The author is correct the National Socialists were ‘of the left’ not ‘of the right’ but makes a fundamental error in applying something like an American understanding of left and right. The US has never had the kind of monarchal, aristocratic, and (mostly) Roman Catholic right which is what Europeans think of as right. They think of Hitler and the NSDAP as ‘right’ because they allied themselves (and manipulated) the old German right in their rise to power. This is well understood by anyone who has studied Modern European history. There has never been much of a Lockean or classical liberal tradition in German intellectual, let alone political, life (pace the FDP). The same thing was true in France with the Action Francaise and in Italy with the fascists.
An astute observation and i agree, "left" and "right" mean different things in the US than in Europe. My understanding is that the French Revolution vs. the American Revolution is a fairly good comparison point between what something like say "liberty" means here as opposed to how it is seen in Europe. You mentioned that there was never much of a "Lockean or classical liberal" tradition in Germany- who would you say exemplified their traditions? Bismark is the one who comes to mind to me, but he was political and not philosophical- sorry, not my wheelhouse.
The 18th century German philosophical tradition is much more along the lines of Kant - German enlightenment ‘liberalism’ is much more idealist than Anglo-American, and, of course, the 19th century German philosophical tradition centers around Hegel, with Nietzsche come in the second half of the century and much misunderstood. Very different than the English tradition of Locke, Hume (though Kant said reading Hume shook him out of his dogmatic slumber), Adam Smith and what developed into classical liberalism. The Germans never had the tradition of liberties such as the English Bill of Rights (1688), let alone the long successful struggle to put limits on the crown running back to Magna Charta (1215). Even though Ernst Cassierer (a 20th century German philosopher who wrote one of the most important books on the Enlightenment) spent a lot of time on Locke, and a good friend of mine, Klaus Fischer, wrote his dissertation on Locke and the German Enlightenment, my sense is that the influence of Kant, the French Revolution, romanticism, and Hegel pretty much snuffed any nascent Lockean tradition out, such that my sense is that no one has much read Locke in Germany since the early 19th century. Although Hegel was important in the development of Marxism and left-wing thought, he was himself quite the conservative supporter of the Prussian monarchy and its more or less authoritarian worldview. Hegelian thought was generally seen as conservative before it was hijacked by Marx and Engles. This barely begins to skim, and there are decades of work to even start to unpack this…I hope this was helpful.
It was thank you. I guess I thought of Bismark because I remember listening to some Hillsdale College lecture years ago about our Founding Father's sense of justice and how they adhered to Blackstone's Commentaries and the notion that it was better for 10 guilty people to escape that for one innocent person to suffer. The Continental model, and especially Germany, was summed up in a quote attributed (falsely) to Bismark that was just the opposite- better that 10 innocent men suffer than for one guilty man to escape.
i strongly dislike using the terms right and left in political analysis as those are relative terms that can be defined in any number of ways. That being said, it seems obvious to me that fascism and communism share some common ideological DNA. Both are materialist, utopian ideologies that believe in aggressive social engineering at the hands of an all-encompassing state. Both believe that entire categories of humanity must be destroyed in order to reach the goal of a perfectly harmonious society.
Yes, the specific details of each regime were different. The communists wanted to eliminate the bourgeoisie, the Kulaks, etc while the Nazis wanted to eliminate the racially unfit and were less concerned about economic equity. But both of these programs (social leveling and eugenics) originate on the left. If we were drawing a family tree of ideological movements communism and fascism would be first cousins or something like that.
"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." This was plastered in huge letters all over Germany. Does that sound " right-wing" in the least?
I have told people for many years that NAZI was an acronym of the German words for National Aryan Socialist Party. The German followers of that party did not call themselves NAZIs but democratic socialists - the same thing Bernie Sanders calls himself. I doubt many people would consider Bernie 'right-wing'.
