Er is de laatste tijd veel te doen geweest rond een uitspraak van Alice Weidel, de leidster van de Duitse radicaal-rechtse partij AFD, in haar gesprek met Elon Musk. Daarin beweerde ze immers dat Hitler een socialist of zelfs communist was. De "fact checkers" van de VRT waren er als de kippen bij om die uitspraak te weerleggen. "Klinkklare nonsens", was daar zelfs te horen, maar de drie redenen die ze daarvoor gaven waren op zijn zachts gezegd bijzonder mager. Dus laten we onze oren te luisteren leggen  bij een echte kenner: de Duitse historicus en socioloog Rainer Zitelmann:

Zitelman heeft er zelfs een heel dik boek (638 pag.) over geschreven. Laten we de notities daarvan overlopen:

•  Aanhangers van Hitler waren dat omwille van materialistische redenen, niet wegens zijn charisma:
  William Brustein draws very similar conclusions – admittedly from a different perspective – in his 1996 book, The Logic of Evil: The Social Origins of the Nazi Party, 1925–1933. ‘My central thesis,’ writes Brustein, ‘is that the mass of Nazi followers were motivated chiefly by commonplace and rational factors – namely, their material interests – rather than by Hitler’s irrational appeal or charisma.’4 In complete agreement with my own earlier findings,5 Brustein concludes that anti-Semitism played a subordinate role in the rise of the NSDAP between 1929 and 1933.6
• De NSDAP had dan ook vooral laag opgeleide aanhangers behorende tot de arbeidersklasse:
  Brustein’s extensive research now proved that, in terms of its social composition, the NSDAP had a disproportionately high number of well-educated working-class members and a disproportionately low number of less-educated working-class members.8 And it was precisely for these working-class groups that Hitler’s promise of social advancement – a promise that plays a major role in this book – was particularly attractive: ‘The desire for economic advancement and the perception that the NSDAP, alone among the working-class parties, responded to that desire, made the NSDAP a likely choice for millions of German workers.’
  After January 30, 1933, opportunism and career ambitions played an increasingly key role in the recruitment of new members: between January 30 and the end of April 1933 alone,1.75 million new members signed up as members of the NSDAP, at which point new memberships were suspended. But, in spite of the regular recruitment stops, the party’s membership continued to grow strongly.
• De grootste groep van de de NSDAP waren arbeiders, maar het was geen arbeiderspartij. De partij sprak alle lagen aan:(A) disproportionately large number of white-collar professionals and civil servants joined the party after January 30, 1933. Nevertheless, the proportion of blue-collar workers in the NSDAP was always far higher than has been previously assumed. Similar to the party’s voters, roughly 40 percent of the NSDAP’s members were working class. In terms of its social composition, the NSDAP was neither a workers’ nor a middle-class party, it was rather a ‘catch-all party of protest’. Men were much more strongly represented in the party than women, a fact that also applied to other political parties in Weimar Germany.
• Hitler was geen reactionair en bestempelde reactionairen als zijn vijanden:
  Lukacs does not regard Hitler as a reactionary. In fact, he concludes that the opposite was true and observes that, as Hitler himself said, reactionaries were his main enemies, both within Germany and abroad. Lukacs also suggests that ‘we must accept his word in order to understand him ... A revolutionary does not only wish to change the direction of the ship of state; he wishes to remake its society.’
• Hitler was een een gretige lezer en had een uitgebreide bibiliotheek:
  In 2010, Timothy W. Ryback published Hitler’s Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life, in which he quotes Hitler’s childhood friend August Kubizek: ‘Books, always more books! I can never remember Adolf without books ... Books were his world.’ And Hitler’s passion for books, according to another early associate, had nothing at all to do with ‘leisure or pleasure. It was deadly serious business.’45 Hitler was an enthusiastic collector and his library ultimately contained some 16,300 books.46 In fact, expenditure on books was the third largest tax deduction on Hitler’s tax declaration.47 Hitler claimed to read one book per night, sometimes even more.48 The largest sections of his collection were made up of 7,000 military volumes, roughly 1,500 titles from the fields of architecture, theatre, painting and sculpture, and a large selection of titles on nutrition.49 Hitler’s library also included a relatively large number of sociological works,50 along with a wide selection of Karl May books, biographies, detective stories and books on spiritualism and success.51 In contrast, the library was ‘noticeably lacking in literature and almost totally devoid of drama and poetry’.52
• Het nationaal-socialisme leende gretig van het socialisme en van links en was daardoor populair:
  Aly notes that one reason for the popularity of National Socialism was ‘its liberal borrowings from the intellectual tradition of the socialist left’.56 In his memoirs, Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the mass murder of the Jews, repeatedly affirmed: ‘My political sentiments inclined toward the left and emphasized socialist aspects every bit as much as nationalist ones.’57 For millions of Germans, the appeal of National Socialism lay in ‘the promise of real equality’, asserts Aly.
• Hitler was een sociale revolutionair, was anti-bourgeoisie (dat had hij gemeen met Marx) en loofde de arbeidersklasse die hij voorspoed, vooruitgang en gelijke kansen beloofde:
  In this book, I show that Hitler saw himself as a social revolutionary who was as strong in his emotional hatred of the ‘cowardly bourgeoisie’ as he was in his repeated praise of the working class, to whom he promised future prosperity, social advancement and equal opportunities. On the other hand, I do not, or at best only marginally, examine the extent to which Hitler’s ideological convictions actually corresponded with the social changes that were implemented between 1933 and 1945.
