So industrialists wanted the National Socialists to remove property rights from the German constitution (one of Hitler's first acts)? That was their plan?
Do you consider the British Labour Party of the period to be socialist?
Do you consider the German Social Democratic Party of the period to be socialist?
I certainly do, and so would most historians, but they do not fit your criteria. And the National Socialist intervened far more in economic affairs than either one of those parties did when they were in government.
The British Labour Party used to be a formally socialist party. That changed when Blair got their charter changed, to remove the old Clause IV, although many Labour members are still socialists. As for the SDP, social democracy used to be a form of socialism. Today the term refers to a form of capitalism. The Nordic Model is social democracy in the modern sense: capitalism with a high degree of welfare and high taxes.
Yes, so we agree that in the 1920s and 1930s (which is the period that we are talking about) both the UK Labour party and German SPD were socialist parties.
Do you not agree that their period of power had less intervention in the economy than under National Socialism?
You are not very bright. Labour never had enough electoral support to carry out a full socialist program, or they would surely have done so. Same with the socialist parties in a variety of other Western European countries. And the SPD did not have sufficient electoral support in the prewar period either, as demonstrated by their losing the vote over the Enabling Act. Socialism means state ownership of the means of production. That is not the fascist way. Fascism controls the economy and business, yes. But under fascism business is still privately owned and individuals may accumulate wealth.
No, "state ownership" is only one type of Socialism. There are many different types of socialism.
I am glad that we agree that National Socialism is about controlling the economy and business. I wish that you had stated that from the beginning. The rest is just semantics.
That is bs. I know some today try to redefine socialism, but some form of communal ownership of the means of production, whether directly or through the state, has been consistent among all strands of socialist ideology, throughout its history. Fascism in no way agrees with that.
National Socialism is not the same as Fascism. Those are two different ideologies.
What is your evidence that “Hitler did not like the term” and “only reluctantly agreed to the term?” Once he became undisputed leader of the party, it would have been easy for him to change the name of the party. Just the opposite, he actually quit party when other party members wanted to drop the term "Socialist" from the party name.
Hitler also repeatedly used the term “National Socialism” in Mein Kampf and throughout his life. Why would he keep using the term after he had been in absolute power for over a decade if he did not actually believe in it?
I cannot find the reference to Hitler's objection to the term right now. He was not in control of the party at the time the name change occurred. However, I don't know who this guy is, but what he is saying comports with what I have read on the subject. Furthermore, it is well-known that Hindenburg and the major industrialists in Germany supported Hitler and the Nazis, precisely because they were against the left and socialists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2biEiuTzsgw&ab_channel=OwenJones
I seriously question your knowledge of the period.
Find me a link from a real history book. Your claim does not match the time line. The name NDSAP was adopted after Hitler took total control of the party, and it was Hitler who wanted to add the word "Socialist" to the name.
And the myth that major industrialists in Germany supported Hitler coming to power has been totally demolished by historians. This book in particular:
Yes, they donated money after Hitler came to power, but that is hardly a sign of support. It was trying to get on the right side of a regime that might expropriate them. Many non-Nazis joined the party after 1933 just to boost their careers. It was like joining the Communist party in the USSR.
The only major industrialist who supported Hitler before he took power was Fritze Thyssen and his company was later expropriated by the National Socialists:
Hindenburg tried to do everything that he could to avoid appointing Hitler as Chancellor but with opposition from the Communists, there was not other viable alternative. If he had not died, he might have been able to keep Hitler from becoming Fuhre.
You are utterly wrong. Hitler was only the propaganda officer for the DAP voted to change its name. And you undercut your own argument. Of course the industrialists were afraid of having their businesses and wealth appropriated by socialists. That is what socialists do. Fascists let business owners keep their businesses and wealth, as long as they toe the party line. The fact that Hindenburg ran for election against Hitler and was not necessarily a fan of Hitler and the Nazis is no indication that Hitler or the Nazis were socialists. Hindenburg sided with the Nazis in the end because he thought that was the only way to protect the right-wing establishment rule and fend off the left and communism.