The German is Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) - where English-speakers spell and pronounce ,socialist‘ with a ‚c‘ the German spelling and pronunciation is with a ‚z‘. The Nazi acronym combines sort of combines the first two words. It was the common term in Germany for the party.
People have been publicly proclaiming this for at least 2 decades now that I know of. The history-book makers continue to knowingly lie, just like they did before.
That doesn't mean this is a waste of time (individuals can come here to see the real history), only that continually pointing out these truths seems likely to continue being required for the foreseeable future.
As such, thank you for participating in posting the truth, and please keep doing so.
One more thought. The official name for North Korea is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)." They call themselves Social Democrats, like all Communist traditionally did, the same name dear Bernie, AOC, and a large army of clueless people love to use. Words matter - it's really scary. George Orwell's 1984 said it perfectly. For the Leftist Progressive neo-Marxist Democrats - "Slavery is Freedom, and Freedom is Slavery." And to quote a famous Marxist, Comrade Trotsky, "The worse the better." They want to burn the 'mother down' (our country, culture, and Constitution) and from the ashes build their pathetic Dystopian Dictatorship.
I agree with you and have long thought that Nazis were strongly left. They fought the internationalist (USSR/Russia controlled) Communists/Marxists/Socialists because of Nationalist concerns, not Socialist ones. You put Fascism on the left, and I think it can be either left-wing or right-wing. Left-wing Wikipedia won't let you dispute their statement that it is right-wing, but the best known Fascist governments were Italy under Mussolini and Germany under Hitler, both socialist (and therefore left-wing). I have read that Chile under Pinochet was RW Fascist, but I haven't researched it sufficiently to rule out LW smear rather than accurate description. Can one think of examples of RW Fascist governments, or perhaps it is only LW and I am mistaken?
Communists following Moscow declared that anyone, even communists, who didn't follow the Moscow line, were "reactionary" and therefore of the right.
Even among those who were not explicitly following the Moscow line, there were many who secretly did. Look at the changes in attitudes for intellectuals and officials when before and after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed, and before and after Operation Barbarossa started.
This is what they mean when they say Nazism and fascism were "of the right". The Soviets were influential, and the West went along with them. By the end of the war, they couldn't reverse course.
Wow - got to make a comment here. So, it's very simple for those slow on the uptake. By definition, the Bolsheviks were always the farthest to the 'left' - ALWAYS, BY DEFINITION. The Nazis were way, way, way over on the 'left' - but were to the right of the Bolsheviks, by definition. By Bolshevik standards, Big Bernie and AOC are 'rightist reactionaries.'
The man that primarily invented Fascism was an Italian Marxist Socialist named Giovanni Gentile. He incorporated some early Syndicalist ideas developed by Georges Sorel (1847–1922) from the late 19th Century. Fascism was 'polished up' are refined by another famous Italian Marxist Socialist (in his younger days - Benito Mussolini.
Communism and Fascism, fraternal twins born of Marist Socialist. Different means, but the very same ends - the control of all aspects of the 'State' by the Governing Elites. The Bolshevik Communist called themselves 'Democratic Socialist.' What a hoot when clueless Bernie and AOC blather the line. It was the Frankfurt School neo-Marxist, Cultural Marxist which pulled off this "Big Whopping Lie" after World War II. You see, the term 'right-wing,' in the Amercian context is actually the very opposite of the Marxist term "Right-Wing Reactionary.' But this merry band of Marxist, led by Gramsci (murdered by Mussolini), were driven from Italy to the University of Frankfurt, the Hitler drove them out to good old New York University (NYU) and the rest his history. The started the own evil brew called 'Cultural Marxism' - and out poured a torrent of 'Critical Studies.' The most evil, diabolical and nefarious of these is "Intersectional Critical Race Theory."