• De bourgeoisie werd dan ook zwaar belast terwijl de arbeidersklasse latenverlichting kreeg:
  Aly explains how, when it came to decisions on wartime taxation, the Nazi leadership ‘intervened to protect lower- and middle-income Germans’.60 He even refers to ‘tax breaks for the masses’.61 At the same time, the regime pursued a parallel policy Aly refers to as ‘tax rigor for the bourgeoisie’, which massively increased the financial burden on the social group which Hitler – as explained in Chapter III.3 of this book – despised almost above all others. Aly puts forward many examples of the government’s readiness to tax businesses and the country’s wealthy, including the so-called Hauszinssteuer (real estate inflation tax), which cost German property owners 8.1 billion reichsmarks in 1942 alone.
• Natuurlijk werden bepaalde "rassen" uitgesloten:
  Rather, what Hachtmann writes tallies precisely with what I identify as Hitler’s social objectives in this book, namely that society (without abolishing class distinctions) ‘should be a socially permeable meritocracy offering “upward mobility for the productive”’. At the same time, the National Socialist state differed from other highly industrialized societies in that it ‘explicitly excluded “inferior races”’.69 In this respect, I fail to see any contradiction between Aly’s theses – which Hachtmann criticizes – and the findings of my own research on Hitler’s worldview.
• Nationaal-socialisme was bij uitstek modernistisch:
  Rolf Pohl agreed, stating that Volksgemeinschaft was a key concept that underpinned National Socialist ideology and that it would be wrong to speak only of the Volksgemeinschaft as little more than a ‘socio-political charade’. On the contrary, Pohl argues, the partial implementation, both symbolic and real, of the concept of Volksgemeinschaft, combined with its promises of a golden future, had been ‘one of the most important instruments the NSDAP used to appeal to the emotional loyalty of the Volksgenossen and, through building agreement and consensus, secure their loyalty to the regime’.87 Riccardo Bavaj describes Volksgemeinschaft as a ‘social experiment’. He argues that National Socialism was a ‘political-modernist movement, intent on social-technological renewal’.88 The scope of socio-structural changes implemented by the regime, he concedes, were narrow, largely because of the restrictions associated with arming the nation, preparing for full-blown war and running a wartime economy.
  However, Bavaj also cautions researchers, advising that any analysis of ‘social-statistical datasets’ needs to be complemented by a consideration of the history of experience. And it is precisely here, Bavaj continues, that, with the exception of the final years of the war, there was indeed a deep-seated ‘collective consciousness’ in the Third Reich (...)
• Maar Hitler was toch tegen de nationalisering van de productiemiddelen?
  As shown in Section IV of this book, Hitler did indeed oppose the nationalisation of all means of production, although his views became more radical over time and he no longer ruled out the nationalisation of key sectors of the German economy after the war. An analysis of Hitler’s statements concerning his post-war plans reveals that he intended to introduce changes to the economy that went far beyond what was actually implemented in the Third Reich.
  The class struggle, however, was not to be overcome by eliminating all market mechanisms and abolishing the legal institution of private ownership of the means of production as in communist systems, but rather by increasing social mobility and improving opportunities for workers to move up the ranks. In this respect, it is entirely illegitimate to measure the extent to which the Third Reich fulfilled its social promises by comparing, whether implicitly or explicitly, the transformation of the economy under communist systems as a yardstick.
  In fact, Hitler’s thinking was largely determined by economic considerations, and even with regard to his ignorance of economic theories, this was certainly no more pronounced than was the case for many democratic politicians.
• In andere woorden, Hitler was een socialist, zelfs al liet hij de private sector ongemoeid. Hij probeerde immers de belangen van de arbeiders langs andere weg te verdedigen en hun positie te verbeteren.
  Maar Hitler was toch anti-communistisch? Ja, maar zijn doelen waren niet zo verschillend van die van de communisten. Hij zag het nazisme in feite als een alternatieve revolutionaire beweging voor het communisme. Het waren met andere woorden concurrenten en daarom heeft hij ze bestreden. Tegelijk was hij een bewonderaar van hen.
  The author could have better demonstrated the central role of anti-capitalism in Hitler’s worldview by devoting more detailed attention to Hitler’s economic thought, which unfortunately Simms chooses not to do. In fact, Hitler had developed an inherently consistent system of economic and socio-political thought, as I demonstrate in this book. Simms is right that when he claims that Hitler was not only an ardent admirer of the United States as a modern industrial country but that he was also by no means an advocate of an anti-modern, agrarian utopia, as has so often been claimed in the past. It is also true that Hitler’s strategy of conquering new living space in the east was not driven by ideological preoccupations but by economics. Simms could have provided even stronger evidence for this thesis had he expounded upon Hitler’s ‘shrinking markets’ theory and his criticism of the German economy’s strong dependence on exports in more detail (for more on this, see page 346 of this book).
  Simms is not correct, however, when he claims that anti-communist preoccupations did not play a key role in Hitler’s thinking and that he only attacked the Soviet Union because he saw it as ‘weak’.214 On the contrary: Hitler viewed his National Socialism as an alternative revolutionary movement to the communist movement. In Hitler’s eyes, the communists were his only serious opponents. From Hitler’s point of view, they were ‘fanatics’ – and he used this word as the highest form of praise – who would stop at nothing to achieve their aims. In sharp contrast, he regarded the bourgeoisie as cowardly and weak, and liberal capitalism as a rotten, decadent system that was doomed to fail. Hitler increasingly admired Stalin and no longer believed in his own propagandistic slogans concerning ‘Jewish Bolshevism’.
