[ the actual title of this page:]
http://Great-Liberal-Insights.Org/NaziHistory&Ideology.html
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)
The History of the
"National Socialist German Workers Party" |
Why the Nazis
called their party "Socialist"
Although I grew up in the shadow of World War II, it wasn't until I was over 70 that I learned why the "National Socialist German Workers Party", who were called "Nazis" for short had the word "Socialist" in their name. Contrary to what some conservative propagandists would have you believe, it wasn't because there was anything "leftist" about them! Here's the reason, spelled out in a great biography of Hitler at http://referaty-seminarky.sk/adolf-hitler-biography-3/ :
"Hitler's reputation as an orator grew and it soon became clear that he was the main reason why people were joining the party (which had only 54 members when he had joined). This gave Hitler tremendous power within the organization as they knew they could not afford to lose him. One change suggested by Hitler concerned adding "Socialist" to the name of the party.
Hitler had always been hostile to socialist ideas, especially those that involved racial or sexual equality. However, socialism was a popular political philosophy in Germany after the First World War. This was reflected in the growth in the German Social Democrat Party (SDP), the largest political party in Germany. Hitler, therefore redefined socialism by placing the word 'National' before it. He claimed he was only in favour of equality for those who had "German blood". Jews and other "aliens" would lose their rights of citizenship, and immigration of non-Germans should be brought to an end. In February 1920, the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) published its first programme which became known as the "25 Points". . . To appeal to the working class and socialists, the programme included several measures that would redistribute income and war profits, profit-sharing in large industries, nationalization of trusts, increases in old-age pensions and free education."
The following is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_German_Workers_Party :
"Unlike Drexler (the founder) and other party members, Hitler was less interested in the "socialist" aspect of "national socialism" beyond moving Social Welfare administration from the Church to the State... Himself of provincial lower-middle-class origins, he disliked the mass working class of the big cities, and had no sympathy with the notions of attacking private property or the business class (which some early Nazis espoused)."
"Not long after acquiring the reins of power, the Nazis banned the Social Democratic Party and sent its leaders and other leftists identified as threats to the National Socialist program to concentration camps. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia:
In the months after Hitler took power, SA and Gestapo agents went from door to door looking for Hitler’s enemies. They arrested Socialists, Communists, trade union leaders, and others who had spoken out against the Nazi party; some were murdered. By the summer of 1933, the Nazi party was the only legal political party in Germany. Nearly all organized opposition to the regime had been eliminated. Democracy was dead in Germany."
from https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/09/05/were-nazis-socialists/
The Philosophy of the
"National Socialist German Workers Party" |
the 25 Points of Hitler's Nazi Party
- " 1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.
- 2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations; and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.
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3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.
- 4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.
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5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.
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6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the State shall belong only to citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen.
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We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby men are appointed to posts by favor of the party without regard to character and fitness.
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7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should not be possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.
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8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately.
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9. All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.
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10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all.
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Therefore we demand:
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11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
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12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
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13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.
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14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
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15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
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16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.
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17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.
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18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.
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19. We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist ordering of the world, be replaced by German common law.
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20. In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.
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21. The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.
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22. We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a national (folk) army.
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23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press, we demand:
(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.
(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State. They must not be published in the German language.
(c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich.
Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand legal action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.
- 24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.
- 25. The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about from within on the pinciple: "common good before individual good". In order to carry out this program we demand:
the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.
The formation of professional committees and of committees representing the several estates of the realm, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority shall be carried out by the federal states.
The leaders of the party undertake to promote the execution of the foregoing points at all costs, if necessary at the sacrifice of their own lives. "
Hitler, on the alliance of
fascism and Christianity,
vs. communism and liberalism :
A few days after the signing of the Lateran Treaty (between the Pope & Mussolini, the precursor of the Reich Concordat between Hitler and Pope) , Hitler wrote an article for the Volkisher Beobachter, published on 2/22/1929, warmly welcoming the agreement.
"The fact that the Curia is now making its peace with Fascism, shows that the Vatican trusts the new political realities far more than (it) did the former liberal democracy with which it could not come to terms." { One huge problem the Catholic Church had with the liberal Wiemar Republic is that it had tried to divorce the state from the church and put a stop to the state subsidizing churches and their schools in Germany. In contrast, Hitler tripled those subsidies once he got what he wanted in the Vatican Concordat with Germany in 1933. } Turning to the German situation, he rebuked (the liberal Catholic leadership of the "Center Party") for its recalcitrant attachment to democratic politics. " By trying to preach that democracy is still in the best interests of German Catholics, the Center Party . . . is placing itself in stark contradiction to the spirit of the treaty signed today by the Holy See."
The conclusion of his rant contained a gross distortion as well as a remarkable intuition of future opportunities: "The fact that the Catholic Church has come to an agreement with Fascist Italy. . . proves beyond doubt that the Fascist world of ideas is closer to Christianity (i.e. Catholicism) than (to) those of Jewish liberalism or even atheistic Marxism, to which the so-called Catholic Center Party sees itself so closely bound, to the detriment of Christianity today and our German people." (p. 115, Hitler's Pope).
Take it from Stephen;
there is much more where
this came from, at my
website
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