Fall 2017— The Nazis’ Collectivist Revolution: A Case For The Left-Wing Origins Of German National Socialism

William L. Shirer was an American news correspondent who made a name for himself working as a print journalist and radio reporter in Nazi Germany. From the time of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 to the winter of 1940, when he was forced to leave the country due to censorship disputes with the National Socialist regime, Shirer lived and worked in Hitler’s Third Reich; he did not return to Germany until 1945, when he had the opportunity to report on the trials at Nuremburg of the same Nazi leaders who sought to censor his work in the early days of World War II. In later years, Shirer’s writings on Adolf Hitler, the Nazis, and the Third Reich they built and brought to destruction became some of the most heavily cited and popularly acclaimed in the journalistic community.

Explaining how the Nazis first came to power, Shirer once described Adolf Hitler as “the only politician of the Right” to gain a mass following among the German people, and the Nazi movement as the only “conservative” party to win over the “long-established institutions of great power.”  With this explanation, William L. Shirer became one of the first in a long line of prominent thinkers who characterized the National Socialist German Workers' Party as a party of the political right. Through the years, a large segment of the scholarly community subscribed to Shirer’s conception of Nazi ideology. Philosopher and historian Ernst Nolte wrote that Nazism was, above all else, a right-wing middle class reaction against the “red menace” of Marxist communism, “a militant bourgeois resistance to the acute and incalculable threat of socialist revolution.”  Rand C. Lewis, a university professor specializing in terrorism in Western Europe and its alleged connections to neo-Nazism, taught that “right-wing extremism,” “right-wing militancy,” and “extreme ultra-conservati[sm]” are all essentially synonymous with Nazism.

On the other hand, individuals who have expressed the belief that Nazism is actually a phenomenon of the political left have been treated as pariahs and heretics. In the 2007 edition of The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany, written by professor emeritus Roderick Stackelberg, the author included a short biographic entry concerning one Rainier Zitelmann, a publicist who added his voice to the historiography of Nazi ideology. Stackelberg was dismayed to report that Zitelmann’s thesis centered on the notion—“startling” and “dubious” in Stackelberg’s estimation—that Adolf Hitler was a man of the left. Stackelberg went on to brand Zitelmann’s ideas as blindly and ideologically motivated, and he implied gratitude that Zitelmann’s allegedly specious claims had “not gained acceptance among historians of Nazism.”  Stackelberg’s dismissal of Zitelmann’s ideas was typical of the treatment most historians receive when they dare stray from the commonly-accepted narrative of the right-wing origins of Adolf Hitler’s political ideology and the guiding philosophy of his Nazi Third Reich.

How does historical German National Socialism fit onto the traditional spectrum of political ideologies? Was the Nazism of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich a phenomenon of the political right, or is it more appropriate to identify the National Socialists with the political left? Considering the historical definitions of right-wing and left-wing politics during the French Revolution, it is clear that German National Socialism’s aims and methods had far more in common with the political left than with the political right; the case for the left-wing origins of Nazism becomes strongest when examined in terms of National Socialism’s use of the authoritarian state to revolutionize and collectivize the German nation.

Before explaining Nazism’s relationship to right-wing and left-wing politics, it would be useful to understand what Nazism, as a particular brand of general fascist ideology, actually is. This is a more difficult and nuanced theoretical exercise than may be originally anticipated; nevertheless, it is a worthwhile endeavor, for as historian Stanley Payne once explained, “many who use the term fascism are referring…to German National Socialism…Most theories and interpretations of fascism refer primarily to Germany, not to Italy or other countries.”  Even then, the eminent writer, George Orwell, admitted that the “word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’”  The same holds true for Nazism, and both “fascism” and “Nazism” are difficult to define because they are often employed as unthinking pejoratives to slander the political opponents of many diverse individuals and groups.