• Hitler was ook een sociaal-darwinist en sprak voortdurend in termen van de "eeuwige strijd":
  This concept of the ‘eternal fight’44 runs through all of Hitler’s speeches, articles, books and conversations like a red thread. From the end of the nineteenth century, socio-Darwinistic theories became widely accepted in Germany and were absorbed into various political movements and ideologies. That a ‘vulgar-Darwinistically coloured monism’ was part of those elements which ‘also dominated Hitler during his whole political career’45 has been generally accepted in research for a long time. But while it has been recognized that Hitler’s racial, and above all also his foreign policy ideas, were determined by these concepts,46 it has not yet been sufficiently taken into account to what extent Hitler’s social, economic and domestic policy ideas, as well as his position on the various classes of society, were also predominantly moulded by his socio-Darwinistic view of the world and can actually only be understood in this context.
• DIt sociaal darwinisme lag aan basis van het gelijkheid van kansen waar Hitler groot voorstander van was:
  As we will show,47 Hitler was, for example, a vehement proponent of ‘equal opportunity’. One of Hitler’s key social-political objectives was that every member of the German Volksgemeinschaft should have the opportunity to take part in the fight for social advancement – which he defined in terms of social Darwinism – without regard to his former social status, property, education and income. Views such as these when taken by themselves appear to be quite sensible and progressive, but they are derived just as much from Hitler’s fundamental socio-Darwinistic concept as are, for example, his conviction of the necessity of conquering new Lebensraum or the extermination of ‘life unworthy of living’.
• En Hitler was een collectivist: de staat, de natie, het gemeenschappelijk goed ging boven het individu en individuele private eigendom. En dus moesten ook privileges voor bepaalde klassen eraan geloven. Alles gelijk.:
  This axiom of Hitler’s Weltanschauung also runs through all of his pronouncements, and here, too, the conclusions he draws lead to only seemingly paradoxical results: if the nation is everything and the individual nothing, then for Hitler this leads to both the abolition of the certainty of the law for the individual (‘right is what is good for the nation’) and the right of the state to ‘eradicate’ genetically defective offspring, as well as to his demand that the enjoyment of private property be subjugated to the common good and his equalizing tendency to abolish the special rights of individual classes, which Dahrendorf has interpreted as the precondition for the development of the modern democratic society of the Federal Republic of Germany.
• Hitler had dan ook geen medelijden met de Duitse monarchie of met de Duitse convervatieve partijen:
  We can now summarize: at no point of his political activities did Hitler reject the November revolution because it had abolished the monarchy. In this respect he recognized it as the precursor to his own intentions and as a historic step forward.
  In summary we can note that Hitler – as opposed to the other right-wing parties – did not mourn the passing of conditions before the war, the old authoritarian state and its social and political structures, but that in his opinion the November revolution had only given the mortal blow to a rotten situation already ripe for collapse. In his domestic policy he opposed the recreation of such conditions, just as in his foreign policy he rejected the re-establishment of Germany’s frontiers of 1914. Hitler firmly believed that with such a slogan, which only aimed at the recreation of a former condition, no enthusiasm, no revolutionary drive could be generated, and that it would certainly not be possible to compete seriously with Marxism/Communism and its socialist promises for the future.
  Hitler never tired of repeating this argument in his speeches and articles,74 namely that the revolution itself had been legitimate and the actual ‘crime’ had lain in ‘rendering Germany defenceless’. The difference between Hitler’s position regarding the November revolution and the conservative-authoritarian view is also underscored by the fact that he reproaches the November revolution with not having changed enough, not having been radical enough. The November revolution, said Hitler on 24 May 1921, had changed neither the form of government nor the economic structure, nor the moral values.75 The November men, he declared on 12 September 1923, ‘only wanted to effect a change of people, not of the system’.76 Years later Hitler told Wagener that while the revolution had put the reins of fate into the hands of the socialists, ‘these had been neither prepared for this nor had they known what to do with them. The Jews were then quickly to hand. But the great moment had been missed, and all that could still be accomplished was a bourgeois revolution which found its expression in the constitution of Weimar.’77 Hitler promised to implement ‘what so many may possibly have expected on 9 November 1918’
  If we summarize at this point, then the currently held view that the National Socialists had ‘seen themselves as being the greatest counterblow against the French Revolution’, while being correct,151 only describes one side of the relationship to this epoch-making event. Goebbels’ frequently quoted statement that with the seizure of power ‘the year 1789 had been crossed out in history’152 should not be interpreted – at least not as far as Hitler is concerned – as if the National Socialist had regarded their revolution as being merely the antithesis to the French Revolution. Hitler certainly defined his revolution as a negation of the ‘world concept of a liberal epoch’ which had been initiated in 1789, but on the other hand he defined himself as being in the tradition of the age of modernity, technical invention, the destruction of traditional and religious ties and world concepts rung in by the French Revolution. As we shall show in Chapter V.3. he did not even roundly reject the ideas of French Enlightenment, but saw them as also being the beginning of a – in his assessment positive – day of reckoning for superstition, irrationalism and religion. Apart from this quite ambivalent evaluation of the age initiated by the French Revolution, for Hitler the revolution was a positive example to which he referred on various occasions and from which he tried to learn.
• Hitler bleef ook nadat hij aan de macht was gekomen prioriteit geven aan het "sociale vraagstuk" (arbeidersklasse verzoenen met de bourgeoisie). Het is dus onjuist, zoals de vrt fact checkers beweren, dat dit enkel pure propaganda was. Integendeel. Het behoorde essentieel tot Hitler's wereldbeeld:
  Even after the seizure of power Hitler repeatedly stressed the importance of the social issue. On 7 September 1937, for example, he declared in the opening proclamation at the Reichsparteitag : ‘Among the great problems that continue to fill our times, one of those at the top is the social one.’11 In his ‘monologues’ at Führer headquarters he remarked on 1 August 1942 that one could only maintain the given social order ‘if one kept the people very ignorant’.12 In his speech on the eleventh anniversary of the seizure of power Hitler looked back at the year 1933 and listed four major tasks which had been set at the time, and as the first he emphasized the ‘solution of the social question’, because only through this had it been possible to restore the lost internal social peace.13 All these statements confirm that – as Hitler’s state secretary Meissner writes in his memoirs – Hitler paid ‘special attention to the social problems and the reconciliation between the working class and the bourgeoisie’.
