Historians identify National Socialism (or Nazism) as a far Right-wing political system. The Party saw itself was part of the revolutionary Right--as opposed to the conservative and bourgeois traditional Right.
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It was clearly divorced from the Marxist direction of European socialism and communism. The "socialist" part of the party's title came from Voelkish writer and theorist Oswald Spengler, who was most famous for his book The Decline of the West (1918 and 1922).
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In Prussiandom and Socialism, Spengler argued that there was a "German socialism," imbued with "Prussian" values like hard work, self-sacrifice, and emphasis on the community over the individual.
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This "German socialism," he argued, was separate from European/Marxist socialism, and was more compatible with the political Right than the Left. (As a side note, after 1933 Spenger rejected Nazi ideology. He thought Hitler's racial antisemitism was "idiotic.")
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Early Nazi supporters believed that "national socialism"--understood to be Spengler's "German socialism"--was populist enough to draw the support of the working class in Germany, but also contend with the international communist and socialist movements.
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By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Nazi party denounced any anti-capitalist rhetoric (in order to win the support of the German business community) but the name stuck.
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In short, the "socialism" of "National Socialism" stemmed from a belief in a specifically German form of right-wing populism, not from an leftist economic ideology. Thanks for listening, void.
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@PaulHJossey hope this helps you, dude.Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Spengler’s downside take on Herder and Nietsche.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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