Was Hitler a conservative?

My answer on Quora.

No, Hitler wasn’t a conservative. He was a radical in almost every sense and does not fall into the typical conservative-liberal axis that Americans are so fond of using. He certainly did not wish to conserve. The correlation with modern conservatism is close to zero.

The Nazi Party has its origin in an anti-free enterprise, anti-monarchist and anti-bourgeoisie stance. It also stood in opposition to Marxism (it was a competing ideology) and combined both antisemitic and nationalist themes.

Here is a copy of the Nazi Platform. It all about change in a direction that is overwhelmingly statist and collectivist on an economic level.

25 Points of the Nazi party

"Everything must be different!" or "Alles muss anders sein!" was a slogan of the Nazi Party.

Anton Drexler, Dietrich Eckart, Gottfried Feder and Karl Harrier founded the German Workers Party (DAP) in 1919 on a platform of völkisch nationalism structuring it on socialist lines that they believed would serve as an alternative to the international politics of the Communists. Their target group was the German working class and they initially drew support from members of the various Freikorps (armed paramilitaries).

Anton Drexler - Source: Anton Drexler

Social welfare was key idea in the early party platform with Drexler advocating profit-sharing within the context of a unified ‘people’s community - or Volksgemeinschaft.

DAP survived for only a year (1919–1920) before being reborn as the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) under Hitler (1920). Hitler saw the name change as necessary to broaden the party’s appeal beyond the working class. His initial intention was to name the new entity the Social Revolutionary Party but he was talked into adopting the Nazi label by Rudolf Jung instead.

Source: Weimar and Nazi Germany

National Socialism (as opposed to international socialism) was its ideology. The notion that the word socialism was included to ‘trick’ the worker is a myth. It was integral to the collectivist ideology that defined the party.

As Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf

"As things stand today, the trade unions in my opinion cannot be dispensed with. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions of the nation's economic life. Their significance lies not only in the social and political field, but even more in the general field of national politics. A people whose broad masses, through a sound trade-union movement, obtain the satisfaction of their living requirements and at the same time an education, will be tremendously strengthened in its power of resistance in the struggle for existence". Source: MEIN KAMPF by Adolf Hitler: Volume 2, Chapter 12

It has been argued that Hitler was conservative in that he acted through a nationalist banner. However nationalism as a driving force is not essentially conservative. Many a left wing liberation movement (in Africa and South America in particular) have suffused nationalism under a socialist framework.

Take Friedrich Engels (Karl Marx’s co-author) in his own words.

"True, it is a fixed idea with the French that the Rhine is their property, but to this arrogant demand the only reply worthy of the German nation is Arndt's: "Give back Alsace and Lorraine". For I am of the opinion, perhaps in contrast to many whose standpoint I share in other respects, that the reconquest of the German-speaking left bank of the Rhine is a matter of national honour, and that the Germanisation of a disloyal Holland and of Belgium is a political necessity for us. Shall we let the German nationality be completely suppressed in these countries, while the Slavs are rising ever more powerfully in the East?" Source: Ernst Moritz Arndt

Now it is true that Hitler utilized German’s corporate sector industry to drive his war effort (and before that the recovery from the Great Depression) but such a policy of large public works has more in common with New Deal Economics and Keynesian deficit spending than it does with Laissez-Fair capitalism. All of this was also carried out under the auspices of the superstate. The only capitalism that he appeared to like was the nefarious Corporate type (tending toward the monopoly) so long as it aligned with the objectives of the state (fortunately for him but not so much for the Free World there were no shortage of willing accomplices here).

Statist Economics - Using Industry to serve a collectivist ideal

Propaganda for the Nazi Economy - Source: Nazi economic recovery

Soviet Economic Propaganda Source: Stalin and the Drive to Industrialize the Soviet Union

In fact the Nazis were rather hostile to small businesses as was evident by the October 1937 Act that that “dissolved all corporations with a capital under $40,000 and forbade the establishment of new ones with a capital less than $200,000.” One fifth of all businesses collapsed. (see Shirer).Stock Exchanges were reduced from twenty-one to nine by 1935. Dividends were also limited to 6%. In 1936 the Nazis blocked foreign investment.

IG Farben - Part of the cartel that cooperated with the Nazis. Source: IG Farben | German cartel

As renowned Austrian Economist and Jewish Intellectual Ludwig von Mises put it.

"The Nazis have not only imitated the Bolshevist tactics of seizing power. They have copied much more. They have imported from Russia the one-party system and the privileged role of this party and its members in public life; the paramount position of the secret police; the organization of affiliated parties abroad which are employed in fighting their domestic governments and in sabotage and espionage, assisted by public funds and the protection of the diplomatic and consular service; the administrative execution and imprisonment of political adversaries; concentration camps; the punishment inflicted on the families of exiles; the methods of propaganda. They have borrowed from the Marxians even such absurdities as the mode of address, party comrade (Parteigenosse), derived from the Marxian comrade (Genosse), and the use of a military terminology for all items of civil and economic life. The question is not in which respects both systems are alike but in which they differ...Source: The Socialist Calumny Against the Jews | Ludwig von Mises

None of this comes from the conservative playbook. Practically all of it can be associated with regimes largely represented by the Authoritarian Left.

Source: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, New York, NY, Simon & Schuster, 1960, p. 262

http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/...

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