  This topic plays a key role in his table talks as well, which clearly shows that Hitler was not raising the demand for an improvement in the opportunities for social advancement so frequently in his speeches only for reasons of propaganda but that he attached outstanding importance to the realization of his objectives in this area. At the end of July 1941, for example, Hitler said, ‘This is the National Socialist teaching: that you make use of the forces, no matter what social level they come from.’78 A note by Koeppen dated 18 September 1941 again clearly shows the purely national character of Hitler’s concept: ‘Within the German nation highest level of national community and possibility of education for everybody, but towards others absolute position of mastery.’
• Het veronachtzamen van de sociale kwestie was net het grootste verwijt dat Hitler had tegenover de bourgeoisie:
  One of Hitler’s most frequently raised accusations against the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois parties was that they rejected the justified claims of the working class, had no social feelings, were greedy for profits and were completely ignoring the importance of the social issue. When the bourgeoisie was compelled to make social concessions, then it defined these as ‘charity’ and not as the natural rights of the working class.103 Social reforms, said Hitler on 30 November 1920, had been given to the people ‘as a present, as a favour, instead of as a natural right’ (...)
  In Mein Kampf Hitler also accused the bourgeoisie of having ‘taken a position uncountable times against even the most generally accepted human demands in a manner that was both most awkward but also immoral’, and thereby themselves having become guilty of politicizing the union movement. The bourgeoisie had driven the workers into the arms of Social Democracy by having rejected every socially justified demand.
  After the seizure of power Hitler still spoke on various occasions about the guilt of the German bourgeoisie for having driven the proletariat into the arms of Marxism by its rejection of all social demands by the workers.121 In his commemorative speech on the fifteenth anniversary of the putsch, he declared that the decisive cause of the division of the classes had been ‘the social failure of our bourgeoisie’.
  This statement shows that Hitler made the bourgeoisie – and not the working class – responsible for the division of the classes. Proletarian class consciousness was for him an understandable reaction to the arrogance and the class conceit of the bourgeoisie, which rejected all justified demands of the workers.
  Hitler, who was himself a convinced believer in the primacy of politics over economics,125 told the bourgeoisie that its whole way of thinking was ‘materialistic’, in other words only concerned with economic interests. ‘It is the undoing of our bourgeoisie’, he declared (...)
• Hilter verwachtte dan ook niks van de traditionele rechtse bourgeois partijen. En nogmaals dat was geen kritiek voor puur propagandistische redenen:
  Whereas Marxism emanated ‘the most brutal confidence in victory’, the bourgeoisie was possessed of an ‘almost slimy cowardice’. It was therefore the duty of the National Socialists to wage ‘first of all a war against the unbelievable cowardice, the weakness which outwardly normally disguised itself by the bashful term of a “nobly bourgeois”, well-mannered, highly decent and “scientifically profound” manner of fighting’.181 The nation, said Hitler on 25 October 1922, was split into two camps, ‘the left-wing radicals and the cowardly mass of the bourgeois majority, who can simply never set its cowardice against the brutal force of the Left’.182 ‘Opposed to the bourgeoisie, as a caste by itself, without any connection to the people and in cowardice and dull indifference, stands the deliberate destroyer who drives us to insanity, and who wants the insanity of destruction’ – in other words international Marxism.183 On 24 April 1923 Hitler said that the right-wing parties were ‘lacking in energy in the extreme’: ‘Unspeakably incapable, lacking in energy, and cowardly in addition are all these bourgeois parties at a moment when the nation would not need blatherers but heroes. There is nothing to be expected from that side.’184
  As we have seen, one of Hitler’s key accusations against the bourgeoisie was that it rejected the justified demands of the worker and took an anti-social position, opposed a reduction of working hours and so forth. Hitler always differentiated between the problems of the working class on the one hand and political Marxism or Communism on the other. He regarded the latter as being ‘Jewish agencies’ who were only ‘instrumentalizing’ the justified claims of the working class, in order to gain the workers for themselves, who, as we shall see,190 embodied strength, courage and energy for Hitler, as opposed to the bourgeoisie. Contrary to the accepted Marxist interpretation, Hitler was not an opponent of Marxism and did not want to destroy it because he was ‘inimical to labour’ but because he was caught up in the insane idea that Marxism was an instrument of the Jews for the achievement of world domination, and above all because he rejected internationalism, ‘pacifism’ and the negation of the ‘personality principle’ by Marxism. Otherwise, however, as we shall see in Chapter VII.3.c, he had quite an ambivalent position towards Marxism, because – quite differently from the bourgeoisie – he admired it in many ways and learned from it.
• Hitler's positie tegenover het marxisme was dus ambivalent: hij was tegen omdat hij ten onrechte dacht dat het een instrument was van de Joden voor "world domination" en omdat het marxisme en internationalistische beweging was. Tegelijk was hij een bewonderaar en wou hij ervan leren.
  Let us summarize here: Hitler accuses the bourgeoisie of weakness, lack of willpower and determination, lack of energy and, above all, cowardice. As the reason for these traits, he gives the material possessions of the bourgeoisie, the fact that this class has something to lose. We have already indicated that out of his fundamentally socio-Darwinistic position Hitler necessarily had to come to the conclusion that the bourgeoisie was incapable of political leadership, and that its historic mission had ended. Was Hitler prepared to draw these conclusions?
