Talk:Nazism

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view · edit Frequently asked questions 1. Why does this article say that the Nazis were right-wing? Because that is the consensus of reliable sources, in this case historians and political scientists. Almost all historical and present-day academic literature places the Nazi Party on the far-right of the traditional left-right spectrum, which in turn is the most common short-form classification used in political science. The Nazis themselves attacked both left-wing and traditional right-wing politicians and movements in Germany as being traitors to Germany. While the Nazi regime's economic policies are very different from those of present-day right-wing parties that adhere to classical liberal or neoliberal positions (which advocate, e.g., a highly deregulated, privatized economic environment), Nazi economic policy was typical of the early to mid-twentieth century far-right, and indeed most political currents of the time, in that it embraced interventionist economics. The Nazi Party absorbed the far-right reactionary monarchist and nationalist German National People's Party into its membership in 1933. The Nazi Party also held good relations with openly right-wing political movements in Europe, such as the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right, whose leader Gil-Robles was a guest at the 1933 Nazi Party Nuremberg rally and sought to model his movement upon the Nazi Party. 2. But the word "socialist" is right in their name! Many political entities have names that can be misleading. Consider, for example, the Holy Roman Empire (a confederation of mainly German territories during the Middle Ages and the early modern period) and North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (a totalitarian dictatorship). Historically, several right-wing figures used the term "socialism" to mean something very different from what would be understood by traditional left-wing socialism, referring simply to the broader concept of collectivism and anti-individualism. The prominent French reactionary monarchist Charles Maurras famously said "a socialism liberated from the democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as a well-made glove fits a beautiful hand". Maurras's views influenced fascism. Oswald Spengler's ideal of "Prussian Socialism" directly influenced Nazism, and Spengler promoted it as a member of the far-right Conservative Revolutionary movement. The usage of the word "socialism" by the Nazis is different from the common usage of the term "socialism", which refers to an economic philosophy involving advocacy for social ownership of the means of production. In the case of the Nazi party, the phrase "national socialist" was a nationalist response to the rise of socialism in Europe by offering a redefinition of "socialism" to refer to the promotion of the interests of the nation, as opposed to ideas of individual self-interest. But there was no policy of social ownership of the means of production. The Nazis did talk about capitalism being bad, but they defined it as a Jewish-originated economic philosophy based on individualism that promoted plutocracy in the interest of the Jews, at the expense of non-Jewish nations and races. This was put in contrast to the Nazis' conception of socialism, which was done in order to win over people attracted to anti-capitalist and socialist ideas to their cause. They rejected ideas of equality and working class solidarity, instead advocating for social hierarchy and national strength. This article sums it up well. 3. Were the Nazis actually a capitalist movement? The answer depends on the context and definition of capitalism. Ideologically, Hitler in private was just as opposed to the ethos of capitalism as he was in public as a politician; he regarded the capitalist ethos as being self-centred individualism that was incompatible with nationalism. Furthermore, in both public and private Hitler regarded capitalism as being created by the Jews for their own interests. The Nazis in public and in private held contempt for bourgeois culture in liberal capitalist societies - as they associated such bourgeois culture with a cosmopolitan, liberal, and decadent lifestyle that was incompatible with the Nazis' ideal of a nationalist martial ethic of disciplined soldiers who were collectively committed to the Fatherland above any individual interest. So, ideologically, Nazism held strong antipathy to capitalism. However, at the same time, Hitler and the Nazis endorsed private property and private enterprise and did not challenge the market economy, which was important to their accrual of power because it avoided antagonizing industrialists and aristocrats. The Nazis themselves claimed that "true socialism" did not involve the Marxian opposition to private property. But if capitalism is defined in a minimum way as involving the support of the existence of private property, private enterprise, and a market economy, then from that minimum definition, the Nazis could be considered as endorsing a capitalist economy. 4. The proper English name for the Nazi Party is the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP). "Nazi" is an abbreviated term, so why does the article not use the proper name? Because English Wikipedia uses the common name for things, and the common name for the NSDAP in English is the "Nazi Party". 5. I made an offhand comment about it and somebody just came along and deleted it! What should I do? Nothing. See this discussion where the community came to a consensus that we have entertained the numerous questions and claims about the Nazis being left-wing enough, and that continued engagement with people pushing this line of reasoning is not helpful to the article. 6. That doesn't seem very fair. Don't Wikipedia policies require editors to assume good faith? What if somebody posts that position here with a really good argument? See the following links, all of which are to discussions about this very question over time. Any argument someone thinks is novel has already been made, been responded to, and failed to convince anyone. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28] 7. But what if I find a large number of very reliable sources all claiming that Nazism is left-wing? Then you will be more than welcome to show them to us, so that we can see that they are very reliable and that they assert that Nazism is a left-wing ideology. If they are, then we will change the article.

Nazism is a far-right ideology. The consensus of political scientists, historians, and other reliable sources is that Nazism is a far-right ideology and not a left-wing or far-left one. This has been discussed numerous times. Please see this FAQ and read the talk page archives. Please do not request that "far-right" be changed to "left-wing" or "far-left"; your request will be denied, and you may be blocked from editing if you persist in doing so.