Some intellectuals have, however, presented intriguing definitions of both fascism and Nazism that are pertinent to the question of National Socialism’s place on the political spectrum. Walter Laqueur believed that political parties like the Nazis were distinguished by the “presence of a mass party that monopolized power” through a powerful “state apparatus.”  Roger Eatwell claimed that the “essence” of fascism was a “form of thought that preaches the need for social rebirth.”  One of the world’s foremost historians of fascism, Emilio Gentile, defined Nazism and other fascist sects as mass movements “that combine[d] different classes” around the pursuit of “national regeneration” and a “monopoly of power” to “create a new regime, destroying democracy.”  From these definitions of fascism and Nazism, three major characteristics stand out for special consideration: social revolution, use of the authoritarian state, and national collectivization.

As will be presently demonstrated, it is easy to prove that Adolf Hitler and his Nazis sought to use the authoritarian state to revolutionize and collectivize the German nation, but does this make them practitioners of right-wing or left-wing politics? The terms “right-wing” and “left-wing” first came into use sometime around 1789 during the events that became known as the French Revolution; when the delegates of the Estates General assembled to discuss legislation, it became habitual for counter-revolutionaries, upholders of the status quo, and social conservatives to sit to the right of the president’s chair. Those who sat to the president’s left held far more radical and revolutionary views, generally sought to destroy the political and social establishment, and believed in a more experimental social policy.  Students of history know that the French revolutionaries ultimately gained the upper hand, leading to the radicalization of the guillotines and the Great Terror, the collectivization of the French people around the concepts of self-sacrifice and aggressive nationalistic war, and the culmination of all these trends in the authoritarian military adventurism of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

On this basis, it seems foolhardy to describe the German National Socialists as right-wingers. Rand C. Lewis once referred to the Nazis as “right-wing revolutionists,” but even a cursory overview of the original definitions of “right” and “left” within the context of the French Revolution makes this terminology questionable at best.  Weighing in on this issue, Jonah Goldberg, senior editor for National Review magazine, clarified that “the popular conception that Hitler was a man of the right is grounded in a rich complex of assumptions and misconceptions about what constitutes left and right.”  The right has always been the wing of the status quo, of privileged establishment and conservatism. Walter Laqueur correctly concluded that the Nazis, on the other hand, were never “particularly eager to conserve the present social and political order.”  If Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were indeed revolutionaries, it makes far more sense to place them and their movement on the left side of the political spectrum.

Historically, the forces of the political right never had a positive opinion of Nazism. While right-wing politicians and parties in 1930s Germany were socially conservative, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were socially revolutionary. While the right attempted to maintain social continuity, the Nazis were “interested in changing class and status relationships in society and in using more radical forms of authoritarianism to achieve that goal.”  Hitler’s vision for Germany’s future, as well as his methods for making that vision a reality, were very different from those of most German conservatives.  Along with other Nazi leaders, Hitler claimed that his was a campaign against the forces of “reaction,” aristocracy, and “high capitalism.”  For figures on the right, the Nazis were radicals who deserved to be marginalized; to them, “Hitler was scum personified, a nihilist, a diabolical revolutionary who wanted to overthrow all established order”.  For his part, Hitler refused to work in government under conservative direction.  It was only after achieving absolute power that Hitler was satisfied. By then, German conservatives “fretted that Hitler was going much too far, that he was destroying valued German traditions and institutions in his efforts to create a National Socialist dictatorship.”  From the time that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis took power in 1933 to the fall of the Third Reich in 1945, nearly all active conspiracies against the National Socialist regime came from the political right.  This substantial body of evidence proves that there was far too much friction between Nazism and the conservative segments of German political society for Adolf Hitler’s radical movement to be considered right-wing in the traditional sense of the term.

Nazism owed a large portion of its ideological pedigree to the revolutionary tradition of the French Revolution’s legacy of left-wing politics. Nathan Stoltzfus, an expert on the Holocaust who explored Hitler’s attempts at social revolution, expressed his belief that “Hitler was convinced that old habits and customs that clashed with the new myths and norms of National Socialism would fade away.” Hitler “wanted a total state, but he did not think that this was possible without establishing a total society, shaped by Nazi ideology.” What was the goal of this total society shaped by Nazi ideology? It was no less than the creation of a “communal conscience that required all Germans to sacrifice their energies and lives for the Reich.” Significantly, Hitler invoked examples like the French Revolution to prove that “the forces of will” are the most decisive factors in shaping world events and building successful societies.  There is little doubt that Nazism fit into the French Revolution’s ideological line of descent, and fascist and Nazi radicalism fit comfortably onto the left side of the political spectrum.