• Waarom ging Hitler dan een (tijdelijke) alliantie met de conservatieven aan? Net omdat die zwak stonden en hij aldus hen kon domineren en gebruiken om zijn agenda uit te voeren:
  The question now arises, however, why, despite his hatred of the bourgeoisie, despite his conviction that this outdated class was cowardly, weak and without energy, Hitler entered into temporary alliances with the bourgeois-reactionary forces (as, for example, Hugenberg and Papen). The answer is that Hitler allied himself with these forces not in spite of his insight into their lack of capabilities and weakness, but for that very reason. It was one of Hitler’s fundamental convictions that one should not ally oneself with equal rivals, but with the ones who were weak. However, he was completely aware of the intentions of his bourgeois opponents, or rather allies, and he was only prepared to enter into an alliance in which he – as in the cabinet of 30 January 1933 – had the whip-hand. To conclude from the fact that he allied himself temporarily with bourgeois forces that Hitler had any sympathy for these would be just as erroneous as it would be to draw a similar conclusion from Mao Tse-tung’s temporary alliance with Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. Revolutionaries are always on the look-out for allies on their way to power, preferably weaker ones, and they are always aware of the ‘second thoughts’ and possible intentions of their partners. Hitler had the advantage that he was always underestimated by the bourgeoisie – and, interestingly enough, by the Communists as well – so that today we can agree with Veit Valentin’s statement that Hitler’s story is the story of his underestimation.
  Even after the seizure of power Hitler frequently emphasized the particular importance of those classes who, in contrast to the ‘superficial intellectuality of our politicizing bourgeoisie’, had remained ‘intellectually unspoiled, uncomplicated and therefore closer to nature’.271 Because, in his view, faith was far more lasting and dependable than any ‘alleged’ rational or scientific insight, Hitler valued the working class as an unshakeable bearer of the faith. The German worker, he said on 16 May 1934, would become the mainstay of the national community primarily because he was ‘receptive to this feeling of faith and trust which does not think it necessary to apply the probe of reason to all things, but can blindly commit itself to an idea’.272 Such statements are not to be taken as merely currying favour with the working class, even though, of course, they also had propaganda objectives attached to them, but were actually in line with Hitler’s thinking.
  Let us summarize here. Whereas in his speeches as well as in his table talks Hitler regularly spoke negatively about the bourgeoisie, his remarks to the working class are always very positive. This applies – to underline the point once again – not only to rallies on 1 May or to so-called ‘workers’ speeches’, where one could assume that Hitler only wanted to flatter his audiences, but to the same degree to his table talks. The reason for his taking this position is easy to explain. For Hitler the workers embodied those attributes which he valued so highly and in which the bourgeois, in his opinion, was so completely lacking-courage, determination, energy and the ability to ‘have faith’.291 Hitler would never have advocated ‘equal opportunity’ so vehemently if he had not been convinced of the qualities of the ‘lower classes’, particularly of the working class.
• Hitler loofde Duitsland van voor de oorlog net omdat het op vlak van de sociale kwestie vooruitstrevend was:
  When Hitler spoke positively about ‘Germany before the Great War’, he was primarily praising social policy: ‘With its social legislation Germany was number one’, he said in a speech on 10 December 1919, but added critically that this had been given ‘to the people in the form of charity, so that the people might be content’.309 Germany had been, said Hitler on 25 August 1920, ‘the first country which had begun with social care. That was exemplary.’310 On the other hand, however, he declared that this social legislation had ‘never been totally and consequently implemented and developed’.311 We have already noted an important criticism by Hitler of German social legislation elsewhere: it had remained, said Hitler, ‘without effect’ because it had been implemented in order to remove its propaganda base for Social Democracy, and to prevent a revolution by the proletariat.312 Nevertheless, he noted positively, Germany was ‘the country which was the first to at least even try to implement a social legislation, to go the route of such a legislation, and has, at least in that which was created, gone on as an example to all of the rest of the world’.313 While Germany’s social legislation had been ‘incomplete’ and had shown ‘mistakes and weaknesses’, it had still been better than that of other countries.314
  While the lower middle class played a certain role in Hitler’s thinking as a vehicle for the social advancement of the worker, overall this role was secondary. In his speeches he did chime in – in terms of propaganda, very effectively – with the ‘demagogies’ against the department stores and deplored the ruin of the lower middle class; he did not, however, pay this class anywhere near the attention he paid to the bourgeoisie and the working class.
• Hitler was niet geïnteresseerd in de lage middenklasse noch de landbouwers:
  From the few statements in Mein Kampf and Hitler’s speeches in 1928 we cannot yet deduce that he had fundamentally advocated an ‘agrarian Utopia’. We will have to investigate later whether the planned settlement of farmers in the East can serve as evidence for such a concept, or be assessed as proof of such an ideology. The discussion so far, however, has shown that Hitler took no interest at all in agriculture or the farmers during the early years (1919 to 1924), nor probably in the years after the seizure of power. The same would appear to apply here as for the lower middle classes: like them, the farmers did not play any outstanding role in Hitler’s thinking – in contrast to previous assumptions. The two classes which really did play a big role in Hitler’s programmes were the bourgeoisie on the one hand and the working class on the other.