And the "Big Lies" and blatant Propaganda seemed to have worked in many cases. The Modern Leftist Progressive neo-Marxists Democrats are utterly and completely un self-aware that their Democrat Party is the 'fascist like Party' in the United States in 2025. And as for Google searches and Britanica - simply great whopping lies. Herr Goebbels and his boss would have loved these lying clowns. The irony is hilariously defining - but also so very dangerous. Unless we wake up, I fear these new Democrat Fascists will win - and again, they are truly unaware. It boggles the mind. Hope this was useful - be very afraid.
The Nazis were 'absolutely NOT' a right-wing movement. Hit the wrong key before. Read my longer comment above. Think about it, in the early 1930s, the "Nazi Brown Shirts" and "Communist Red Shirts" fought it out in the streets of German Cities. These two groups were out to recruit the EXACT SAME PEOPLE - disillusioned youth and Marxist malcontents. Both sides had to out-brutalize each other. A lot of these "Shirts" changed sides from time to time. Does nobody ever study the real history. Sheesh.
When a political party calls themselves socialists they are socialists.
The Fascist Party was another off-spring of socialism. The socialists kicked Mussolini out so he started his own socialist party.
Here’s the argument the left relies upon when describing communism. See if it doesn’t work for Nazism and fascism as well. Leftists argue that just because the Soviet Union said it was communist does not make it so. They argue that because the USSR (CCP, Pol Pot, NK, etc) did not produce the expected result it was not communism but a corruption of communism. Problem is; all communists used the same Marxist rule book and all produced violent, authoritarian, corrupt, impoverished states. When the same recipe repeatedly fails one stops blaming the cook.
Just because nazism and fascism produced ugly violent results does not even remotely change the socialist recipe they both relied on.
Frankly, the left think that any gov’t type that produces terribly results is right wing by definition.
EDIT: The biggest difference the NAZIs and Fascists have with communism is focus on nationalism or internationalism. The Soviets had a program called COMINTERN which, as you guessed means Communist International. It was a world conference dedicated to the global cause of spreading communism. Hitler and Mussolini looked inward, Soviets outward.
The author is correct the National Socialists were ‘of the left’ not ‘of the right’ but makes a fundamental error in applying something like an American understanding of left and right. The US has never had the kind of monarchal, aristocratic, and (mostly) Roman Catholic right which is what Europeans think of as right. They think of Hitler and the NSDAP as ‘right’ because they allied themselves (and manipulated) the old German right in their rise to power. This is well understood by anyone who has studied Modern European history. There has never been much of a Lockean or classical liberal tradition in German intellectual, let alone political, life (pace the FDP). The same thing was true in France with the Action Francaise and in Italy with the fascists.
An astute observation and i agree, "left" and "right" mean different things in the US than in Europe. My understanding is that the French Revolution vs. the American Revolution is a fairly good comparison point between what something like say "liberty" means here as opposed to how it is seen in Europe. You mentioned that there was never much of a "Lockean or classical liberal" tradition in Germany- who would you say exemplified their traditions? Bismark is the one who comes to mind to me, but he was political and not philosophical- sorry, not my wheelhouse.
The 18th century German philosophical tradition is much more along the lines of Kant - German enlightenment ‘liberalism’ is much more idealist than Anglo-American, and, of course, the 19th century German philosophical tradition centers around Hegel, with Nietzsche come in the second half of the century and much misunderstood. Very different than the English tradition of Locke, Hume (though Kant said reading Hume shook him out of his dogmatic slumber), Adam Smith and what developed into classical liberalism. The Germans never had the tradition of liberties such as the English Bill of Rights (1688), let alone the long successful struggle to put limits on the crown running back to Magna Charta (1215). Even though Ernst Cassierer (a 20th century German philosopher who wrote one of the most important books on the Enlightenment) spent a lot of time on Locke, and a good friend of mine, Klaus Fischer, wrote his dissertation on Locke and the German Enlightenment, my sense is that the influence of Kant, the French Revolution, romanticism, and Hegel pretty much snuffed any nascent Lockean tradition out, such that my sense is that no one has much read Locke in Germany since the early 19th century. Although Hegel was important in the development of Marxism and left-wing thought, he was himself quite the conservative supporter of the Prussian monarchy and its more or less authoritarian worldview. Hegelian thought was generally seen as conservative before it was hijacked by Marx and Engles. This barely begins to skim, and there are decades of work to even start to unpack this…I hope this was helpful.