Fascists may at times expropriate businesses out of necessity, not by choice. They prefer most or all business in private hands, as long as they can control them from outside.
I never said that Hindenburg not supporting Hitler made them socialist. You claimed that Hindenburg supported National Socialists, and I showed why this was not true.
I am currently reading this article with great interest, and would only like to point out two typos I noticed before I continue to do so. From the sentence:
“A bit part of the problem is that historian correctly view National Socialism as anti-semitic and Nationalistic, but they see the rest of their ideas as an incoherent jumbled mess. “
I believe “bit” should read “big” and “historian” should be pluralized to “historians”.
Yes, all very obvious. Instead of Kulaks they had the Jews, but very similar.
Hitler wasn't planning to immiserate or even execute successful members of private industry, but neither would they be free to set the goals of their businesses. The Nazies would set their goals and they were mere managers with those limits, able to draw a comfortable salary/dividend but nothing else. Compared to the KPD or even other Nazies, that was a step up for the non-Jewish capitalists.
I largely agree with you, except for the "obvious" part. Maybe it should be obvious, but it is amazing how many people who are very knowledgeable in the period know little or nothing about it. I have read about the period for decades, but I had no idea until quite recently.
Even experts could not make this list of points that I have in the article off the top of their head.
It is hard not to believe that the ideological convictions of historians do not play a role in their inability to "see" these basic facts.
Thank you for the interesting read.
Excellent nice long review of the topic. Keep up the great work!
Persuasive!
The following is from a thread between me and Michael Magoon in a restack I made.
Here is the original. https://substack.com/@howie32/note/c-74013733
(my post I) To paraphrase Moldbug, if we ask “Is Nazism socialist?” and “Are you a socialist?”, then the most interesting people are always those who answer “Yes, Yes” and “No, No” to those questions. Anyone else, socialist or otherwise, is trying to pass the hot potato of Nazism to his opponents. My answer is “No, No”. Applying the cladistic method, I classify Nazism as a species of German romantic nationalism whose undeniably socialist economics is an analogous structure produced by convergent evolution, as opposed to a homologous structure produced by common ideological ancestry with Marx.
(my post II) The root of our disagreement is the method we use to categorize ideologies. I’d highly recommend Moldbug’s Five Ways to Classify Belief Systems if you want to go further. You categorize them typologically - “What traits do they exhibit?” - and I classify them cladistically - “What did they descend from?”
Your approach is useful, but has the defect of frequently lumping things together that share a trait but which developed it independently, like wings in birds and bats. My approach, while no doubt being deficient in other areas, allows me to pick out the chain of memetic descent back into the past.
Doing this, one notices that Nazism’s chain of memetic descent does not stop at Hitler. That is, Hitler did not invent Nazism, he found it already developed and influenced its subsequent evolution. In fact, if anything Hitler is probably the reason they ended up being as socialist as they were, which fits with his history in the Bavarian Soviet Republic. No doubt Rohm and Strasser deserve some credit too, but that’s a side tangent.
The eye-catching traits of Nazism - hunger for eastern lebensraum, a desire to genocide Slavs for it, German Aryanism, a racial hatred for Jews - were all fully developed in the DAP and its predecessors long before Hitler arrived. The origins of these ideas lie not in Marx or Engels, but in de Lagarde, de Gobineau, von Treitschke, Ratzel, Haushofer, Stewart Chamberlain, Claß, von Seringand von Bernhardi - and that’s not even mentioning the kooky occult types who influenced Himmler and the SS, like Wirth, Schonerer, Lanz and von List. Apart from maybe Gobineau, I doubt you’ve heard of any of these names. If you look into them, you might be surprised at how influential many of them were in German politics, in some cases before Hitler was even born, and at how unsocialist practically all of them were.