• Hitler's nationale gemeenschap was precies dat: een gemeenschap waar iedereen op gelijke voet stond behalve dan de Joden en de inferieure rassen. Hitler dacht in termen van ras en volk, niet klasse. De economie werd ondergeschikt gemaakt aan de staat, wat regelrecht in oppositie staat tot het economisch liberalisme. Het nazisme was letterlijk de "primacy of politics". Sheri Berman heeft dus gelijk wanneer hij het nazisme als de bastaard broer van de sociaal-democratie bestempeld:
  Let us summarize. The national community was intended to overcome class division, primarily by giving outstanding consideration to the social requirements of the worker. By means of a permanent process of re-education, existing traditions, class conceits and prejudices were to be reduced. Tied to that there was a process of equalization in all areas of life. With these concepts Hitler was able to tie in into the very popular ‘idea of 1914’, in other words, into the community of the trenches, which was now to be transferred to the whole of political and social life. After what has been discussed at the beginning of Chapter III.2 about ‘equal opportunity’ it should be clear that this concept of the national community also only had an exclusively national validity, was only meant for Germany and not for transfer to other countries. It is also self-evident that Jews, gypsies and other ‘racially inferior’ people were excluded from the national community to begin with.
  The decisive factors in the political process of decision were therefore not to be business interests: the economy had to subordinate itself to politics. This has obviously nothing to do with a ‘contempt’ for business. It is merely a definition of the position and function of business within the total framework of a social and political system. Hitler did not deny the importance of business; he only wanted to break and turn around a functional connection he believed to be harmful. Politics was no longer to be a function of the economy: the economy was to become a function of politics.
  The economy must not be permitted ‘to act arbitrarily only according to private interests and personal ideas or for personal advantage’.63 These concepts are directly opposed to economic liberalism, according to the theories of which the optimal advantage for the community automatically results from the free play of forces. The common good is a result of the representation in the market place of the egoistic singular interests of private entrepreneurs. Hitler did not share this view and believed that only the clearly dominant role of the state or the political leadership, together with the ruthless enforcement of these defined ‘common interests’, made an orderly economic life possible. Based on the logic of a free market and the natural laws of competition, Hitler said, one could in many cases not expect any actions directed toward the common good.
  In all such cases there is obviously a contradiction between the capitalist private and the state-defined general political interests. According to Hitler’s view, the state always has the right and the obligation to enforce the general political against the capitalist private interests. On 30 March 1938 Hitler pointed out that his theory of the ‘primacy of polities’ had been a basic constant of the National Socialist Weltanschauung from the beginning: ‘It was clear from the very first that business by itself could not resurrect Germany. The nation first had to come to order politically and thereby organically. Then business was also able to flourish. But politics is the primary thing.’
  From this Hitler drew the conclusion that political functionaries at all levels should be independent of private business enterprises and must therefore not sit on supervisory boards, own shares etc. Because this view, which is derived from the two basic principles just cited, plays a particularly important role in his economic-political thinking, we will now discuss it in more detail.
  This conversation between Hitler and Wagener shows that it was precisely those plans aimed at state control of the economy that Hitler wanted to keep secret at all costs before the seizure of power. In a later conversation Hitler accused Wagener of underestimating the political power of the business leaders.
• Waarom stond hij dan weigerachtig tegenover een planeconomie? Wegens zijn sociaal darwinistische overtuiging dat competitie belangrijk is, moest die dan ook blijven in de private sector, maar wel onder controle van de Staat (dus geen marktcompetitie maar staatsgeleide competitie (zou een goede definitie van public-private partnership kunnen zijn, het stokpaardje van Klaus Schwab en het WEF):
  Hitler’s reservations against a planned economy are therefore primarily an outcome of his socio-Darwinistic convictions. He feared that the elimination of free competition could remove a mainspring of business life. On the other hand, from his fundamental principle of the ‘primacy of polities’ and his concept of ‘the secondary role of the economy’ he derived the stringent demands of state control of business, because in the final analysis only state control would be able to enforce the state-defined common good against the private interests of the individual.
• Naarmate de oorlog vorderde en gezien zijn wens voor autarkie namen die reservaties overigens snel af (in lijn met de "road to serfdom" hypothese van F.A. Hayek - je begint met een staatsgeleide economie en je eindigt met volledige planning):
  In view of the successes then achieved by the economic policies of the government, Hitler’s reservations against state planning of the economy gradually diminished. In addition, the requirements of rearmament and preparation for war, as well as the attempt to achieve the relative autarky this entailed, required as rational an economic structure as possible. In a speech on the occasion of a harvest festival Hitler looked back on the economic successes achieved since the seizure of power and attributed these to planned economy elements and state measures...
  Hitler’s view of the Soviet economic system apparently also changed from strong scepticism to admiration. As we have shown, we already find the beginnings of a positive view of the planned economy system of the USSR in Hitler’s memorandum on the Four-Year Plan 1936. On the other hand, in a conversation with Goebbels on 14 November 1939 for example, he still expresses himself very critically on the Soviet economic system, which he accuses of being over-centralized and bureaucratic and of stifling private initiative and efficiency.121 Less than three years later, in a table talk on 22 July 1942, Hitler vehemently defends the Soviet economic system and even the so-called ‘Stachanow System’, which it was ‘exceedingly stupid’ to ridicule...
  Until now research has not recognized that Hitler’s economic convictions, most notably his conviction concerning the superiority of a system of a planned over a free economy, were decisively shaped by his impressions of the superiority of the Soviet economic system. Hitler’s admiration for the Soviet system is also confirmed in the notes of Wilhelm Scheidt, who, as adjutant to Hitler’s ‘representative for military history’ Scherff and a member of the Führer Headquarters group, had close contact with Hitler and sometimes even took part in the ‘briefings’.
  Scheidt writes that Hitler underwent a ‘conversion to Bolshevism’. From Hitler’s remarks, he says, the following reactions could be derived: ‘Firstly, Hitler was enough of a materialist to be the first to recognize the enormous armament achievements of the USSR in the context of her strong, generous and all-encompassing economic organization.’ Hitler’s surprise, which also apparently struck Scheidt as well as the other members of the Führer Headquarters group in view of their impressions of the effectiveness of the Soviet economic system is expressed in Scheidt’s subsequent statements: And, indeed, for any eye accustomed to European forms of economy, it was most compelling to see the differences that became apparent when one entered into Soviet territory.
