h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No, not related to the current British Elections

Another of my idle wonderings. I get the 'Nationalist' bit of it. But what is the 'Socialist' side of national socialism? What sort of socialist policies would be considered within such a society/government? What, for example, were some socialist policies of the Nazis? Or any other national socialist government that there may have been.

Is that a bit like asking what the 'Democratic' stands for in The People's Democratic Republic of China?

A quote from "Yes Minister":

Sir Humphrey: East Yemen, isn't that a democracy?
Sir Richard Wharton: Its full name is "The Peoples' Democratic Republic of East Yemen."
Sir Humphrey: Ah, I see, so it's a communist dictatorship.

ah, yes, that could well be true!

I'm rather uneducated in politics really, hence the question!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialism#Anti-capitalism_rhetoric

This explains the socialism part of National Socialism quite well.

RF

The Nazis were (nominally) for the disenfranchised, ordinary 'German'* man around whose needs German society was to be built. To that extent, they were an anti-Capitalist party. However, they conflated Capitalism with International Jewish Bankers - hence 'Nationalist'.

'Socialism' implies (to me) the notion that society shoukld be managed for the good of society as a whole. Clearly the Nazi view arbitrarily favoured one part of society over another.

If we equate socialist to 'improving the lot of working people', and ignore the fact that they only meant non-Jewish working people, the sort of 'socialist' projects were improving housing in Rhineland mining areas; job creation by building the Autobahns; etc. Socialist parties often advocate this sort of thing, to be paid for by redistributive taxes. In this case, a fair portion of the money came from the seizure of assets from Jewish businesses and families.




* They had an arbitrary definition of 'German' which excluded indigenous German Jews.

The Nazis were socialists, they nationalised the means of production.

That means just happened to the Jewish, Slavs, homosexuals, and other "undesirables" into a state run system of slave labour.

I see, thankyou all for the explanations (and link RF!). One more puzzle solved...

I'm not sure that Jack's characterisation of socialism fits the bill. It doesn't account for the fact that in Germany, various socialist parties were *bitterly* opposed to the Nazis - not just he (communist) KPD but the democratic socialist SPD. Perhaps there was more to it than nationalisation?

"
This explains the socialism part of National Socialism quite well."

It certainly does. It explains that it was meaningless rhetoric which Hitler constantly back-slided on. It seems ridiculous now, but in the 1920s "socialism" wasn't associated with bureaucracy and economic stagnation, it was associated with populism and proof that someone was on the side of the majority (Bolshevik, for example, means "majority-ite"). A modern equivalent is "democratic" which, funnily enough, a lot of totalitarian movements adopt (I was unsurprised to learn that neo-nazis in Germany style themselves "National Democrats").

"The Nazis were (nominally) for the disenfranchised, ordinary 'German'* man around whose needs German society was to be built. To that extent, they were an anti-Capitalist party. However, they conflated Capitalism with International Jewish Bankers - hence 'Nationalist'."

Entirely correct. The Nazis *were* anti-capitalist, but mainly because they thought "international capital" was controlled by Jews (as, they equally-firmly believed were the Communist movements, it's not for nothing that Nazi ideology is regarded as completely bonkers). Hitler, in one of his many flip-flops on Capitalism, decided there was "good" and "bad" capitalism and that he supported the former and opposed the latter. I'll let you work out how he determined one from the other.

'Words,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'Can mean whatever I choose them to mean.'

>>Hitler, in one of his many flip-flops on Capitalism, decided there was "good" and "bad" capitalism and that he supported the former and opposed the latter.

Well he needed the support of German industrialites, to say nothing of the middle class - both of which he got.

Incidentally - that's what 'The Night of the Long Knives' was about: purging the party of its scary working class elements to make it respectable.

>The Nazis were socialists, they nationalised the means of production.

*Makes QI alarm sound whilst "Socialism = Nationalisation" flashes on screen*

As Ed (correctly) pointed out, socialism is about making society work for the benefit of all. Nationalisation is simply taking something into government control the purpose of which could be just about anything (in the Nazi case it was largely to support a war effort). For example, King Henry VIII's dissolution of the monastery's was a form of nationalisation (he seized Church property for the Crown (ie the state)) but it certainly wasn't socialism because Henry was doing it to thwart the power of Rome and increase his own wealth and hold over the state. However, if he had done the same thing but then re-distributed the Church's money to the peasantry through his local Lords then that *would* have been proto-socialism.