It is telling that many of the strains of thought that came together to create fascist movements like Nazism originally sprang from political and intellectual traditions in France. When Benito Mussolini, the leader of the Italian Fascists, first made his presence felt on the political landscape during the opening days of World War I, many of his most ardent supporters glorified Mussolini’s nationalistic appeal to the people as a “Jacobin” revolution, a clear reference to the radical revolutionaries of 1790s France.  French intellectuals helped contribute to the formulation of early fascist thinking; Georges Sorel, a French philosopher well-known for his theories concerning revolutionary syndicalism, provided the basis for fascist ideology and its glorification of violence and the overthrow of established society. According to one of the foremost experts on Sorelian thought, “the nascent Fascist ideology derived its initial basic content from the syndicalist-nationalist synthesis.”  This basic ideological content would go on to heavily influence the leaders of the Nazi Party in Germany.

It is not unfitting to describe Nazism and the other fascist parties as inherently revolutionary movements that actually sought to compete with Marxist communism as the principal party of the left. One historian offered this thought-provoking insight: “fascism became a political force capable of assailing the existing order and competing effectively with Marxism not only for the support of elites and minority groups but also for the allegiance of the masses.”  It is indeed true that early fascists sought to steal the hearts of the proletariat; in many instances across the European continent in the early 1920s, it is a matter of historical record that left-wing communists often expressed frustration with the fascist parties for being more successful at recruiting leftists to their cause.  It is interesting to note that many of these left-wing communists had a habit of labeling other leftists allegedly guilty of heresy as “fascists.”  Again, it is not improper to think of fascists and communists as rival left-wing ideologies that competed with each other for converts; as each sought to dominate similar spaces on the left wing of the political spectrum, they could be seen preaching to the same choir.

Nazi leaders were especially fond of revolutionary rhetoric. For example, Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945, wrote an essay in 1927 which aimed to woo leftists to the Nazi cause. Goebbels railed against those who advocated “protection of the [Weimar] republic” that had utterly failed to serve the workers’ interests. He urged Germans to join Hitler’s revolution, to reject “the rotting world of capitalism” established by the conspiracy of international Jewry.  In another essay published that same year, Goebbels attempted to recruit communists by appealing to their revolutionary spirit. “We demand the destruction of the system of exploitation!” he proclaimed. “Up with the German worker’s state!” Goebbels decried the republican government of “misery” that catered to the selfish interests of “capitalist tormenters.”  In other pamphlets used by the Nazi propaganda apparatus, the National Socialists argued that Marxism was a distraction from the truly revolutionary issue of racial struggle, that communism destroyed ethnic ties that bound Germans together.  From such language, it is evident that the Nazis thought of themselves as the saviors of the working class and not as its opponents. National Socialism did not seek to confront and stifle the revolutionary spirit; rather, it sought to co-opt this spirit for its own purposes.

An overwhelming abundance of evidence demonstrates that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis not only believed in revolutionary methods for seizing power, but that they also believed in revolutionary goals designed to radically restructure German society, a trait shared by left-wing movements in general since the French Revolution. Santi Corvaja, author of a book detailing the many meetings held between Hitler and Mussolini, wrote about “Hitler’s fundamentally revolutionary nature” and his “violently anti-establishment prejudices,” and it is true that the Nazi leader was a self-proclaimed revolutionary.  This, however, does not prevent many historians from arguing strenuously for the Hitler who came to power in 1933 by legal means and relatively free electoral processes; in so doing, they seem to forget the Hitler of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, in which Hitler led a failed and revolutionary coup attempt to violently seize power in Bavaria.  It is significant that when choosing between violent revolution and legal elections as the pathway to power, Adolf Hitler made revolution his first and preferential choice. In Hitler’s own words, the Nazis “were not intending to do anything like conserve a bourgeois world.”  The Nazis were not conservatives but revolutionaries bent on upending the established German social and political order.