If you look at Hitler’s ideological cousins and early rivals in the Conservative Revolution, men like von Salomon, Freyer, van den Bruck, Hans Grimm, Evola and von Stauffenberg, what’s immediately obvious is that they have a strong continuity on the racial and national side of things but little to no continuity on the socialist side of things. Hence, Nazism may be described as a form of romantic nationalism which gained socialist traits under Hitler’s leadership. If you remove Hitler and his socialism from the equation and somehow give it power in 1933, essentially zero of its atrocities would change, because they were all part of its German romantic nationalist heritage from the start.
Socialism, of which essentially the only variant surviving in 2024 is Marxism - you won’t hear anyone proclaiming themselves a Fourierist or a Bietrist today - is indeed a thoroughly evil ideology. But, in acknowledging this, one must avoid the fallacy that all evil ideologies spring from the same womb. Nazism was certainly influenced by socialism, but the bulk of its ideological heritage - including all the stuff normies know it for today - came from another source.
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/six-ways-to-classify-belief-systems/
Your entire argument seems to be: Magoon did not use my preferred method, so even though both of our methods arrive at roughly the same conclusion, Magoon is incorrect.
Just because National Socialists arrived at Socialism via different intellectual paths from other socialists, that does not mean that National Socialists were not socialist.
Your argument does not in anyway undermine my claim that National Socialism was a form of Socialism. I think that you are so hung up on exclusively using a very underdeveloped classification method, and you seem determined to ignore the outcome (the stated opinion, the actions taken, and the outcome of those actions taken).
Not one of your points discounts a single one of the 40+ facts that I presented in the article.
Let me start out by saying where I agree with you one:
1) Yes, National Socialism was heavily influenced by German Romantic nationalism. I mentioned in the article, that one of the key tenets of National Socialism is nationalism, though I did not mention Romanticism.
2) Yes, National Socialism had “undeniably socialist economics.” Glad that we agree on that key point.
3) Yes, National Socialists were influenced by prior non-Socialist thinkers, but that can be said of all forms of socialism. I really do not understand why you seem to think that ideologies are only influenced by one or two thinkers.
4) Yes, the cladistic method of tracing the origins of ideas is very interesting. You are welcome to use it. My article, however, was not meant to trace the ideological origins of National Socialism, but to answer the question of whether they were Socialist.
5) Yes, convergent evolution plays a role, but that in no way undermines my claim. It actually strengthens it. Your own argument of convergent evolution shows the weakness of using the cladistic method exclusively. I agree that both Marxist and National Socialists converged on Socialism, but often for different reasons. But that just proves my point in a different way.
6) Yes, there were other thinkers at the time who had similar thinking. Not sure why you consider this evidence against my argument.
7) Yes, the TIK videos influenced me to post on this topic, as did the events in Gaza, but my I had already read widely on the topic before hand. TIK and I used the same secondary resources and came to similar conclusions.
8) Yes, if you define Communism, which is the only pure form of Marxist regime, as the only form of Socialism, then the National Socialists are not Socialists. But I said that in the article. This conclusion has the very unfortunate consequence of saying that the vast majority of people who identify as socialists are not actually socialists. That is just not plausible.
Now, here is where I disagree with you:
1) If you were to make the claim that National Socialism is a socialist ideology that had different intellectual origins than Marxist Socialism, then I would agree 100%. So why not just say that? You seem determined to ignore the outcome and solely focus on the historical roots. That is a flaw in your logic and a weakness of the cladistic method.
2) I do not find the cladistic method for ideologies to be anywhere near as useful as you do. In fact, I think it is far more useful to look at the outcome (the stated opinion, the actions taken, and the outcome of those actions taken). To convince me, Moldburg needs to show me a definitive cladistic diagram with all ideologies. My guess is that it will look like a pile of spaghetti.
3) The cladistic method comes from biology where there are by definition just two and only two parents. That is rarely true for ideologies.
4) Prove to me your claim that your method “allows me to pick out the chain of memetic descent back into the past.” Draw a clear cladistic diagram that accounts for all beliefs of Hitler and the National Socialists.
5) I never claimed that Hitler invented National Socialism.