>Incidentally - that's what 'The Night of the Long Knives' was about: purging the party of its scary working class elements to make it respectable.

Well, it was more a "clearing out" of Hitler's opponents in the party and that meant the SA (including the homosexual Ernst Rhomn; it's no coincidence that the Nazi persecution of homosexuals began after the purge) but also the Strasserists who really *did* believe in wholesale nationalisation.

>Well he needed the support of German industrialites, to say nothing of the middle class - both of which he got.

Very true. For an "anti-capitalist socialist" Hitler did a pretty-good job of getting German capitalists and industrialists onside. Largely because, as with everyone, he told them what they wanted to hear.

Having said that, I have no doubt Hitler saw German businessmen as essential to his vision of Germany working-together to become strong and dominant in Europe. Reading through that link ReddyFreddy gave earlier, Hitler's definition of "socialism" seems to have been "Germany working together" which is why I argued it was ideologically meaningless. Fascism was a martial philosophy, not an economic one. Its priority was getting the troops marching and the nation supporting its wars of conquest, not making the sums add up.

Actually Ictoan's question touches on something interesting which is how the Nazis saw themselves. For example, most of us would say that Hitler was a fascist but Hitler saw his own movement as distinct from fascism which, strictly-speaking, was Mussollini's ideology. A further irony is that people associate fascist with racist (to the extent that many people today think that's all that defines a fascist) but Mussolini's ideology wasn't specifically racist. There's plenty of evidence that the man and his supporters *were* racists (and they were certainly nationalists) but, unlike Hitler, there was no specific racist tone in the ideology itself.

They had much in common - Italian fascism was also martial, aggressive and imperialistic in intent - but much of what we now associate with fascism were actually nazi traits.

And of course it becomes more complex when fitted into the other far-right movements in Europe at the time. Mosley pretty-much just copied Mussolini, Franco was more of a militant Conservative who adopted fascist rhetoric and symbolism, Petain (Hitler's puppet-leader of France) was basically a paleo-conservative who wanted to drag France back to the pre-revolutionary days and most of the other "fascist dictators" were similarly just militant anti-communists and anti-leftists who were probably as wary of Hitler et al as much as they supported them (or rather accepted their support).

I'm very interested in the period, so I've done a lot of research into the extreme-right movements of the 1930s and what comes out of it (unsurprsingly) is that these people were very odd indeed. On one hand, they saw themselves as radical modernisers sweeping away old and discredited ideas (Futurism, with its dismissal of the past and love of speed, power and war was a big influence on fascist and nazi thinking) on the other hand their loathing of much modernity (notably modern art), their conscious harking to the romanticised past (the Roman symbolism is obvious, but Hitler and Franco also thought nothing of having themselves portrayed in portraits in medieval armour) and embracing of many 19th-century "establishment" ideas (martial values, lionisation of the armed forces, idealisation of war and imperialism) makes them look positively conservative.

So in conclusion...

The labels don't help us much. It would be a mistake, for example, to state that any given Socialist had any common ground with National Socialism.

And parties can oppose each other completely, even if their policies happen to coalesce in a few places. An area of agreement may be completely overshadowed by a disagreement.

*Everyone* wants the trains to run on time.

>The labels don't help us much. It would be a mistake, for example, to state that any given Socialist had any common ground with National Socialism.

More to the point, the Nazis made *enemies* of socialists to the extent they fought with them on the streets during their early brownshirt days. And anyway, if you look at the history (including recent history) of fascist and neo-fascist movements the parties always have innoculous or contradictory names. The Russian ultranationalists called their party the "Liberal Democrats" (still love that ), in Austria a whole lot of far-right politicians (including, I think, ex-nazis) started a new far-right party in the '50s and called it "The Freedom Party". I don't think liberty, democracy or freedom are fascist or nazis ideas but, hey, they've used them in the names of their movements.

>And parties can oppose each other completely, even if their policies happen to coalesce in a few places. An area of agreement may be completely overshadowed by a disagreement.

Exactly, in fact the Nazis "coalesced" with the German conservatives on numerous issues which is why they formed an anti-left coalition with them (to their credit, a number of German conservatives resigned their party membership in disgust at the leadership's decision to ally with Nazi extremists) but it would be plain wrong to say the Nazis were "basically" a conservative movement (which is what, it has to be said, a lot of leftists like to claim).