Comments by "TheThirdMan" (@thethirdman225) on "Washington Post"
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@Crosshair84
"Fascists also realized that outright state ownership wasn't necessary, as long as the means of production were being used for the benefit of the people via government decree/regulation."
Yes and no. During the early 1930s, Hitler and Hjalmar Schacht (the so-called "Nazi banker") engaged in a number of practices that would be illegal in most countries today on the grounds of being anti-competitive. The first thing they did was to set up a sham government bonds system which was pretty much intended to fail. the second thing the did was to encourage German industries to act as cartels to bolster their positions internationally. Finally, they undid all the safety measures that were put into place to stabilise the economy, from the Weimar Republic all the way back to Bismarck. De-regulation was the order of the day and it was pursued to the extreme. nazi Germany became almost the ultimate de-regulated economy.
"Anyone who bothers to read the writings of both ideologies would know this."
As far as Nazism is concerned, this is not very helpful. Hitler wrote his manifesto, "Mein Kampf", while languishing in Landsberg Prison in 1924. He wrote a second edition in 1928. But the fact is that there was very little continuity in any of what he said and even less in connection with what he practiced. In fact, Nazism can really only be judged on what they did. There were dozens of competing interests within the party - Grigor and Otto Strasser were frequently at odds with Hitler, so much so that Grigor Strasser became a victim of the "Night of the Long Knives". Goebbels was another. There is a quote from him that is frequently cited by advocates of this zombie argument that Nazism was left wing that was from a writing in 1923. But that was when the NSDAP was still very fragmented. Goebbels was from the North and Hitler was in Munich. When Goebbels finally met Hitler he immediately dropped any previous aspirations and subordinated himself. The NSDAP recognised eventually that they could get nowhere without Hitler at the helm, so whatever he said, they followed.
Hitler's ideology - such as it existed - was never as absolute as most people like the think. He stuck to his campaigns against democracy, socialism and Jews (though he wasn't an anti-semite until after WWI). His speeches were mostly ramblings based around long-standing prejudices and assumptions which many agreed with. Much of what has been written about Nazism is retrospective, rather than from a philosophical perspective.
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@kiddkuru
"After the Nazis became the biggest German political party in 1932, hitler conspired with large business conglomerates and due to the economic instability eventually was able to get Hindenburg to appoint him as chancellor."
Not quite. Close but not quite. Hindenburg didn't appoint him due to any economic instability. In fact, Hindenburg didn’t appoint him. He was merely the rubber stamp. The Nazis benefitted from the privations of the Great Depression because Germany was affected more than most other countries, especially when American investment loans were called in.
After the 1932 elections, the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag. The Chancellor at that point was Franz von Papen, a conservative. His government was notable for bringing about the first breach of the Versailles Treaty when it passed a bill to start rebuilding the navy.
After a no confidence motion against him, von Papen wanted to shore up some support for his conservative government so he approached the Nazis. Hitler was only interested in making a deal as long as he was made Chancellor and von Papen put it to his party. They agreed.
You may not have heard it but at the time, von Papen, speaking on behalf of the conservatives, remarked, 'We are hiring him'.
So Hitler was elevated to Chancellor - yes, this was approved by Hindenburg - with the connivance of the conservatives, who were prepared to countenance an openly anti-democratic crank like Hitler over the German left wing parties. With hindsight, one would have expected it to be the other way but it wasn't.
"While I will say that many of the large business conglomerates were right winged, I’d also like to point out hitler screwed them over when he enacted policy to remove the existence of private business, and forced these conglomerates to join the nazi party (the state) or else they would be send to re-education camps."
No. This isn't accurate. You were quite right when you pointed out that the first supporters of Hitler were industrialists like Fritz Thyssen and later, Krupp, Porsche, I.G. Farben and a number of others. I'll get to them in a minute but that much is certainly true..
When the Nazis came to power the party was 10 million Marks in debt. Hitler called a meeting with a number of big business benefactors, which included the families Thyssen, Krupp, Porsche, the Quandt family (BMW), I.G. Farben, Flicks and the von Finks.
They appealed to these people to join them in a business venture that would effectively guarantee them a free hand and a virtual river of money. Needless to say, this went ahead largely as planned.
So there was no need to force board members to become Nazis. They had been Nazis for years before. Some other never became Nazis at all. While there were ways in which the party exerted control over businesses, they remained in private hands and acted in concert with the party, largely at their own discretion.
"This gave the party full control over the economy. That is how socialism and communism work."
Again, no. First of all, even in the most liberal and conservative democracies, governments still exert control over economies. They do this through mechanisms like fiscal and monetary policy, budgets and other policy measures which can have a great deal of influence. Laws controlling industrial relations or public service pay rises can have a huge influence.
So central planning - invariably decried as socialism - is used everywhere, no matter what the stripe of government we are talking about. Without it, you couldn't manage a currency market and you couldn't manage international trade, especially in these days of an essentially global economy. You couldn't manage foreign policy and defence.
Now while it's true that things were somewhat different in the 1930s, it's also true that governments were a lot more invested in major projects than they are now. It's also true that the Great Depression was arguably the first global financial event.
So, to best answer your next point, it is necessary for me to ask another question:
How did the Nazis finance German rearmament and the major capital works programs, like the building of the Autobahns?
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