{"id":9649,"date":"2016-12-02T17:14:15","date_gmt":"2016-12-03T01:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9649"},"modified":"2016-12-02T17:14:15","modified_gmt":"2016-12-03T01:14:15","slug":"9649-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/9649-2\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

From an Angry Reader:<\/h3>\n

Hello Mr Hanson. I read your articles on <\/em>Townhall.com<\/em><\/a> and have a question on something you wrote in Enemies Of Language. In your article you refer to Nazi Germany as having been \u201cright wing.\u201d This is a question that I have been wanting to pose so many times when reading articles or viewing documentaries on TV. What was it about Nazi government policies in Germany that made it \u201cright wing\u201d rather than left? It seems to me that Nazism was a politically left ideology due to big government control of everything such as industry, one party rule, censorship, anti religion, etc. What are the things you believe made it right wing?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Rick Bush<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:<\/h3>\n

Dear Not So Angry Reader Rick Bush,<\/p>\n

Thank you for your reasoned inquiry. I addressed some of this in a prior response to a genuinely angry reader.<\/p>\n

National Socialism was an odd hybrid, reflecting both the adjective National and the noun Socialism. In Hitler\u2019s view, socialism in the German context meant more or less what it implied: anti-capitalist screeds, lots of entitlements and government services, infrastructure building, deals for like-sounding corrupt cronies, and government supervised education, recreation, environmentalism, and employment.<\/p>\n

But Nazi economics were not so all-inclusive socialist as communism, given that crony capitalists were given concessions to profit and promises from Hitler et al. that they would be free of union strikes and popular pushback. Average Germans for the large part kept their property. There were no confiscations of private wealth on a mass scale other than the nightmarish hounding of Jews and political opponents\u2014unlike the Soviet Union that collectivized almost everything (of course with exceptions for a privileged elite).<\/p>\n

But the key was again \u201cNational.\u201d Unlike communism and prior universal socialism, Nazism had no claim on universalism: it never sought to unite the workers of the world or to create a socialist global utopia.<\/p>\n

Rather, it unapologetically believed that Germans, as Aryans, were a superior race. Like the nationalist and socialist ancient Spartans, there would be mandated privileged equality among most Germans, but based on cruel exploitation of a vast cast of inferiors below.<\/p>\n

If socialism is a crackpot dream that the workers of the world will unite across race and geography against universal capitalist exploiters, unhinged National Socialism meant that pure Germans would advance a Third Reich, promoting arms, patriotism, bizarre mythologies about a past supposedly untainted from the very beginning by decadent Romanism, puffed-up fantastical Nordic religion, and a national creed of patriotic, well-armed, and mostly superior people who would naturally excel over lesser others if united by an anti-democratic single tyrant.<\/p>\n

In short, I think Hitler and his predecessors were somewhat accurate in calling this hybrid movement of socialism at home and nationalism abroad Nationalsozialismus<\/em>, and so we are mostly right in calling Nazism, as outsiders in World War II, who had to deal with its foreign policy, as \u201cright-wing,\u201d at least in comparison to Stalin\u2019s left-wing version of mass extermination.<\/p>\n

To be pedantic I might have instead better have referred to right-left wing Nazi Germany and a left-right wing Soviet Union, given that the latter was likewise unfree, highly patriotic, militaristic, and followed the cult of a caudillo\u2014along with being a share-the-poverty and hating capitalism dictatorship. Stalin once admired Hitler and vice versa; they saw each other as somewhat similar, especially their shared barbaric means to an end. The difference perhaps ultimately was one of relative degree: Hitler to his enemies was more right-wing, dictatorial and militaristic than socialist, and Stalin was more ruthlessly communist than other right-wing autocrats.<\/p>\n

\u2014Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From an Angry Reader: Hello Mr Hanson. I read your articles on Townhall.com and have a question on something you wrote in Enemies Of Language. In your article you refer to Nazi Germany as having been \u201cright wing.\u201d This is a question that I have been wanting to pose so many times when reading articles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2vD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9633,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/9633-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":9649,"position":0},"title":"From an Angry Reader: The\u2026","author":"Megan Ring","date":"November 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"From an Angry Reader: The new kind of Republican party is part 1930\u2019s Nazi and 1950\u2019s Dixiecrat. Raye Harper ------------------------------ Victor Davis Hanson's Reply: Dear Angry Reader Raye Harper, Since you assert rather than argue or explain, it is hard to fathom what you are getting at. But in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11555,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/11555-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":9649,"position":1},"title":"Angry Reader 12-04-2018","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Since you never state that POTUS lies 80-85% of the time when he speaks publicly, what are some examples of his fake news. Who has discredited the main stream news other than POTUS? On a scale of 1 to 10 just how right wing is the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Donald Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9779,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/9779-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":9649,"position":2},"title":"From an Angry Reader: Angry\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"From an Angry Reader: Angry Reader Bill Anderson Hi I know it is a job but .... He is awful. Why he writes this tosh and why anyone would read it is beyond peculiar, Try to get him seen. Even for bozo right wing ideologues there are limits. Best Wishes\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10470,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10470-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":9649,"position":3},"title":"From An Angry Reader: To:\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: To: Prof. Victor Davis Hanson \u00a0 At the end of your interview with Scott Simon on 8 July 2017 I heard this: \u201cAnd look how they took a good man like George Bush and turned him into a monster\u201d. It caught my attention. \u00a0 One of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13203,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-04-22-2021\/","url_meta":{"origin":9649,"position":4},"title":"Angry Reader 04-22-2021","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Vic, I read your opinion piece today in my local Naples Daily newspaper and I had to wonder why the paper published this absurd piece of crap. Didn\u2019t they realize that only right-wing crazy assholes work at the Hoover Institute! I apologize as I realize right-wing\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10494,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10494-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":9649,"position":5},"title":"Questions","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: If you publish my letter on your website, it may best be placed in the \u201cAngry Reader\u201d category. I only agree with you 10 percent of the time, but I\u2019m not angry. You are one of the two or three best conservative commentators, in my view.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9650,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9649\/revisions\/9650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}