"Nazi Party" is the English-language common name for the National Socialist German Workers Party. Per our policy, WP:COMMONNAME, English Wikipedia uses the common name in English for the titles of our articles, and in most references to that subject. Thus "Nazi Party" and "Nazism" are the names of our articles on those subjects, and in most instances the National Socialist German Workers Party is referred to as the Nazi Party, but occasionally, to avoid repetition, by the full English-language name, or by its German acronym, NSDAP. Please do not request that the name of the party be changed; such requests are routinely turned down.

	Nazism is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Article milestones Date Process Result August 6, 2004 Featured article candidate Not promoted July 11, 2005 Peer review Reviewed
Current status: Former featured article candidate

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Section sizes Section size for Nazism (30 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 8,509 8,509 394 394 Etymology 6,106 6,106 316 316 Position within the political spectrum 25,603 25,603 1,736 1,736 Origins 1,306 47,625 72 2,502 Völkisch nationalism 19,148 19,148 308 308 Racial theories and antisemitism 13,602 14,752 1,086 1,199 Use of the American racist model 1,150 1,150 113 113 Response to World War I and Italian Fascism 12,419 12,419 923 923 Ideology and programme 2,767 101,747 255 7,726 Nationalism and racialism 2,346 29,511 300 1,549 Irredentism and expansionism 10,564 10,564 286 286 Racial theories 16,601 16,601 963 963 Social class 9,839 9,839 1,059 1,059 Sex and gender 12,425 14,275 625 779 Opposition to homosexuality 1,850 1,850 154 154 Religion 9,142 9,142 712 712 Economics 14,037 29,760 1,354 2,867 Anti-communism 5,410 5,410 560 560 Views of capitalism 10,313 10,313 953 953 Totalitarianism 6,453 6,453 505 505 Classification: reactionary or revolutionary? 2,405 9,276 229 626 Contemporary events and views 6,871 6,871 397 397 Post-war Nazism 1,100 6,187 70 432 Revival of Nazism 5,087 5,087 362 362 See also 451 451 0 0 Notes 23 23 0 0 References 15 31,874 0 0 Footnotes 23,974 23,974 0 0 Bibliography 7,885 7,885 0 0 External links 1,534 1,534 0 0 Total 238,935 238,935 13,732 13,732

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31

Revolutionary not Reactionary Talk:Nazism and socialism

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The redirect Paleo-Nazism has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 April 2 § Paleo-Nazism until a consensus is reached. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:53, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

My edit was reverted. All I did was add more to the political spectrum section: I did not restore what was formerly reverted except for the second half of one of Hitlers speeches. What is the problem? M.S. Asher (talk) 03:11, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have attempted to reduce the length of the article, whilst maintaining the substance of the article. I'm using the talk page to more fully explain my alterations

All in all this edit removed roughly 1500 words from prose. I feel like there still remains a lot which can be cut down or moved elsewhere, but I mainly hoped to go after some of the most obvious things to remove, that being passages of tenuous links to the topic, or of less encyclopaedia-worthy sourcing

Etmology -- I've removed a lengthy quote from Hitler explaining the use of the word "Worker" in the NSDAP's name and a supporting paragraph already present on the Nazi Party article. This section is about etymology of Nazism, not the NSDAP

Position within the political spectrum -- I removed the quotation from Mein Kampf, while Hitler in the extract does indeed criticise both left and right wing politicians, I'm not convinced a primary-source citation for this in the article is productive. Potentially better to consider regarding a non-primary source

I also clipped off some of the quote regarding the 1921 speech Hitler gave. The lines removed are mainly just ramblings, but kept the part left-right positioning.

Classification: reactionary or revolutionary? - Certainly a worthwhile section, but one overly reliant on primary sources. Perhaps too bold, but I removed all the primary-sourced quotes from the section. It's hard to measure these quotes analysis imo in an encyclopaedic way without using non-primary sources. Bejakyo (talk) 06:02, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

You seem to remove more than just quotes, and only selected quotes; why? It seems your goal was to try and claim NAzism is left-wing, correct? Slatersteven (talk) 07:52, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Nazism is undoubtedly a right-wing ideology, so no. I've never seen any reputable claim justifying any claim that Nazism is left wing, with most rhetoric to that effect being a very shallow and uninformed "well it's national SOCIALISM".

The quotes I removed are simply the ones I could find which were primary (that is, the person saying the quote is also the author of the text in which the text is cited). Primary sourcing of quotes is not really fit for an encyclopaedia and fails to really demonstrate the noteworthiness of these quotes falls into wp:original research. Additionally lengthy quotes are themselves not encyclopaedic, and another reason we'd benefit from getting secondary sources. For an article that is already much wp:too longremoving lower quality content such as primary-sourced quotes.

If you believe there are other quotes which fall foul of this, I would recommend them be removed for the same reasoning Bejakyo (talk) 08:50, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Why did you remove the word Marxist? Slatersteven (talk) 08:53, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

I assume you're now referring to a second edit which was unrelated to this talk page topic, instead referring to an edit which focused specifically on the lead? I removed the word marxist as the prior sentence already established the Nazis opposed marxist socialism Bejakyo (talk) 08:57, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply