I had the displeasure of being alerted to Elon Musk’s enthusiastic support for a political party in Germany known as Alternative für Deutschland (In English, Alternative for Germany and, henceforth, AfD).
On 20 December 2024, Musk wrote ‘Only the AfD can save Germany.’ on his platform, X. Now, Musk is someone I don’t really care for or pay attention to, but as someone who has quite a strong interest in all things German, this definitely piqued my interest. What was even more interesting is that I discovered that Musk had participated in a live interview with one of the current co-leaders of the AfD, Alice Weidel. I’m no stranger to the AfD, they sprung into existence at around the same time I started learning German, so I’ve witnessed their alarming growth from fringe radicals into major players in German politics.
Here is a short excerpt of the interview in which Musk and Weidel discussed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party:
Weidel: Since I’m [an] economist, I would like to shed some light on the idea, when we talk about Hitler, on the idea of the National Socialists. Back then, during the Third Reich, the National Socialists, as the word says, they were socialists…
Musk: Yes, very much so. They nationalised industries like crazy…
Weidel: Yes, absolutely, he [Adolf Hitler] was a communist, and he considered himself as a socialist, so what they did, [the] state funded the private companies and then they asked for taxes, huge taxes … The biggest success after that terrible era in history was to label Adolf Hitler as right and conservative. He was exactly the opposite. He wasn’t a conservative. He wasn’t a libertarian. He was this communist, socialist guy, so full stop, no more comment.
There’s definitely a lot to discuss here, and I would wager that most people educated in Germany would immediately have understood that many of the claims made are misleading and not based in fact. My concern here is that many people in the Anglosphere (the English-speaking world) may not be equipped to see what’s going on here. Lots of bizarre claims were made throughout the interview, but for this post I am narrowing my focus to the claims involving Hitler and the Nazis. So let’s get into the guts of what was said, by looking at each claim and what evidence supports each claim, while trying not to rant or digress too much.
Claim 1: The Nazis were socialists (because their name says so!)
The Nazi Party is short for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party). Most Germans I interact with refer to the party by its initialism, NSDAP or simply NS, and use the word Nazi to refer to the people (which includes historical figures in the Nazi regime but also extends to modern-day neo-nazis).
It is correct that the party name includes socialist in it. Therefore, the Nazi party must be socialist right? The short answer is false. By this logic, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea must be democratic, right? The long answer is more interesting.
The Nazi Party’s full name is definitely a bit of word salad, and this is deliberate. Political parties seek to engage with a large, diverse number of people and successful appealing to their needs is paramount. This means appealing to people on the other side of politics. Early on in the infancy of the Nazi party, there was a left-wing faction, known as the Strasserists, as it was led by the Strasser brothers, Otto and George. This socialist faction was more reactionary than progressive; they rejected capitalism as the faction associated big business (i.e. capitalism) with Jewish corruption.
Near the end of the 1920s, The Nazi Party sought to shed its image as a group of violent working-class street thugs and attempted to rebrand as the party for the middle-class; they would later court big business as well as the Junkers (old money). As a result, Strasserism was stamped out of the Nazi Party, and during the Nacht der langen Messer (Night of Long Knives) in 1934, Strasser and his followers as well as any other powerful and influential Nazis that Hitler didn’t like were murdered.
It is safe to say, that the socialist in the full name of the Nazis is not particularly meaningful and that, after 1934, any remaining socialist ideologues with any sort of influence in the party had been effectively murdered out.
For additional reading on this topic:
1. Were the Nazis socialists? by Michael Ray
2. Nazism, socialism and the falsification of history by Matthew Fitzpatrick and A. Dirk Moses
3. The right needs to stop falsely claiming that the Nazis were socialists by Ronald J. Granieri
Claim 2: The Nazis were socialists (because they nationalised industries!)
This one’s a real stinker because as thinking humans both Musk and Weidel should know better than to dumb down economics in a deliberately dishonest manner. Unfortunately, as thinking humans they are also well aware that dumbing this stuff down will resonate with the kind of people that admire their ideas. Dumb people.