It was thank you. I guess I thought of Bismark because I remember listening to some Hillsdale College lecture years ago about our Founding Father's sense of justice and how they adhered to Blackstone's Commentaries and the notion that it was better for 10 guilty people to escape that for one innocent person to suffer. The Continental model, and especially Germany, was summed up in a quote attributed (falsely) to Bismark that was just the opposite- better that 10 innocent men suffer than for one guilty man to escape.
i strongly dislike using the terms right and left in political analysis as those are relative terms that can be defined in any number of ways. That being said, it seems obvious to me that fascism and communism share some common ideological DNA. Both are materialist, utopian ideologies that believe in aggressive social engineering at the hands of an all-encompassing state. Both believe that entire categories of humanity must be destroyed in order to reach the goal of a perfectly harmonious society.
Yes, the specific details of each regime were different. The communists wanted to eliminate the bourgeoisie, the Kulaks, etc while the Nazis wanted to eliminate the racially unfit and were less concerned about economic equity. But both of these programs (social leveling and eugenics) originate on the left. If we were drawing a family tree of ideological movements communism and fascism would be first cousins or something like that.
"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." This was plastered in huge letters all over Germany. Does that sound " right-wing" in the least?
I have told people for many years that NAZI was an acronym of the German words for National Aryan Socialist Party. The German followers of that party did not call themselves NAZIs but democratic socialists - the same thing Bernie Sanders calls himself. I doubt many people would consider Bernie 'right-wing'.
The German is Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) - where English-speakers spell and pronounce ,socialist‘ with a ‚c‘ the German spelling and pronunciation is with a ‚z‘. The Nazi acronym combines sort of combines the first two words. It was the common term in Germany for the party.
People have been publicly proclaiming this for at least 2 decades now that I know of. The history-book makers continue to knowingly lie, just like they did before.
That doesn't mean this is a waste of time (individuals can come here to see the real history), only that continually pointing out these truths seems likely to continue being required for the foreseeable future.
As such, thank you for participating in posting the truth, and please keep doing so.
One more thought. The official name for North Korea is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)." They call themselves Social Democrats, like all Communist traditionally did, the same name dear Bernie, AOC, and a large army of clueless people love to use. Words matter - it's really scary. George Orwell's 1984 said it perfectly. For the Leftist Progressive neo-Marxist Democrats - "Slavery is Freedom, and Freedom is Slavery." And to quote a famous Marxist, Comrade Trotsky, "The worse the better." They want to burn the 'mother down' (our country, culture, and Constitution) and from the ashes build their pathetic Dystopian Dictatorship.
I agree with you and have long thought that Nazis were strongly left. They fought the internationalist (USSR/Russia controlled) Communists/Marxists/Socialists because of Nationalist concerns, not Socialist ones. You put Fascism on the left, and I think it can be either left-wing or right-wing. Left-wing Wikipedia won't let you dispute their statement that it is right-wing, but the best known Fascist governments were Italy under Mussolini and Germany under Hitler, both socialist (and therefore left-wing). I have read that Chile under Pinochet was RW Fascist, but I haven't researched it sufficiently to rule out LW smear rather than accurate description. Can one think of examples of RW Fascist governments, or perhaps it is only LW and I am mistaken?
It's worse than you think.
Communists following Moscow declared that anyone, even communists, who didn't follow the Moscow line, were "reactionary" and therefore of the right.
Even among those who were not explicitly following the Moscow line, there were many who secretly did. Look at the changes in attitudes for intellectuals and officials when before and after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed, and before and after Operation Barbarossa started.