6) I never claimed that “Nazism’s chain of memetic descent stopped at Hitler”
7) I do not know whether “Hitler is probably the reason they ended up being as socialist as they were.” If so, then that only strengthens my claim.
8) Your claim seems to be that because not all of their beliefs stem from other socialists, so then they were not socialist. Well, Marxism was heavily influenced by Hegel, who was clearly not a socialist. By your logic, then Marxist were not Socialist, which is obviously not true.
9) Following the memetic descent is actually very difficult. It is very difficult to know how a person or group of people formed an opinion. It also misses that people can add their own original thinking that cannot be traced back or they can arrive at the same conclusion using different information. Most importantly, it ignores the material reality that shapes all ideologies. That is why it is much better to look at the outcome (the stated opinion, the actions taken and the outcome of those actions taken).
10) I really do not understand how you can claim that there are no Socialists today that are not Marxist. The overwhelming majority of self-proclaimed socialists in the West are not Marxist.
11) I never claimed that “all evil ideologies spring from the same womb” except perhaps psychological temperament.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/radical-ideologies-feast-on-mental
12) The article that you linked to has no cladistic diagram that includes National Socialism, so it is useless for this discussion.
-- "Not one of your points discounts a single one of the 40+ facts that I presented in the article."
That was never my intention. My problem is not with the facts or the interpretation which your methodology produced with them. My problem is with the methodology itself, for reasons which I'll be reiterating again and again below.
Agreements:
(1) I mention it because I mean specifically "Romantic Nationalism" as one phrase. Romantic Nationalism is a subset of nationalism which is rooted in ideals such as blood & soil, race and national character. Those are the roots of Nazism right there. The fact that, per your view, Nazism also happens to be a form of Socialism has little to do with them, so perhaps it's worth using a system which allows us to take note of that difference in a meaningful way.
(3,4,5,6) And I would contend that the vast majority of their ideological influences came from romantic nationalists. Were they influenced by socialists - sure, enough that they are indisputably socialists by your methodology. Within the scope of your methodology, I have no ground to disagree on. But since the bulk of their ideas came from a non-socialist tradition, I think it's more productive to use a methodology which describes Nazism as primarily something else with a secondary dose of socialism.
(8) I wouldn't define Communism in that way. It's just that all surviving forms of socialism, which includes communism and social democracy (its founders were acolytes of Marx, they explicitly stated their ideas were only a modification on Marx), are based entirely or almost entirely on Marxist ideology.
Disagreements:
(1,2) If I were to do it your way, then I wouldn't disagree. But since those non-Marxist roots turn out to be kinda important for determining how most of the ideology of Nazism works, I find your way unsatisfying because it doesn't convey much information beyond the basics about its economics. Even then, you don't get a complete picture. For example, Generalplan Ost undeniably had an economic element to it, yet you can't explain Generalplan Ost as simply an outgrowth of socialism, and you can't dismiss it as not a core part of the ideology either, so it has to be accounted for.
(2) The outcome can certainly be described as socialist. It can also be described as a lot of other things that the word "socialism" just doesn't cover. When socialism is the majority of an ideology's contents, that's fine. But when the reverse is true, you have to start looking at it as Something Else with socialism mixed in, otherwise you will only ever be able to talk about Nazism in a partial manner.
(3) True, but there is very little besides Marxism and Romantic Nationalism at play in Nazism. Languages are just as complex as ideologies, and yet we still use cladistics to describe them because most are trivially classifiable as descendants of one or two parents, so I see no problem here.
(4) I can't do that with anything near accuracy in text form, and you know that. Still, the names I mentioned previously would comprise the great majority of that diagram.
(5,6,7) That was bad wording on my part, overemphasizing what didn't need to be emphasized. The point was that the vast majority of the ideological contents of Nazism came from people who were not Marxists, or even socialists by any definition.
(8) "not all" is a far cry from "most". This isn't some small part of the ideology, it's the bulk of its ideas.