As a revolutionary politician who saw himself as Germany’s savior, Adolf Hitler had no use for conservatives. The established classes of society, he warned, were “worthless for any noble human endeavor.”  When campaigning against conservative figures in government, Hitler scoffed at them as nothing more than members of a reactionary “cabinet of barons.”  Hitler condemned those who had held power in Germany ever since the disaster of World War I and called for their elimination as necessary for preventing the German nation “from falling completely into ruin.”  As for the old democracies of Western civilization with their traditional ideas of parliamentary politics, they were “the most bloodthirsty instigators of war” and destruction on a cataclysmic scale.  For Adolf Hitler, conservative elements of the Western political, social, and economic orders were partly to blame for Germany’s problems.

Instead, the German people needed a new movement in the tradition of the French Revolution to be saved. Hitler openly praised other leftist revolutions in his book Mein Kampf: “The appearance of a new and great idea was the secret of success in the French Revolution. The Russian Revolution owes its triumph to an idea. And it was only the idea that enabled Fascism triumphantly to subject a whole nation to a process of complete renovation.”  What was the idea of Nazism? “We had no wish to resurrect the dead from the old Reich which had been ruined through its own blunders, but to build a new State.” Nazi leaders made it clear that the new state would be built up through the “national revolution” or, as some put it, the “racial revolution.”   Unless the German people joined Hitler and the Nazis in revolutionizing their society on the basis of racial purity, they would be “the last witnesses of the complete breakdown and death of the bourgeois world.”  The establishment of the Third Reich proves that many Germans did join Hitler and his racial revolution; the Nazi Party enjoyed substantial support from Germans who were disenchanted with other political parties and these groups’ inability to move beyond politics-as-usual.  In place of the status quo, Hitler’s National Socialists offered a bold new world of experimentation and united national community.

Rejecting the failures of the past was non-negotiable in Hitler’s racial revolution. Richard J. Evans, a scholar with historical expertise on Germany’s experience in World War II, described Nazism as a “thoroughly modern phenomenon, keen to use…the most scientific means of reshaping German society to its will.” Race was the scientific concept which would build the new Nazi state, the new concept of citizenship within that state, and “nothing, neither religious beliefs, nor ethical scruples, nor long-hallowed tradition, was to get in the way of this revolution.”  “Do not confuse the Germany of today with the Germany that was,” cautioned Rudolf Hess, one of Hitler’s closest advisors.  All traditional institutions and forms of authority such as the family, the monarchy, the Christian churches, the free markets of capitalism—all would be replaced, supplanted, or co-opted into the socially-engineered Nazi masterpiece that was the Third Reich.  Concerning the Nazis’ brave new world, the noted sociologist Jacques Ellul insisted that German “National Socialism was an important and authentic revolution” that was “identical at every level” to the leftist Jacobin regime of the French Revolution.  Like all bloodthirsty left-wing revolutions ranging from 1790s France to Russia in November of 1917, Hitler and the Nazis not only monopolized political power; they also took it upon themselves to completely rework German society on a fresh and experimental basis.

Nazi goals were obviously revolutionary and had much in common with the leftist tradition; the same can be said of the tool by which Nazi goals would be accomplished: the authoritarian state. Nazi authoritarianism was totalitarian in nature, this being “the true common denominator” of revolutionary movements which channeled “their hatred of the dominant culture” into a “desire to replace it with a total alternative.”  Unlike many political parties in the Western world, Hitler’s National Socialists did not believe the state’s primary duty was to secure individual rights; instead, the Nazis believed in a more modern role for the state, with the government actively intervening in the private sector to thoroughly cleanse the “superior racial state” of the future.  By celebrating the totalitarian state as the sole executor of the racially-purified people’s will, the Nazis managed to prop up their regime as the ultimate arbiter of the German nation’s destiny—and, by extension, the destiny of every individual German. Much of this authoritarian and totalitarian formula is similar to the tactics used by the left-wing radicals of the French Revolution and their mobilization of the entire nation for the pursuit of aggressive nationalistic goals.

