Were the Nazis Rightwingers or Leftist?

[Zohiania]

Give your opinion and ue facts to back up whether you think they were one or weren't either.

[Draakonite]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Position ?

[Paredonia]

The Nazis were fascists, therefore they were very far-right.

[Napkiraly]

Nazism, seen generally as a form of fascism, is generally placed on the far-right end of the right-left divide. There are of course issues with this placement, as there is with the right-left dichotomy in general, but here we are.

Fascism, however, was born out of the inter-war ashes of the divided socialist movement.

[Napkiraly]

Also, your own opinion needs to be given along with are more fleshed out OP.

[Risottia]

Hm let's see.
How many private corporations they seized and shared among the workers?
How much money they got from corporations for their political activity?
How often they got the support of the left-wing in the Parliament, and how often they got the support of the right-wing in the Parliament?
How often they rambled about nation, land-grabbing, and introducing constructed racial divides between people?

Some leftists they would have been.

Less bs plz.

[Thurses]

Socially right wing, economically centrist to centre-left.

[Trotskylvania]

Nazis are reactionary revolutionaries. They were the endpoint of a certain strain of Prussian politics, the devoutly anti-liberal German nationalists.

The Nazis took the Old german right-wing and modernized it. They embodied the principles of reaction, but discarded much of the pageantry. As a Volkisch ideology, they borrowed certain left-wing concepts in a highly distorted manner. There was a long-tradition of right-wing pseudo-socialism in Germany, starting with Bismarck's staatsozialismus programs, where he borrowed some of the policies of the left-wing socialists from a parternalistic right-wing perspective, with the Soveriegn protecting the subjects in a fatherly manner. This continued in WW1 with "war socialism", the program of state capitalist war economy that intertwined private capital and the state, suppressed wages and the worker's movement, and focused all economic efforts towards war and national prestige.

Nazism is the final culmination of this trend. The full name, National Socialist German Workers Party, is a deliberate exercise in contradictions, entirely content free and designed to appeal to everyone and no one all at once. It would be the equivalent of a modern American party calling itself the Conservative Progressive Taxpayer's Green Party.

Outside of Strasser and his cohort, the left-wing ideas where never more than skin-deep. They were the first to be purged from the party once they were in power, and German Nazism reflected Old Right ultranationalism, volkisch and racialism at its core.

[Deanson]

Nazism was originally a fairly leftist movement that was simply fueled by nationalism and racial supremacy more than a want for the bourgeoisie to be overthrown by the proletariat. Corporations and private industry were technically still allowed, they were just held under the boot of the government.

As time went on the Nazi party moved away from its socialist roots by Hitler's leadership. Strasserism is the more left-wing, socialist based variant of the Nazi party that was headed by German Otto Strasser, who Hitler exiled in the 30s. They viewed the Jewish population as being the greedy conspirators behind a capitalist menace that was inherently anti-German and thus wanted to establish a socialist state comprised only of Germans.

[District XIV]

Nazi economic policy, in their nationalization of key industries and tariffs on imports, was arguably centre-left/centre-protectionist in nature. Their social policy was undoubtedly far-right, however.

[Traditionalism]

They took from both the left and the right. Generally the manifestation of our ideas are expressed through the far-right, because of the Traditionalist aspect.

[Diopolis]

Neither. The Nazis were populist and opportunist.
They were social conservatives, yes, but it wasn't a traditional social conservatism but rather a populist social conservatism. They had no qualms with pre-marital sex, for example, when it benefited their racial agenda.

[Deanson]

Neither. The Nazis were populist and opportunist.
They were social conservatives, yes, but it wasn't a traditional social conservatism but rather a populist social conservatism. They had no qualms with pre-marital sex, for example, when it benefited their racial agenda.

Correct. They also had no qualms with abortion (though iirc it was more for the practice of eugenics than for actually supporting a woman's right to choose) and Hitler was a vegetarian and animal rights activist. The Nazis are very interesting to study because they're a weird amalgamation of a bunch of different ideas and outlooks.

[Settrah]

Arguably right wing because it still supports private property. That and, y'know,the ultraconservative attitudes.

Although the issues with this are that fascism does not really have economic outlooks. More often than not, it's interests like solely in social matters. The economy is essentially just something they ride along and make up at the time. It can support private property that preserves culture or promotes national identity, government regulation that correlates with domestic interest for indigenous people, or a more corporatist model where the state is absolute. There is not one 'fascist' economic outlook. As such, it kind of makes it harder to fit in the whole market vs worker thing.

Secondly, ideologies like fascism actually promote unity, collectivism, community and shared consciousness. Granted, they're morally dubious and often extremely racist... but, still. They share may parallels with the collectivism many working class socialist communities promote. Collectivisms that can oppose neoliberal free markets.

We could just use the term syncretic, which is basically the political way of saying 'whatever'.

On a side note, this is why I kind of hate terms like 'rightism' or 'the right wing', Because if the nazis (and generally, fascists) were right wing, but neoliberals are right wing too, what do people really mean when they use the terms so zealously?

[Saiwania]

In the early years of the NSDAP, their ideological enemies which the SA engaged in street battles with, were the RFB which was the KPD's paramilitary. So the Nazis were more to the right than the left, even though the true German right wanted a return to a monarchy- Germany's system before the WWI defeat imposed an unpopular democracy. The Eastern front of WW2 can be thought of as a physical manifestation of a war between fascism and communism and unfortunately in some people's view, the communist side won and sealed eastern Europe's fate for the next near half century.

[Trotskylvania]

Nazi economic policy, in their nationalization of key industries and tariffs on imports, was arguably centre-left/centre-protectionist in nature. Their social policy was undoubtedly far-right, however.

The fundamental mistake is to confuse values for policy.

Policy, by and large, is not right or left. The same policies can be used to different ends to promote right or left-wing values.

[Genivaria]

They are mostly far-right while adopting some tenets of socialism.

[Baltenstein]

It´s called Third Positionism for a reason.

[Genivaria]

Neither. The Nazis were populist and opportunist.
They were social conservatives, yes, but it wasn't a traditional social conservatism but rather a populist social conservatism. They had no qualms with pre-marital sex, for example, when it benefited their racial agenda.

If I remember right a German women could even get a medal from the state for having more then 4 children.

[Genivaria]

It´s called Third Positionism for a reason.

They were third position in regards to Capitalism vs Communism.

[Baltenstein]

Neither. The Nazis were populist and opportunist.
They were social conservatives, yes, but it wasn't a traditional social conservatism but rather a populist social conservatism. They had no qualms with pre-marital sex, for example, when it benefited their racial agenda.

If I remember right a German women could even get a medal from the state for having more then 4 children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_ ... man_Mother

[The balkens]

Nazism is its own beast, took ideas from the left and the right and added some original shit for good measure.

[Jochistan]

Far right under the guise of a bunch of things.

[Warped Woods]

If you're on the left, they're on the right. If you're on the right, they're on the left.

[Imperializt Russia]

Nazi economic policy, in their nationalization of key industries and tariffs on imports, was arguably centre-left/centre-protectionist in nature. Their social policy was undoubtedly far-right, however.

I don't think nationalisation was that key a policy of the Nazis.

During the "phoney war", one of the major arguments against Britain getting militarily involved, and attacking Germany, and beginning strategic bombing at an early stage - was that they couldn't rationalise attacking the armaments factories, because they were all private industries. Krupp, Porsche, Daimler, etc.
Unless I'm misremembering something horribly.

And armaments was one of the key areas of industry for Nazi policy even before the war. If anything, it would have been a prime target for nationalisation, and as early as possible.