(9) You are vastly overblowing the extent to which this stuff is difficult to trace. When Houston Stewart Chamberlain is an intimate friend of Hitler's and is credited by Hitler as heavily shaping his own worldview, and it's obvious from reading HSC just what Hitler took from him, we don't need to guess. Nor do we need to guess when HSC cites Gobineau, Ratzel and a bunch of other people by name in his own work. The chains of connection are obvious. And as the example of Generalplan Ost showed, the outcomes are also entirely easy to trace back. Really, it's simple: if HSC and his ilk were talking about the racial inferiority of the Slavs and how Germany's natural destiny is to genocide the Slavs for lebensraum, and Marx and his ilk are not, which of the two groups can you blame more for Generalplan Ost?
(10) If you mean social democracy, then see (8) in the agreements section. Suffice to say, it's Marxist and its founders admitted as such. Failing that, I don't know of any other ideology that you could be referring to. Whatever it is, it can't be Western.
(12) I brought it up because it outlines 5 different ways to organize ideologies and why that can be very useful.
Can you name a non-Communist regime that was more socialistic than the National Socialist regime?
I agree with you that the doctrine of National Socialism is not fully explained by the concept of Socialism. I never made that claim. Nor does that fact invalidate my claim.
I clearly stated in the article that the ideology comes from a fusion of Nationalism, Socialism and Anti-semitism. Just because that I did not go into detail on the other two parts of the ideology does not mean that National Socialism is not a form of Socialism.
You clearly believe that the National Socialist implemented socialist economic policy. You do not seem to disagree that they also established socialist social policies. Nor do you disagree that they thought of themselves as socialist and had socialist policies in their platform.
Let’s stop dancing around the main point, and acknowledge the obvious.
So let me translate for you as what you should be saying “ Yes, National Socialists were clearly socialist, but socialism does not fully define their beliefs. Let me give some additional context that includes German Romanticism.”
-- "I agree with you that the doctrine of National Socialism is not fully explained by the concept of Socialism. I never made that claim. Nor does that fact invalidate my claim."
Yeah, that's the neat thing. Neither of our claims invalidates the other, because it's all a matter of what method you use to categorize ideologies. You made the post, I made the restack, you asked for clarification, and this is the result.
If nothing else, I hope I've at least given you an interesting list of names to research if you're ever inclined to plumb the true depths of 19th-c. Germanic evil.
“Yeah, that's the neat thing. Neither of our claims invalidates the other, because it's all a matter of what method you use to categorize ideologies”
Bullshit. This is pure sophism. I made the claim, and you attacked my integrity. When I called your bluff, you changed the subject.
Researchers should use the method that is appropriate to the question. I chose the question, not you.
And reasearchers should also choose multiple methods. Your method only works for a different question.
All your replies were a response to an article that I DID NOT WRITE. The topic of my article was not “Understanding the intellectual origins of the National Socialist ideology.” If it were, then your responses would be on target. That was not the topic of my article.
You just claim that since National Socialism did not descend from Marxism (which you define before hand as the only real Socialist ideology), then by definition National Socialism is not socialism. Of course, because you defined it that way! I dealt with that argument and agreed to it in the original article. Your claim means that almost every socialist movement was not actually socialist.
I call bullshit.
You also claim that because National Socialism was heavily influenced by German Romantic Nationalism, therefore it cannot possibly also be a socialist ideology. This is exactly the problem your method. It does not accept the possibility of influence coming from different categories. So ditch the methodology, not reality!
You are committing a logical fallacy that starts from a circular definition and a weak methodology and refusing all others. Accepting only one method of inquiry is not good history and it is not good social science.
The only thing that you convinced me of was that the cladistic method is only good for understanding the intellectual heritage of an ideology but nothing else about an ideology. It tells you very little about the ideology itself. Your view acts as if material reality does not exist. It is only intellectual heritage. That is simply not true.
And to claim that there is only one solid methodology in historical research is just dogmatic and narrow-minded. Particularly when you are defending one as obscure as cladism. The very fact that you have to fall back on "convergent evolution" proves it. For regimes, material reality matters more than intellectual heritage.