Nazi Party leaders certainly believed in the power and preeminence of the state. Richard Weikart, professor of modern European history, explained that “Hitler had a slightly different definition of politics than most people. For him, politics included just about everything.”  In Hitler’s authoritarian worldview, the totalitarian government of the Third Reich was “the final arbiter of all political, social, and moral behavior.”  Hermann Göring, a leading member of the Nazi Party, concurred with this assessment: “we [Nazis] don’t see law as something primary; rather, the Volk is our primary concern…Laws, after all, were created by the people, and where a people finds laws that no longer reflect its worldview, it can get rid of these laws.”  An all-powerful totalitarian government would be needed to save the German people. Hitler said as much when he designated National Socialism as an agent of “transition for [his] German people…a mobilization of human forces of hitherto scarcely conceivable dimensions.”

From his earliest days as a political revolutionary, Hitler had followed in the footsteps of Robespierre, of Napoleon, and of the Jacobins and the Directory of the French Revolution: he understood that his movement needed the support of the nationalized masses. “We realized as early as 1919,” Hitler wrote, “that the nationalization of the masses would have to constitute the first and paramount aim of the [National Socialist] movement.”  Not a single aspect of German life would be left untouched or unmolded by the state’s will. Germany’s youth were a particular target for totalitarian indoctrination; during the war years, some of these youth complained of growing up “in a police state that forbids the free expression of personal thoughts and desires,” with the government forcing them “to think and act in a way the [Nazis’] political schooling would permit.”  While analyzing the many similarities between the Third Reich and the leftist regime of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, Walter Laqueur clarified that Nazi doctrine had no time for the “niceties of democracy…The main aim was to work for the greatness of the nation. The instrument toward this end was the state, which should control all political, moral, and economic forces.”  Such indoctrination and mobilization of the totality of society is an inherited trademark of the French Revolution’s leftist tradition.

In the 1790s, the French revolutionary left collectivized the masses around the concept of aggressive nationalistic war; individuals were obliged to sacrifice their needs for the good of the national community, and this transcendence of collectivist values over the rights of the individual was also a seminal characteristic of the Nazi regime. Adolf Hitler’s totalitarian nationalism “claimed to be a system of ethics with criteria of behavior dictated by the entire national body, independently of the will of the individual.” This new nationalism “denied the validity of any absolute and universal moral norms: truth, justice, and law existed only in order to serve the needs of the collectivity.”  In his writings, Santi Corvaja portrayed Hitler as a propagandist whose collectivist message was “perfectly suited to arouse a large segment of the German public.”  Hitler’s tribal conception of the nation-state and his message of racial nationalism tempt the casual historian to associate Nazism with right-wing conservatism, but nationalism is most certainly not an exclusively right-wing phenomenon. Nationalism is a collectivistic form of patriotism, and collectivism is a defining characteristic of the leftist persuasion. It is clear that the National Socialists agreed with and embraced this doctrine as central to their ideology.

Nazi leaders taught their followers that the common fate of the national community was far more important than the fate of individuals. Hitler taught his own people that the worth of individual lives could never compare to the good of the nation. “It is quite unimportant whether we ourselves live,” the Nazi dictator said, “but it is essential that our people shall live, that Germany shall live.”  On another occasion, he remarked, “The individual must and will pass away…but the Volk must live on.”  Hitler actually believed that individuals needed the nation to survive. The “fate of the German individual is inseparably bound up with the fate of the entire nation,” warned Hitler. “When Germany disintegrates, the worker will not flourish in social good fortune and neither will the entrepreneur; the peasant will not save himself.” Together, all Germans would triumph over their enemies through the Nazis’ collectivist leadership principle. “A faithful community of people has arisen which will gradually overcome the prejudices of class madness and the arrogance of rank;” this community would “take up the fight for the preservation of [the German] race.”  Germany’s enemies—principally the Jews—would fall before the purified and Nazified German people because they were weak and totally incapable of forming a collectivized racial state of their own.