This is what they mean when they say Nazism and fascism were "of the right". The Soviets were influential, and the West went along with them. By the end of the war, they couldn't reverse course.
Wow - got to make a comment here. So, it's very simple for those slow on the uptake. By definition, the Bolsheviks were always the farthest to the 'left' - ALWAYS, BY DEFINITION. The Nazis were way, way, way over on the 'left' - but were to the right of the Bolsheviks, by definition. By Bolshevik standards, Big Bernie and AOC are 'rightist reactionaries.'
The man that primarily invented Fascism was an Italian Marxist Socialist named Giovanni Gentile. He incorporated some early Syndicalist ideas developed by Georges Sorel (1847–1922) from the late 19th Century. Fascism was 'polished up' are refined by another famous Italian Marxist Socialist (in his younger days - Benito Mussolini.
Communism and Fascism, fraternal twins born of Marist Socialist. Different means, but the very same ends - the control of all aspects of the 'State' by the Governing Elites. The Bolshevik Communist called themselves 'Democratic Socialist.' What a hoot when clueless Bernie and AOC blather the line. It was the Frankfurt School neo-Marxist, Cultural Marxist which pulled off this "Big Whopping Lie" after World War II. You see, the term 'right-wing,' in the Amercian context is actually the very opposite of the Marxist term "Right-Wing Reactionary.' But this merry band of Marxist, led by Gramsci (murdered by Mussolini), were driven from Italy to the University of Frankfurt, the Hitler drove them out to good old New York University (NYU) and the rest his history. The started the own evil brew called 'Cultural Marxism' - and out poured a torrent of 'Critical Studies.' The most evil, diabolical and nefarious of these is "Intersectional Critical Race Theory."
And the "Big Lies" and blatant Propaganda seemed to have worked in many cases. The Modern Leftist Progressive neo-Marxists Democrats are utterly and completely un self-aware that their Democrat Party is the 'fascist like Party' in the United States in 2025. And as for Google searches and Britanica - simply great whopping lies. Herr Goebbels and his boss would have loved these lying clowns. The irony is hilariously defining - but also so very dangerous. Unless we wake up, I fear these new Democrat Fascists will win - and again, they are truly unaware. It boggles the mind. Hope this was useful - be very afraid.
The Nazis were 'absolutely NOT' a right-wing movement. Hit the wrong key before. Read my longer comment above. Think about it, in the early 1930s, the "Nazi Brown Shirts" and "Communist Red Shirts" fought it out in the streets of German Cities. These two groups were out to recruit the EXACT SAME PEOPLE - disillusioned youth and Marxist malcontents. Both sides had to out-brutalize each other. A lot of these "Shirts" changed sides from time to time. Does nobody ever study the real history. Sheesh.
When a political party calls themselves socialists they are socialists.
The Fascist Party was another off-spring of socialism. The socialists kicked Mussolini out so he started his own socialist party.
Here’s the argument the left relies upon when describing communism. See if it doesn’t work for Nazism and fascism as well. Leftists argue that just because the Soviet Union said it was communist does not make it so. They argue that because the USSR (CCP, Pol Pot, NK, etc) did not produce the expected result it was not communism but a corruption of communism. Problem is; all communists used the same Marxist rule book and all produced violent, authoritarian, corrupt, impoverished states. When the same recipe repeatedly fails one stops blaming the cook.
Just because nazism and fascism produced ugly violent results does not even remotely change the socialist recipe they both relied on.
Frankly, the left think that any gov’t type that produces terribly results is right wing by definition.
EDIT: The biggest difference the NAZIs and Fascists have with communism is focus on nationalism or internationalism. The Soviets had a program called COMINTERN which, as you guessed means Communist International. It was a world conference dedicated to the global cause of spreading communism. Hitler and Mussolini looked inward, Soviets outward.
Excellent clarification. I appreciate you posting this!