Was Hitler left-wing?

In her poor references to historical findings, Weidel repeatedly claims that Adolf Hitler's National Socialism was equal to Stalinism, and in this way attempts to demarcate herself from the right-wing fringe of her party in a transparently superficial way. At the same time, she levels out the AfD's visibly extreme tendencies and attempts an almost ridiculous balancing act between historical distortion and trivialization. But what is this discussion really about? And how can one effectively counter Weidel's argument, however absolute and manufactured it may seem?

To do this, one must first clarify the terms "right" and "left". Because just as absurd as the claim that left is a synonym for socialism or communism, the term right is nothing more than an arbitrarily fixed classification for a certain political direction. For a long time, these classifications worked. A policy that stood up for the interests of the workforce, for social justice and ecological progress and renewal was considered left. On the right, on the other hand, there was a policy of conservative nationalism and radical social market economy, the preservation of tradition and a return to patriotic values. The extreme extension of the left was the anti-fascist and militant resistance, while right-wing extremism sees itself primarily as nationally oriented in opposition to a pluralistic society and still has clear anti-Semitic traits, as numerous quotes and appearances by leading AfD politicians emphatically underline. Whether it is a "memorial of shame" that the Thuringian party leader Björn Höcke speaks of when he describes the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, or the white rose that the demonstrators cynically hold in their hands as a symbol of national resistance after the right-wing extremist attacks in Chemnitz.

It is almost impossible to ignore that the AfD has remained a melting pot for diehards and incorrigible nationalists and has even developed into an almost established force in the circle of democratic parties - even though its extremist and anti-democratic excesses are becoming increasingly apparent. In recent years, both extremes have become increasingly alienated and in some cases even come closer together. Former left-wing extremists, such as the Compact publisher Jürgen Elsässer or the repeatedly convicted lawyer Horst Mahler, have mutated into avowed right-wing extremists and now represent the ideological principles of their former opponents. This means, first of all, that the classification of right and left is no longer as clear today as Alice Weidel and her supporters claim. Rather, both terms are variable and are used by their political opponents as needed to defame or define where their political counterpart stands. However, some basic elements are still recognizable and thus provide an indication of the true intentions of the so-called new right. This method now includes waging a battle for retroactive interpretation of unambiguous terminology. Openly displayed xenophobia, intolerance towards minorities and latent anti-Semitism are still key identifying features of this strategy. It is irrelevant whether it is right-wing or left-wing ideology, as long as it leads to similar goals to those of its role models. Especially when you look at the origin of this classification, it becomes clear that it is nothing more than a facade.

The terms originally come from the French National Assembly and mean nothing other than the seating arrangement. This has remained the case to this day, with the AfD faction in the Bundestag, for example, sitting on the right, while the SPD, FDP and CDU occupy the centre and the Greens and Left Party sitting further to the left. Another indicator of the right or left affiliation is contained in the names of the parties, such as the SPD or the CDU, which feel they belong to a particular ideology, religion or social order. In relation to National Socialism, however, this is by no means as simple as Alice Weidel claims. National Socialism was a camouflage ideology that emerged from the socialism of the 1920s as the German Workers' Party (DAP), but later developed into a dictatorship whose primary goal was to implement the Nazis' racial theory, which it carried out in a cruel manner. So it is not only cynical when Alice Weidel glorifies Hitler today as a socialist or even a communist, because these were the very people who were systematically persecuted by the Nazis and killed in concentration camps by the thousands, but it is also aA deliberate confusion of terms, which leads to National Socialism being equated with today's left-wing ideology. It is understandable that the AfD sees this as a main enemy and sees itself as a true representative of righteous German concerns. But at the same time, it is also a highly dangerous and deliberate glorification of terms, which in this case not only leads to a post-war discussion that was thought to have long since been settled being reopened, but also to AfD supporters seeing their belief in being a force of resistance against an invisible nomenclature of power that, in their view, acts in an ideologically reprehensible manner. However, it is precisely this idea of victimhood that is an essential feature of former and current National Socialist ideology, and it is ultimately what the term "right" actually means.

The Nazis of the past and present repeatedly use the narrative of oppression and resistance to apply their cruel policies to those who cannot defend themselves against them. In the case of Adolf Hitler, these were not only the Jews, but also numerous minorities, such as homosexuals or the party members mentioned above. The term Nazi, which we use almost inflationary these days, is basically nothing more than a synonym for fascism, and fascism, in turn, is something that is related to National Socialist ideology. It is the reversal of democracy into a leadership principle in which those in power make god-like decisions against which the people cannot defend themselves either by voting, arguing or resisting. Ignoring the fact that National Socialism was an inhuman and destructive dictatorship and mentioning it in the same breath as democratically elected parties that represent the interests of their voters in a parliament is not only justifiably punishable, but it is a particularly perfidious way of trivializing the crimes of the Third Reich. The question is no longer whether Hitler could have been a communist or a socialist, but rather where the AfD fits between these different ideologies. The answer to this is quite clear: to the right of what it considers to be left-wing. And if you take Alice Weidel's conclusion to its logical conclusion, then she considers herself to be more right-wing than the National Socialists, who in her view were nothing more than disguised leftists. This not only reveals her self-image and that of her party in a fatal way, but it also shows the way in which the AfD justifies its blatant proximity to right-wing extremists and thus tries to establish a misanthropic ideology. Because in the logic of Alice Weidel and the AfD, everything that is left is too weak and everything that the AfD represents is strong enough to solve the alleged problems of our time with rigidity and authoritarian measures.