1) You made the claim, I made an observation, and you came to me looking for a fight because you were pissed that the observation *sounded true*. Which, now that I've gauged your reaction, it seems I was right.
2) I would say that my method DOES in fact work for this question, and it produces more interesting results for what I'm after, which is who inspired whom to do what. That was why I made the restack.
3) All my replies were a continuation of a discussion we had in the restack, which is premised on my dispute over METHODS. The entire point is that you "should've" written a different article, if for no other reason than that this conclusion has been done to death already.
As an aside, I never claimed that Marxism is the "only true type of socialism". I claimed that, due entirely to various historical accidents, it is the last variety left standing, and that all socialisms today are influenced by Marxism. All humans today are descended from homo sapiens, but that doesn't mean the Denisovans or Neanderthals weren't true humans - they're just all extinct.
edit: oh, one thing I missed. No, my claim doesn't mean that almost all socialist movements weren't actually socialists. It only indicates that about a small minority of movements, the biggest ones being Nazism and FDR's New Deal.
edit2: Also, I did not claim that there is only one solid methodology in historical research. Never. Go back through this entire thread, back into the restack. You won't find any such claim. And convergent evolution is not a "fallback", it is a natural feature in evolution.
(10) I just realized the Fabian Society might count, but they've long been subsumed into Marxist thought anyway.
To claim that Marxist Communism is the only form of socialism is just not credible. Here are just a few of them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
Am I right in believing that you deleted my response because it made your claim look ridiculous?
edit: but, in case you didn't and I merely misclicked when I made that post, I'll summarize it by saying that all the variants of socialism mentioned there are either non-Marxist but extinct today, or are alive today but were developed by Marxists as an amendment of Marxist ideas. The one exception is Gandhian socialism, which was developed from the ideas of John Ruskin.
To clarify, what makes the "Yes, Yes" and "No, No" answers interesting as opposed to "Yes, No" or "No, Yes" is the fact that they have to deal with the fact that it's not sitting on the opposite side of the political spectrum from them. For example, a leftist who believes Nazism is a form of socialism, however evil it might be, has to think harder about his ideology than a leftist who simply casts it to the right and says "No True Socialist!"
I am not worried about what other people have to deal with. I am mainly concerned about historical facts.
-- "I am not worried about what other people have to deal with."
No, I think that's actually this article's primary concern and that I was right in my initial assessment: you only delved into Nazism because you wanted to pwn leftists, and in order to do so you had to stick to a very narrow path of inquiry and deny the pertinence of any other information, because doing it any other way would introduce complications and deny you the hard-hitting polemic you desired.
And I will go one step further: since TIK essentially did all the work for you, including providing a detailed bibliography, this endeavor was easy for you so long as you stuck to all the points he laid out in his 5 hour long video. The fact that you can't stray from them at any point suggests that you have no interest in doing anything but rehash his work for a smaller audience. Even if it is flawed, TIK's work on this matter is phenomenal and his diligence is a credit to his quality as a historian, whereas you were just momentarily treading in his footsteps because you saw an opportunity to do cheaply what it took him a herculean effort to do. You have nothing of your own to add, no new information and no new insights on existing information. On the other hand, I am interested in new information, which is why I recommend the cladistic model in this instance.
Not true.
It is not a "very narrow path of inquiry." I looked at the stated intentions, the party platform, the acts passed, the economic policy and the social programs. I then implicitly compared them to all other self-declared socialist movements and claimed that they were not that different. So any definition of socialist that is not exclusively Communist must include National Socialism. That is not narrow.
I also did not "deny the pertinence of any other information." I just did not mention it in the article, otherwise it would have been far too long. When you raise other influences, I repeatedly agreed with you.
No, I did not write a "hard-hitting polemic." If I wanted to do that, it would have been a very different article.
I never claimed to be doing original research in primary sources. I had been reading those books before TIK made his videos. We used the same secondary resources and came to the same conclusion. Plus I clearly referenced TIK videos. I do also add material.
If TIKs videos were phenomenal, then it is very unclear why you object to my methods and conclusions.
