Is Hitler Left Or Right?

An answer to the age old question

Many people will often accuse the other side of ‘being Hitler’, or having ‘Nazi values’.

‘Typical leftists’, will pfft a Conservative, ‘can’t they see they're ironically fascists?’

‘Damn Nazi far-right extremists’, scream leftists, ‘you're worse than Hitler!’

Most people consider it hyperbole, but some genuinely believe one position is ‘more Hitler’ than another. Having studied World War 2 history myself, I find it amusing that no-one has done their homework. Indeed, even during investigative forays, I find Neo-Nazis equally as polarised.

Oversimplified Politics

Firstly, I think the left-right dichotomy is rather Orwellian, in the fact it oversimplifies politics so people are talking about politics in a rather braindead ‘left’ or ‘right’ fashion, as if politics can be boiled down into some sort of child’s steering wheel.

Some smart people have adopted a political ‘2D compass map’, but again, I think it oversimplifies politics. Politics isn’t ‘either-or’. People may agree on a lot of things, but differ on implementation of an idea.

For example, one free market capitalist may support allowing employees to freely unionise (being a free market, after all), and another free market capitalist may view it as collusion, and thus ‘anti-competitive’. That doesn’t make the first free market capitalist a leftist, because that’s an oversimplification. People should talk in ideas, not steering wheel directions.

Hitler Breaks The Paradigm Because He’s Actually Both

This will seem like a cop-out for most people, but I imagine most people haven’t done their World War 2 history homework and bothered to read ‘Mein Kampf’. Sure, maybe you didn’t read the book because it’s evil, but if you’re going to do a factually accurate report on history, you can’t afford to skip unpleasant aspects of history because, spoiler alert: a lot of history is unpleasant.

Talking from the oversimplified standpoint, Hitler is both because he literally adopts ideas from both sides. In his book, he literally addresses this controversy where he complains both sides accuse him of working for the other.

He paraphrasedly states he ‘took Nationalism from the Conservatives’ and ‘Socialism from the Communists’. Hence the name ‘National Socialist’. Now, people might have read about Hitler suppressing the Communists, and say ‘no way is he a Communist’. No, but he is a National Socialist, a variation on Socialism.

Distorted Socialism

His policy, called “Volksgemeinschaft” (people’s community) was effectively a work-’welfare’ program (depending on which racial status you were in; otherwise it was Aktion T4 sterilisation for you). Literally, prior to the National Socialist’s existence was a party called “Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt” (National Socialist People's Welfare). Welfare is literally in the name.

However, it’s not the broad slew ‘welfare’ you’re thinking of in say, Liberal areas. It was a very selective ‘welfare’. If you were disabled, poor, not of their preferred racial standing, or seen as an enemy you were left to burn.

Distorted Nationalism

Usually Nationalists are content with just securing their own borders, they believe their own country is great, no-one else can enter, ‘anyone with cooties stay out’. They’re often not interested in conquering other countries because why would they want to take over ‘less great’ countries?

Certainly, Hitler had a fevour for his country, declaring everyone should support it, but in truth what he advocated was Expansionist policies, not strictly Nationalist ones. Nationalists want to stay home. Expansionists want to go out, kick everybody’s doors down and tell them how great their own way of making is.

Now, you could argue this is akin to the Neo-Liberal and Neo-Conservative constant world-at-war overseas proxy warmongering, however I bet if you ask a lot of non-Neos where they stand on NeoLibs and NeoCons, they will likely be highly critical of their policies and call them ‘globalist’, rather than either ‘Liberal’ or ‘Conservative’.

So Are Both Liberals And Conservatives Guilty, Or What?

I think it’s worth viewing it as neither side specifically ‘inspired’ Hitler, and he just took what was already there from both, taking whatever seemed to be working, and shoehorned his own views into them. A sort of political trojan horse. Which is why we must never oversimplify politics into overly simple ‘left-right’ divides.

If a state was ‘truly’ National Socialist, in the absolutely unrealistic literal interpretation of the name alone, it would have likely had strong borders, not invaded any other countries, and would have had welfare for all (including for disabled people). Sounds almost appealing, but that’s why Hitler adopted the moniker, in reality just a front for ultimately a giant warmongering campaign. Say one thing, do another.

Why Do People Just Accuse One Side Then?

I think Hitler’s name is basically an emotive placeholder for ‘terrible dictator people don’t like’. Rather than saying ‘XYZ is running a dictatorship’, the oversimplified language of ‘XYZ is just like Hitler!’ emerges, which invariably draws comparisons as to whether it is like Fascism or National Socialist ideology.

The word ‘Hitler’ carries all of the emotional baggage and associations of actions undertaken during World War 2, and I think it’s overuse undermines the impact of the association, to the point people use it as an everyday insult against people doing minor things, and not as someone committing atrocities on a large scale.

For example: ‘OMG you banning Mexicans from entering is literally Hitler’ - if it was ‘literally Hitler’ the US would be annexing Mexico, not sealing up their borders. Denial of access to a country is not a war crime. Japan won’t let me enter unless I pass their visa checks, are they ‘literally Hitler’? Abuse of the term.

I think people need to refrain from overusing that comparison, and either compare to very specific policies (‘Canada’s Euthanasia is just like Aktion T4 killing off the disabled’), or use a word that conveys the same meaning (tyranny, dictatorship, totalitarian) but without dragging in all the unrelated political baggage of whether or not it’s like fascism.

So what if the dictatorship isn’t like fascism? It’s still a dictatorship. Lets move on from a child-like understanding of ‘left-right’ ‘no you’re Hitler’ to a more mature discussion of specific policies and detailed descriptions of the issue.

After all, if you don’t agree with me, you’re literally Hitler.

Have your own views? Disagree? Agree? Think I’m literally Hitler?

Interested in more insights?