The national community envisioned by the Nazi leadership was not only a source of martial strength but also a foundation of societal cohesion. Nathan Stoltzfus wrote extensively about how the “pressures of mass conformity” within Nazism lent a “ubiquitous and overwhelming presence” to a society where “dictated norms” could actually stunt the growth of free-thinking individuals. In essence, the Nazi Party used collectivist group-think “to centralize its power, and it set to work to create a mass society that eagerly erased individuality.”  All Germans were expected to participate in this totalitarian system of collective community. “The dictatorship did not merely aim to suppress opposition but rather to engage the people fully in the daily practices of Nazism and its organizations.”  Stanley Payne added to this understanding of the Nazis’ “people’s community” where “different sectors of society cooperated in harmony to meet the needs of all.” He explained the Third Reich as a “psychological revolution of status…in which all Germans became common members of a new racial elite” and in which all citizens were expected to contribute to collective discipline and solidarity.  Nationalistic collectivism, mass conformity, group solidarity—all these notions were central tenets of the national community envisioned and built by Adolf Hitler.

Other Nazi leaders echoed Hitler’s collectivist rhetoric and taught their followers accordingly. Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, leader of the National Socialist Women's League, urged German women to “subordinate themselves” to the will of the racial state, to become “one of the Fuhrer’s little helpers” by reproducing and placing as many children as possible at the regime’s service. “Overcoming oneself,” she taught, “leads to strength.” Such a sacrifice for the greater good of Germany was necessary to prove that German women would unselfishly serve their race.  Robert Ley, the head of the National Socialist trade union organization, spoke often about Germany’s racial enemies and why groups like the Jews could “never develop a sense of community.” Ley taught: “The Jew must condemn the state as a form of those of a common race because he himself can never build a state from chaos. The Jew must despise any form of order because the parasite is the natural expression of the greatest disorder. He must, therefore, despise, fight, and destroy anything that is holy to members of a racial community.” For Nazi leaders like Scholtz-Klink and Ley, a collectivized racial community was an important marker of the advanced civilizations of the world, and the lack of such a community was a sign of weakness. Totalitarian collectivism was a sign of strength and vitality; millions of racially purified Germans working together under Adolf Hitler’s inspired leadership was the only scenario that could possibly secure the Third Reich’s rightful place in the sun.

European fascist movements of the early 20th century were part of the left-wing heritage, and prominent leftist thinkers were the original formulators of fascist thought. The roots of generic fascist ideology were embedded within the ideas of French and Italian socialist theorists like Georges Sorel and Benito Mussolini, both of whom drew their inspiration from the teachings of Karl Marx, perhaps the most well-known purveyor of left-wing thought in European history.  It should be emphasized that Karl Marx has been openly cited as the ideological inspiration for almost every avowed revolutionary leftist totalitarian regime of the 20th century, and the same can be said for early European fascism. Whereas European communism became a form of international socialism, fascism stemmed from a particular brand of French and Italian socialism that also happened to be nationalistic—in a sense, just as exclusive as communism was inclusive. Fascism has been described variously as an attack on Marxism “using Marx’s own authority,” a revolt of leftists against the class warfare of communism, and a “work of completion” of Marx’s original intentions.  It is therefore not unreasonable to say that the only substantive difference between fascism and communism is that one is nationalistic and the other is not.

Nazism had a great deal in common with Marxist socialism and the various revolutionary communist parties and regimes. During the 1920s and 1930s, it was very common for German communists to defect to the Nazis, and vice versa.  Both Nazism and communism subordinated economic issues to the state, eliminated or restricted the autonomy of capitalist industries and enterprises, altered the meaning of social status, created new communal or productive relationships within the economy, and expanded government control and regulation.  Both Nazism and communism competed vigorously for the loyalties of workers, and both espoused a vitriolic hatred of parliamentary politics and liberal democracy.  It was for these reasons and others that Gerhard Ritter, a German historian and biographer of Martin Luther, wrote that Nazism was a “direct consequence” of leftist socialism and not, as so many have assumed, a “reaction” against it.  Nazism certainly had more in common with both socialism and communism than it did with any parties of the traditional European right.