I have been very patient with you, despite you starting this conversation with a public insult to my integrity as a writer of history. It ends now.
No more warnings.
I have heard most of this crap before. Fascism is a reactionary ideology, and hence of the right, not the left. Hitler himself did not like using the term socialist in the party name, and only reluctantly agreed to it. The “socialism” here was not real. It was used to con the working classes and win them away from the real socialists. Fascism controls capitalism. It does not abolish it as socialism does. And fascism allows the accumulation of wealth, which is anathema to socialism. The German war machine was supplied with armaments and supplies from private enterprises that retained their wealth, not by state-owned industry. Fascism and socialism are both authoritarian, but that is where the resemblance ends. And, yes, National "Socialism" is fascism.
Your credibility is highly tarnished when you start out with "I have heard most of this crap before." It is not clear to me that you actually read the article, as you do not mention any of my 40 points of evidence.
As I mentioned in the article, the Left-Right spectrum is not useful in categorizing Totalitarian ideologies. In only makes sense for those who work within the boundaries of Liberal Democratic Capitalism.
Hitler use the term "National Socialism" throughout his life in public and private. There is not the slightest evidence that Hitler did not like the term.
Fascism and National Socialism are two different ideologies, though they have many similarities.
Many Socialist movements do not abolish capitalism once they come into power, nor do they end the accumulation of wealth.
No, National Socialism has far more similarities than being authoritarian:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/descent-into-a-man-made-hell
German reactionaries of the 1920s and 30s supported the restoration of the Kaiser and his regime. Hitler and the National Socialists were contemptuous of them and made their movement illegal.
The National Socialist regime was nothing like anything else that had ever existed in German history so they cannot be defined as "reactionary."
So, no, the National Socialists were not reactionary. They were revolutionaries, and they said that again and again. They supported the National Socialist Revolution, and they implemented it.
Hindenburg and the German industrialists supported the Nazis and were largely responsible for putting them in power. In other words, the Nazis were totally creatures of the right.
Really. So industrialists wanted the National Socialists to remove property rights from the German constitution (one of Hitler's first acts)? That was their plan?
See point 21a in this article.
That completely conflicts with the historical record:
https://www.amazon.com/German-Big-Business-Rise-Hitler/dp/0195042352
Do you consider the British Labour Party of the period to be socialist?
Do you consider the German Social Democratic Party of the period to be socialist?
I certainly do, and so would most historians, but they do not fit your criteria. And the National Socialist intervened far more in economic affairs than either one of those parties did when they were in government.
The British Labour Party used to be a formally socialist party. That changed when Blair got their charter changed, to remove the old Clause IV, although many Labour members are still socialists. As for the SDP, social democracy used to be a form of socialism. Today the term refers to a form of capitalism. The Nordic Model is social democracy in the modern sense: capitalism with a high degree of welfare and high taxes.
Yes, so we agree that in the 1920s and 1930s (which is the period that we are talking about) both the UK Labour party and German SPD were socialist parties.
Do you not agree that their period of power had less intervention in the economy than under National Socialism?
For evidence, reread points 21, 23, 25, and 26.
You are not very bright. Labour never had enough electoral support to carry out a full socialist program, or they would surely have done so. Same with the socialist parties in a variety of other Western European countries. And the SPD did not have sufficient electoral support in the prewar period either, as demonstrated by their losing the vote over the Enabling Act. Socialism means state ownership of the means of production. That is not the fascist way. Fascism controls the economy and business, yes. But under fascism business is still privately owned and individuals may accumulate wealth.
Have you already started with insults?!?
No, "state ownership" is only one type of Socialism. There are many different types of socialism.
I am glad that we agree that National Socialism is about controlling the economy and business. I wish that you had stated that from the beginning. The rest is just semantics.
That is bs. I know some today try to redefine socialism, but some form of communal ownership of the means of production, whether directly or through the state, has been consistent among all strands of socialist ideology, throughout its history. Fascism in no way agrees with that.
National Socialism is not the same as Fascism. Those are two different ideologies.