At the beginning, these may be practical suggestions that seem quite plausible in the range of arguments of the political parties. But if they are consistently pursued, these ideas and proposed solutions are nothing other than thoroughly misanthropic. Because like the Nazis of the past, the AfD and its party leader are stylizing themselves as a victim of the rulers, who seem to decide what they consider to be right and wrong without a mandate and over the heads of the people. This claim alone is a fatal parallel to the ideology of the Nazis, who also used similar political propaganda before they seized power to conceal their goals. For the Nazis, the established parties were nothing more than representatives of a power-hungry caste of parliamentarians who revolved around themselves, isolated from society. In "Mein Kampf", Hitler describes parliamentary democracy as the product of degeneration for good reason. Incidentally, similar to the former chairman of the AfD, Bernd Lucke, who described our democracy as "degenerate" and thereby resorted to Nazi terminology to conceal his actual idea of equating parliamentarism with a cancer, the AfD also constantly uses the same ploy. For them, current politics is riddled with corruption and disorientation. In their distorted image, they portray the German people as an oppressed and will-less mass waiting to be released from the hostage of parliamentarism by a strong, nationalist force. This striking proximity to National Socialism makes Alice Weidel's claim even more absurd. Because if Hitler was left-wing at all, then so is the AfD. In essential points, they representen Similar. Like her historical role model, she also displays the same way of rationalizing her argument, however cynical it may be. Anyone who does not recognize this is also a godsend for the AfD. Because the current situation makes it easy for the party to capture votes through protest.

German society has been searching for a new identity between globalization and independence for some time. The recourse to nationalism is a model that it can easily copy from other countries in Europe. The only difference is that, unlike countries in which right-wing forces are currently taking power, Germany has a past that cannot be easily repressed and, in the case of Alice Weidel, can only be justified by a complete reversal of history and its interpretation. Even if it often seems very effective and not particularly well thought out: Above all, what the AfD is trying to do at the moment is characterized by excessive arrogance, a fundamental attack on our democratic constitution and the diversity of our society. The solutions proposed by Höcke, Weidel and Chrupalla are not only anachronistic and ineffective, but above all hostile to anything that deviates from the norm that the AfD declares to be German enough. And in doing so, it not only reaches voters who vote for it out of protest, but also a considerable part of society that sees it as the only alternative to the current constellation.

The failure of the previous government certainly plays a major role in this and encourages people's discontent on key issues in their lives. For example, the political center in Germany has often failed to take seriously the voices of people who are not only against participation in the war in Ukraine through ever more arms deliveries, but also feel the effects of this opinionated policy on their own economic situation. The perceived instability of the political leadership leads to consequences that culminate in aggressive protest. The government's indecision, for example on the issue of immigration or energy policy, is contributing to people's longing for universal solutions. By reducing this universal solution to certain buzzwords such as remigration, the AfD not only encourages existing frustration, but also fuels prejudice and radicalism. If you observe the reaction of numerous commentators on the Internet, for example, you repeatedly read an almost paranoid perception of reality. In the view of many AfD voters, Germany is in decline, a country in which there is neither justice nor sufficient authority and self-confidence to deal with the challenges of the present. In their useful delusions, Germany is on the ground and can only be saved by radical change, which means nothing other than handing over power to those who no longer make compromises.

Here, too, there is a clear parallel to Hitler and National Socialism. The entire election campaign that the NSDAP ran in 1932 was based on the fact that it exaggerated the brutalization and decline of the parliamentary system to such an extent that it was able to present itself as the only true alternative without people realizing what ideological construct really lay behind the Nazis' slogans. This could have been recognized early enough, just as it is with the AfD today. As early as the early 1920s, Hitler, as chairman of the German Workers' Party, made it clear where he thought the journey should go. Hitler saw the Jewish-Marxist world conspiracy as the cause of the decline of the German Reich and the defeat in the First World War, and for him revenge on the councils was also revenge on the enemies of Germany who, from the Nazis' point of view, kept the German people in check. Retribution and settling accounts with the corrupt elites of the Weimar Republic and parliamentarism as the primary goal and thus also as a programmatic guideline were the driving force and recipe for success of the National Socialist ideology. A key characteristic of the Nazis was that they did not feel bound to any ideological guidelines and therefore could not be classified as right or left, but only used terminology to conceal their true intentions. The term socialism contained in National Socialism was thus nothing more than a desecrating parody, and it is a farce today that more than 80 years after the end of the war it is still not clearwhere the difference lies between the democratic socialism of the political left and the National Socialism of the extreme right. The fact that the AfD is now taking this debate on board and thereby diverting attention from its irrational and profoundly illogical ideological priorities is not only frightening in terms of its connection to history, but also a clear sign that German society is still far from having understood the legacy of its history and being able to deal with it in a sensible way.

23.01.25
©Serdar Somuncu
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*Serdar Somuncu is an actor and director