Explanation: The Nazis were, formally, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Some people take this to mean that the Nazis were, in some meaningful way, ‘left’ or socialist.
The truth is that they were neither. The name was made to appeal to the working-class by feigning interest in workers’ issues, but the Nazis drew overwhelmingly from, and addressed the pet issues of, the disaffected middle class. While there were less capitalist-friendly factions in the party (notably, the working-class SA and the Strasserists), they were not what we would recognize as left-wing, instead representing a distinctly reactionary take on opposition to capitalism more in-line with Catholic conservatives expressing resentment of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century.
Those less-capitalist-friendly factions were suppressed in favor of Hitler’s alliance with land magnates and capitalists in 1934, and so became moot in any case.
Explanation: The Nazis were, formally, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Some people take this to mean that the Nazis were, in some meaningful way, ‘left’ or socialist.
The truth is that they were neither. The name was made to appeal to the working-class by feigning interest in workers’ issues, but the Nazis drew overwhelmingly from, and addressed the pet issues of, the disaffected middle class. While there were less capitalist-friendly factions in the party (notably, the working-class SA and the Strasserists), they were not what we would recognize as left-wing, instead representing a distinctly reactionary take on opposition to capitalism more in-line with Catholic conservatives expressing resentment of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century.
Those less-capitalist-friendly factions were suppressed in favor of Hitler’s alliance with land magnates and capitalists in 1934, and so became moot in any case.
“suppressed” as in “purged”, btw. Several leading members of the SA/Strasserists were murdered during the Night of the Long Knives.