What is your evidence that “Hitler did not like the term” and “only reluctantly agreed to the term?” Once he became undisputed leader of the party, it would have been easy for him to change the name of the party. Just the opposite, he actually quit party when other party members wanted to drop the term "Socialist" from the party name.
Hitler also repeatedly used the term “National Socialism” in Mein Kampf and throughout his life. Why would he keep using the term after he had been in absolute power for over a decade if he did not actually believe in it?
I cannot find the reference to Hitler's objection to the term right now. He was not in control of the party at the time the name change occurred. However, I don't know who this guy is, but what he is saying comports with what I have read on the subject. Furthermore, it is well-known that Hindenburg and the major industrialists in Germany supported Hitler and the Nazis, precisely because they were against the left and socialists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2biEiuTzsgw&ab_channel=OwenJones
I seriously question your knowledge of the period.
Find me a link from a real history book. Your claim does not match the time line. The name NDSAP was adopted after Hitler took total control of the party, and it was Hitler who wanted to add the word "Socialist" to the name.
And the myth that major industrialists in Germany supported Hitler coming to power has been totally demolished by historians. This book in particular:
https://www.amazon.com/German-Big-Business-Rise-Hitler/dp/0195042352
Yes, they donated money after Hitler came to power, but that is hardly a sign of support. It was trying to get on the right side of a regime that might expropriate them. Many non-Nazis joined the party after 1933 just to boost their careers. It was like joining the Communist party in the USSR.
The only major industrialist who supported Hitler before he took power was Fritze Thyssen and his company was later expropriated by the National Socialists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Thyssen
Hindenburg never supported the National Socialists. He ran against Hitler in the 1932 German presidential election:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_German_presidential_election
Hindenburg tried to do everything that he could to avoid appointing Hitler as Chancellor but with opposition from the Communists, there was not other viable alternative. If he had not died, he might have been able to keep Hitler from becoming Fuhre.
You are utterly wrong. Hitler was only the propaganda officer for the DAP voted to change its name. And you undercut your own argument. Of course the industrialists were afraid of having their businesses and wealth appropriated by socialists. That is what socialists do. Fascists let business owners keep their businesses and wealth, as long as they toe the party line. The fact that Hindenburg ran for election against Hitler and was not necessarily a fan of Hitler and the Nazis is no indication that Hitler or the Nazis were socialists. Hindenburg sided with the Nazis in the end because he thought that was the only way to protect the right-wing establishment rule and fend off the left and communism.
And the National Socialists did expropriate industries. I just gave you an example. There are more in the article.
Fascists may at times expropriate businesses out of necessity, not by choice. They prefer most or all business in private hands, as long as they can control them from outside.
I never said that Hindenburg not supporting Hitler made them socialist. You claimed that Hindenburg supported National Socialists, and I showed why this was not true.
He supported them by putting them in power.
I am currently reading this article with great interest, and would only like to point out two typos I noticed before I continue to do so. From the sentence:
“A bit part of the problem is that historian correctly view National Socialism as anti-semitic and Nationalistic, but they see the rest of their ideas as an incoherent jumbled mess. “
I believe “bit” should read “big” and “historian” should be pluralized to “historians”.
Good catch!
I just corrected the typos.
Yes, all very obvious. Instead of Kulaks they had the Jews, but very similar.
Hitler wasn't planning to immiserate or even execute successful members of private industry, but neither would they be free to set the goals of their businesses. The Nazies would set their goals and they were mere managers with those limits, able to draw a comfortable salary/dividend but nothing else. Compared to the KPD or even other Nazies, that was a step up for the non-Jewish capitalists.
Thanks for the comment.
I largely agree with you, except for the "obvious" part. Maybe it should be obvious, but it is amazing how many people who are very knowledgeable in the period know little or nothing about it. I have read about the period for decades, but I had no idea until quite recently.
Even experts could not make this list of points that I have in the article off the top of their head.
It is hard not to believe that the ideological convictions of historians do not play a role in their inability to "see" these basic facts.
Thanks for the comment. I will check it out.