When comparing traditional right-wing political theory to that of German National Socialism, the similarities are more difficult to discern. The Nazi Party was first and foremost a fascist party, and as explained by Walter Laqueur, “defining [fascism] as part of the extreme Right is not very illuminating…In many respects, fascism was not conservative at all in inspiration but was aimed at creating a new society with a new kind of human beings.”  Laqueur astutely observed that “conservatives were the party of the preservation of the status quo and of order. Fascism wanted a new order, and for this reason it had to destroy the old one.”  Categorizing Nazism as a right-wing movement is inadequate for providing a useful historical perspective. The Nazis were not interested in maintaining the status quo, and this, more than anything else, defined their hostile relationship with the forces of the political right.

It is noteworthy that Adolf Hitler, like Benito Mussolini before him, started his initial career in politics by overtly cooperating with left-wing political parties. As a soldier in the German army just prior to demobilization after World War I, Hitler worked with the revolutionary socialist government in Berlin to “convey ‘educational’ material to the troops.” According to his biographer, Ian Kershaw, Hitler not only did “nothing to assist in the crushing of Munich’s ‘Red Republic’; he was an elected representative of his battalion during the whole period of its existence.” There were rumors, insisted Kershaw, “that Hitler had initially sympathized with [the socialists]…there were even reported rumors—though without any supporting evidence—that Hitler had spoken of joining [the socialists].”  Though supporting evidence for young Hitler’s desire to join the socialist parties of Germany has not yet materialized, a more aged and seasoned Hitler certainly had no qualms about including leftists in his dictator’s entourage; prominent leftists who later became important Nazi Party functionaries included the editor of the Nazi newspaper, Hermann Esser, Hitler’s personal chauffeur and bodyguard, Sepp Dietrich, and the economist whose speeches initially enticed Hitler to join the Nazi Party, Gottfried Feder.  It is therefore within the realm of possibility and entirely believable that Adolf Hitler never abandoned his youthful attraction to left-wing ideology, and it is obvious that this ideology went on to heavily influence National Socialism’s rise to power.

Adolf Hitler hated the values of bourgeois society and embraced a radical new vision of Germany’s future. Hitler’s National Socialist ideology had far more in common with the politics of the left than with the politics of the right. Jonah Goldberg said it best: “Hitler deserves to be placed firmly on the left because first and foremost he was a revolutionary. Broadly speaking, the left is the party of change, the right the party of the status quo. On this score, Hitler was in no sense, way, shape, or form a man of the right…Hitler despised the bourgeoisie, traditionalists, aristocrats, monarchists, and all believers in the established order.” Goldberg’s definition of right- and left-wing politics is firmly in sync with the terms’ original French Revolution context. According to these traditional definitions, Nazi ideological roots, movement characteristics, policy aims, and methodologies for achieving and maintaining power had far more in common with leftists than with those on the right of the political spectrum. When placing German National Socialism onto the political spectrum, it is clear that Nazism fits more neatly on the left-hand side. Along with the other left-wing radicals who wished to use the authoritarian state to revolutionize and collectivize the nation, Adolf Hitler would have felt more comfortable sitting at the left end of the Estates General in 1789.

Of all the critically acclaimed works written by William Shirer on the subject of Nazi Germany, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany is potentially the most influential in the field of study dedicated to Hitler’s fascist regime. On page 25 of this impressively constructed work of journalism, Shirer shared an intense and insightful quotation from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf: “All great movements are popular sentiments, volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotional sentiments, stirred either by the cruel Goddess of Distress or by the firebrand of the word hurled among the masses; they are not the lemonade-like outpourings of the literary aesthetes and drawing-room heroes.” Incredibly, Shirer shared this quote just a couple of paragraphs after writing that Adolf Hitler was the only politician of the right from a conservative party to gain the sympathies of the German people. With all due respect to William Shirer, it is hard to believe that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis would have embraced the right-wing label he applied to them. For Adolf Hitler, “firebrand” leader of the Nazi racial revolution, National Socialism certainly counted as a “great movement”, a “volcanic eruption of the passions.” Whatever else they were, the Nazis of the Third Reich were not “literary aesthetes” or “drawing-room heroes.” The true origins of German National Socialism defy William Shirer’s interpretive strictures. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came from a far more revolutionary tradition: a totalitarian heritage of left-wing collectivism backed by a terrifying and destructive authoritarian state.

--Christopher Peterson, November 20th, 2017