This is false. Nazi Germany was a mixed economy and sat somewhere between the obviously evil command economy of the Soviet Union and the unfettered capitalistic greed of the USA (Overy, 1995). Due to favourable economic policies (and slave labour), many German big businesses flourished during the Nazi regime, to name just a few: Bayer, Thyssen, Krupp, Bosch, Siemens, and Volkswagen. They were subject to rigid Nazi policies of course, yet many were extremely happy to get in bed with the Nazis. Just like how Musk was happy to get in bed with Trump (figuratively speaking!).
Even if the Nazi Germany had established a complete command economy, that does not automatically make it a socialist state. There are other ideologies apart from socialism that are compatible with a command economy… such as fascism. The f-word. A word that both Musk and Weidel appeared to deliberately avoid using during this conversation.
Claim 3: The Nazis imposed huge taxes!
This is an interesting claim to make, and I’ll answer this one with a quote from Richard W. Lindholm (German Finance in World War II, 1947, p. 134):
The Nazis did not make extensive increased use of excise taxes. This was closely related to their greater reliance upon price control and rationing and their desire to create the impression among the masses that war could be paid with the loot and collections obtained from conquered areas.
Compared to other nations involved in WWII, Nazi Germany actually placed a lighter tax burden on the wealthy than the UK or USA (Buggeln, 2023). Not to mention the wealth stolen by the Nazis from Jewish people that was used to fund a large part of the regime (Hall, 2010). Why does this even matter though? Even if the Nazis did impose huge taxes, that wouldn’t automatically make them socialist or communist anyway…
So, when compared to other countries engaged in the war, the answer is actually false.
Musk and Weidel are both libertarians. Libertarians believe that the government should play a small role and that taxes are theft. This leads us to our next claim.
Claim 4: Hitler wasn’t a libertarian!
This one is actually correct. Well done, Alice Weidel!
Libertarians favour a small government that interferes very little in the day to day lives of its citizens. Hitler definitely was not a libertarian.
Claim 5: Hitler was this communist, socialist guy!
The short answer is false, obviously false. From early on, the Social Democrat and Communist parties of Germany were the natural enemies of the Nazi Party, and Hitler put a lot of work in eliminating these two parties. It was the Nazi party’s opposition to and hatred of communism that made them a viable option for many people in the first place.
Taking advantage of the hatred between both the Communist and Social Democratic parties as well as simply blaming communists for stuff were essential elements in Hitler’s rise to power, and on achieving power, Social Democrats and Communists were rounded up and were the first to be put into concentration camps (The Guardian, 1933).
Perhaps, the reason why Musk and Weidel want to associate Hitler with communists and socialists is that in their minds this is the rational thought process:
1. Hitler/Nazis = Communism/socialism
2. Communism/socialism = big government,
3. Big government = evil.
4. Therefore, small government = good,
5. Musk and Weidel = small government,
6. Therefore, Musk and Weidel = good.
I believe the above to be a cogent summary of the mental processes of the type of people that Weidel and Musk are seeking to sell their ideologies to. Most educated people would have been able to stop at “Hitler/Nazis = evil”. However, Musk and Weidel had to convolute everything in order to conclude that they are “good”. We have to remember that Musk is an industrialist who has everything to gain in a libertarian state (less tax means more profit), and Weidel is an ambitious politician seeking power, therefore, appealing to people who hate paying taxes is a no-brainer and appealing to people’s common hatred of the extreme left (communism) is a tried and true strategy of Nazis and neoconservatives alike.
To conclude, I’ve looked at five claims made by Musk and Weidel in a short excerpt from an interview:
Claim 1: The Nazis were socialists (because their name says so!)
Claim 2: The Nazis were socialists (because they nationalised industries!)
Claim 3: The Nazis imposed huge taxes!
Claim 4: Hitler wasn’t a libertarian!
Claim 5: Hitler was this communist, socialist guy!
I found that only one (claim 4) had any basis in fact. The false claims made were incredibly, and perhaps even deliberately, misleading. Curiously, Musk and Weidel’s obssessive opposition to communism and socialism mirrors the exact same oppositional rhetoric of the people that were discussing in the interview excerpt.
It would definitely be interesting to look at other outrageous and bizarre claims made in the interview, but the time and effort would be enormous!
Hopefully, you’ve learnt something new by reading my ranty response.
MG
Green Bear 