[Skybird]

A random find, only of interest since it was recently talked about here:

https://www.focus.de/politik/meinung...260644263.html

Neither Focus nor Markwort are known to be especially left or right.

Originally Posted by FOCUS

Helmut Markwort's diary: Allow me one more comment on Hitler and Weidel's communism thesis

Alice Weidel calls Hitler a communist - a stirring reminder of earlier historical debates. Franz Josef Strauß already portrayed National Socialism as a “variant of socialism”. But the reality is more complex: Goebbels' diaries show the socialist orientation of the NSDAP before it became a mass murder machine.

There was a huge uproar when AfD leader Alice Weidel called Adolf Hitler a communist. In fact, the debate is not new. When Franz Josef Strauß ran for chancellor 45 years ago, he said at a CSU party conference: “National Socialism was a variant of socialism. It drew its momentum from the millions of socialists who ran away from the SPD as voters at the time.”

Strauß, who studied history, was able to refer to a socialist who not many people knew in 1932. His name was Willy Brandt and he wrote at the time: “The socialist element in National Socialism in the thinking of its followers must be recognized by us.”

Hitler had renamed the party he had hijacked, the DAP, the NSDAP. Spelled out: National Socialist German Workers' Party. It wanted to be socialist and appeal to workers. Anyone reading the party's chronicles will find many ideas to steer the party towards a better communism.

Hitler's falsified diaries, which were distributed by Stern magazine [back in the 80s, Skybird], are not a source for this, but another big Nazi kept an almost pedantic record.

Joseph Goebbels, the party's propaganda chief and fanatical whisperer to his Führer, wrote down almost daily what happened and what he thought and wanted. It goes without saying that his diaries, which are available in many volumes, are biased and partisan, but they prove his convictions.

Apart from his destructive hatred of the Jews in Germany and all over the world, a common thread runs through his notes: the dream of a communist socialist Germany with subsequent world domination. His enemies are the capitalist market economy, Wall Street in New York and business with shares.

There are hundreds of sources for this NSDAP attitude. This must be noted for the sake of historical accuracy. Just as correct, however, is the terrible deformation of the party into a mass murder organization that disregarded all rights, rules and laws.