  For Hitler the surprisingly effective Soviet war production also appeared to confirm his thesis of the superiority of the planned over the free economy system. And when ideological premises, economic principles derived from these and the practical successes of an economic policy agree to such a degree, it would be mistaken to assume that after the war Hitler would have returned to the ‘old’ system of free enterprise. The opposite is true. Since the system of a planned economy was in complete agreement with the premises of Hitler’s Weltanschauung, and seemed itself to be extremely effective in practice, after the war Hitler would (as the industrialists quite rightly feared) not have chosen the path of a gradual reduction of state intervention, but would most probably have continued to extend this system consistently – and his statements indicate this.
  Hitler’s speech is very interesting in several respects. First of all we see that he was not fundamentally opposed to nationalization. Hitler did not at all regard an economic system based on private ownership as the only, or necessarily the best, means of running a business, but even ‘warned’ against this ‘doctrine’. Of course, the 100-year existence of the railway was not the really important event for him; he only used this as an excuse to present his criticism of the capitalist system of economy. The timing of the speech is also interesting, namely the turn of the year 1935–36. In the last chapter, in which we discussed Hitler’s position on market versus plan, we came to the conclusion that he had apparently partially modified, or developed, his economic concepts some time around 1935. He expressed his criticism of the system of free enterprise more aggressively, more fundamentally and more clearly than in the preceding years, and increasingly became an adherent of a state-controlled, planned economy. In parallel to this, his position on private ownership and nationalization also apparently underwent a change. The bold and simple declarations that he stood on the grounds of private ownership, so frequently made in previous years, become more rare, while his referrals to the limits to the right of free disposal of property, his threats of a possible nationalization and his considerations within his inner circle with regard to the nationalization of whole branches of industry become more frequent.
• Kortom, had Hitler gewonnen dan was hij ongetwijfeld de weg opgegaan van de SovietUnie en van het derde Rijk een planeconomie gemaakt ("road to serfdom") inclusief verregaande nationaliseringen:
  Let us summarize so far. Hitler was in favour of nationalizing the following enterprises: – the big share companies, – the power industry, – all other branches of industry which produced ‘essential raw materials’, for example the iron industry.
  Let us summarize. Hitler differentiates between (national) working or industrial capital and (international) stock market and loan capital. While industrial capital is dependent on work, the acquisition of raw materials, the possibilities of the market etc., stock market and loan capital is ‘a form of increase of money which is independent of all of the events and incidents of normal life’. The holders of this capital, however, are the Jews, who, as the only ‘international’ race, are the only class of holder possible for this capital. The brilliant fraud committed by Marxism lay in attacking national working or industrial capital and thereby sparing international stock market and loan capital.
• Wat dan met private eigendom?
  In the preceding chapter we have shown that Hitler saw private property as being legitimized by the principle of achievement. Thus far he recognized the concept of private ownership as an expression of the ‘principle of personality’ which he valued highly. Here certain connecting lines to Hitler’s criticism of stock market and loan capital become clear. What is essential for him is that the latter, as opposed to industrial capital, is not dependent on ‘diligence and talent’ but is completely independent of these. Industrial capital is ‘personal’, stock market capital ‘impersonal’.
• Hitler en autarkie:
  For Hitler the attempt to solve the disparity between population and Lebensraum by means of a policy orientated towards export was, in the final analysis, a ‘detour’ which was already extremely problematical and impractical for other reasons, to be discussed below. One of the principal reasons for Hitler’s scepticism of the feasibility of this way was the theory of ‘the shrinking markets’.
  This thesis of the trend towards shrinking markets also did not originate in Hitler’s own thinking but had been widely held in Germany for a long time. It was drawn upon by economic theorists of different schools and by the adherents of opposing political persuasions for the support of their theories. At the turn of the century the well-known political economist Werner Sombart had been the first to formulate the ‘law of the falling export rate’.20 In a presentation given in 1928, the key theses of which were repeated in a popular brochure in 1932 entitled ‘The Future of Capitalism’,21 Sombart had expressed the opinion that ‘the continuing industrialization of the agrarian nations’ would cause industrial export to slow down, because ‘the newly capitalist nations would no longer satisfy their needs for industrial products from the old capitalist nations to the same degree as before’.22 Ferdinand Fried (pseudonym of Friedrich Zimmermann), one of the main proponents of the autarky concept, had already begun to advocate the thesis of ‘shrinking markets’ in 1929 in the well-known conservative-revolutionary periodical Die Tat. According to Otto Strasser, his book ‘The End of Capitalism’, in which these articles had been compiled, had had a greater influence on the economic concepts of the NSDAP than any other. Hitler himself had also read it.23 Fried claimed that it was ‘naive optimism’ to believe one could ‘continue the increase of import and export indefinitely’.
  Marxist theorists such as Rosa Luxemburg and Nikolai Bucharin also argued that because of the shrinking of free markets – caused among other things by the industrialization of former agrarian countries – the problems of exports would increase and the inevitable outcome would be imperialistic wars for the safeguarding of these markets.25 These theories did not lack a foundation in reality. After the war, not only had protectionism increased, but industrialization abroad had led to heavy competition in markets which had been served by European exports before the war. Furthermore, since the world economic crisis, internationally falling prices had led to the reduction of their foreign trade quotas in most countries, in other words, to a reduction of the share of foreign trade in national income. ‘This development’, Eckart Teichert states in his study ‘Autarky and Large Area Economy in Germany 1930–1939’, ‘confirmed, and not only in Germany, the pessimistic assessment of the beneficial function of the global division of labour’. In 1925, in Britain, the Balfour Committee had argued against a further industrialization of the colonial countries under direct referral to Sombart’s ‘law of the shrinking export rate’. Even Keynes used this ‘line of argument so fervently taken up’26 in Germany for his prognosis about the development of the terms of trade in the industrial countries.
