[Dargo]

Nazis did not believe in the elimination of social class, but in a rigid caste system. They were not feminists and anti-racists, they practised racist genocide. They were not against militarism and prisons and the death penalty; they were history’s worst murderers. Did they believe in the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”? No, they massacred and enslaved the weak and disabled. Did they believe in worker ownership? Did they think, as socialists do, that racism is an illusion used to divide workers and keep them from recognizing the common interests of the working class? Everything socialists stand for was opposed by the Nazis, which is why they killed countless Communists and members of the socialist German Social Democratic Party.

So the most obvious reason for thinking that Nazism wasn’t socialism is that the things Nazis believed are rejected entirely by socialists, and the things socialists believe were rejected entirely by Nazis. All that is left is the name “national socialism,” but Hitler himself said that “our adopted term ‘Socialist’ has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism.” Instead, it was a piece of branding, like all the dictatorships that call themselves the Extremely Democratic Totally Non-Dictatorial People’s Democracy. The worst dictatorships would all be socialism by definition, because socialism is defined as government control. A monarchy could be “socialism” if the king was powerful enough. A feudal aristocracy could be “socialist” if those who “governed” also “controlled production.” This would be ludicrous, though, because it would mean that an economy in which a giant caste of wage labourers served a tiny wealthy aristocracy would be “socialist,” so that a society violating every single principle socialists endorse would be said to satisfy their principles.

The reason this definition goes so badly off the rails is that it fails to consider basic socialist concepts like class, democracy, equality, and exploitation. Government control of production gets you nothing if your society is still stratified by class, undemocratic, highly unequal, and filled with exploitation. Everything depends on the kind of government you have. When socialists talk about their economic ideal, they speak of worker ownership, which is not the same as “government ownership.” The government, after all, could be feudalism, in which case government ownership would give the workers nothing. Socialists want to see a world in which the people who do the labour have control over their workplaces. This is also why “communist” countries that are authoritarian dictatorships should not be called “socialist” even if they claim the label for themselves. To know whether an economy is socialist, you have to look at how equal it is, how much power workers have, whether people are exploited, and who is in charge of what.

Alright, so socialism does not mean “government control of production,” thus proving that the Nazis controlled production does not prove that they were socialists. But it is worth noting here that even if socialism was “government control of production,” the argument that “the Nazis were socialists” would still be incredibly misleading. When people say “the Nazis were socialists,” what they want you to hear is “socialism and Nazism are synonymous.” They want you to believe that if they can prove Nazi Germany had a socialist economy, it shows that socialist economies are totalitarianism. But the reasoning is fallacious, for the same reason that “Hitler was a vegetarian, therefore vegetarianism and Nazism are synonymous” is fallacious.

The features that horrify us about Nazi Germany generally relate to their racist militarism: They were homicidal maniacs who tried to conquer the world. My problem with Nazis is not that the state was too involved in the economy, but that they tortured and murdered millions upon millions of people. If they had had “government control of production” without the racist, genocidal, militaristic, anti-human elements, then they would lack the elements that horrify us. People who say “The Nazis were socialists because the state controlled production” are trying to get you to associate one aspect of Nazi Germany (power of the state sector in the economy) with the others (the racist genocide). Like “vegetarian Hitler,” the attempt is to show that because two things occurred together in an instance, they are related. The reason you know it’s silly is that the moment we look at other cases, we see that it is not true that state direction of economic activities means a Nazi-like government. You can say, “the Nazis had a state-run healthcare system.” But Britain has a state-run healthcare system and has not got Nazi government. (It’s rather funny that one of the classic texts of conservatism is Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, which argues that socialistic policies lead to totalitarianism. Shortly after its publication, a socialist government came to power in Britain and introduced a socialized healthcare system, which proved wildly popular and did not in fact lead to totalitarianism. Hayek’s argument was utterly destroyed by the success of countries that became more socialistic without becoming less democratic. This is the case in the whole of Europe.)

I have confronted enough Nazis in my life on the streets that the idea they are social is utterly ridiculous. I have seen when I was a little kid what Nazi Germany did to the socialist I have seen the ones that survived the camps these were the "socialist" not Nazi Germany! So do not come here and spread your utter bollocks what a Nazi is or not we have seen what Nazis were when in the meantime you lot next to the exterminate camps wir haben nichts gewusst bollocks!