  What is important for our discussion is that the theory of the ‘shrinking markets’ played a key role in Hitler’s economic thinking and was emphatically advocated by him in his ‘Second Book’ as well as in numerous speeches and articles between 1927 and 1937.
  If we do not understand the importance this thesis had for Hitler’s economic thinking, we can understand neither his autarky concept nor his Lebensraum concept in their contexts.
• Hitler was dus sterk beïnvloed door de thesis van "shrinking market" die zowel ter rechterzijde als ter linkerzijde (Rosa Luxembourg, Nikolai Bucharin, JM. Keynes) werd aangehangen. Dit was de basis van zijn opvattingen inzake van autarkie en Lebensraum. Dus de wens voor "lebensraum" was deels ingegeven door een marxistische analyse van het einde van het kapitalisme:
  Let us summarize what we have discussed so far. The second major argument which Hitler sets against the strategy of ‘the economically peaceful conquest of the world’ was a purely economic one. The looming industrialization of previously underdeveloped agrarian countries caused by the capital export of the industrialized countries was leading to an ever-increasing reduction of the markets, i.e. the possibilities of selling. In the long term, therefore, the disparity between Lebensraum and population could not be solved by a one-sided, export-orientated economic strategy but only by the conquest of new Lebensraum.
  Let us summarize Hitler’s line of argument up to this point. Over-industrialization led to the neglect of agriculture and the balance between the two sectors of the economy was increasingly disturbed and finally resulted in the destruction of the farmers. Hitler’s conclusion was that one should turn away from a policy of economic expansion and conquer new Lebensraum in order also to restore the disturbed balance between agriculture and industry. Was this demand the expression of an ‘anti-modernistic’ persuasion or did it imply a concept of ‘reagrarianization’? Did Hitler’s argument pretend to claim that one should turn the whole process of industrialization around and again become a purely agrarian state? Obviously not. Hitler was only establishing the disproportionality between agriculture and industry, and in the conquest of Lebensraum he saw a way of re-establishing the disturbed balance. In the final analysis, for Hitler the Lebensraum to be conquered in Russia was no more than what the colonies were for Britain, France and other industrial countries, i.e. an agrarian attachment, a source of raw materials and a market. None of this, of course, had anything to do with a basic rejection of industry and ‘anti-modernism’. 
  One of the lines of reasoning – even if not the most important – against the strategy of economic expansion which, in the end, also led Hitler to the demand for new Lebensraum is as follows. This strategy leads to an ever-increasing disproportionality between agriculture and industry, which in the end must lead to the destruction of domestic agriculture. This is accompanied by migration from the land and a disproportionate growth of a few industrial centres. To conclude from this argument that Hitler had intended to break up the big cities and resettle their inhabitants in the country (in the Lebensraum to be conquered in the East) is not permissible. As we have shown, Hitler did not fundamentally reject big cities at all, but only certain of the manifestations of life in big cities which he defined negatively.
  If the line of reasoning we have portrayed is in itself already not proof enough of a fundamental anti-modernistic position allegedly held by Hitler, the untenability of such a claim is additionally underlined by the fact that this line of reasoning represents only one of Hitler’s arguments, and the one he presented with the least degree of frequency! Far more important for his criticism of economic expansion are the two theories discussed initially, which he presented much more frequently as an argument against this strategy, namely (1) As the Great War had shown, the ‘economically peaceful conquest of the world was impossible, because competition in trade also had to finally lead to war – especially with Britain. (2) This strategy was very limited, primarily because – due to the industrialization of the formerly underdeveloped countries – there was a trend towards shrinking markets. But if Hitler rejected an economic policy that was orientated one-sidedly towards export, then the consequence can only be that he was envisaging an autarkic economic area in which the disturbed balance between industry and agriculture could be restored and self-sufficiency in terms of raw materials become possible.
  We must note, however, that even the demand for new Lebensraum for the safeguarding of a blockade-proof economy was not a completely new idea. This concept had already been projected in the plans of the Army Supreme Command (Ludendorff) at the end of the First World War. Hitler took over these concepts as well as some of the theories of the political scientists and combined them into a new system within the framework of his Weltanschauung. The difference from the autarky concepts of ‘conservative-revolutionary’ contemporaries such as Fried lay in the fact that Hitler did not advocate a concept of reagrarianization in the sense of a reduction of the industrial sector. On the contrary, the newly conquered Lebensraum would not only serve to abolish the disproportionality between agriculture and industry, it was primarily to be a source of raw materials and a market, and thereby a means for the increase of industrial production.
• Het doel van Lebensraum was dus om de industriële productie verder te doen stijgen om tegemoet te komen aan de toegenomen behoeften van de bevolking. Hitler had dus de welvaart van de bevolking op het oog, niet de belangen van het "grootkapitaal":
  Man’s tendency towards a constant increase of his needs, which has always existed, was being substantially heightened today because, due to the development of the international communications network, the example of others, particularly that of the USA, was increasing the demands of other industrial nations and reinforcing the clamour of the masses for a constant increase of the standard of living. Hitler himself was, as we shall see, an admirer of the technical and industrial capabilities of the United States and the high standard of living these permitted.
  Hitler’s theory that the constant increase in the standard of living was a necessary law of modern industrial society disproves the view that he had only made use of industrial society under duress because he needed it for the war and that his ultimate objective had been the realization of an anti-modernistic agrarian Utopia.169 Such an intention would have been irreconcilable with Hitler’s concepts – in Hitler’s own words, the expression of ‘a cult of primitiveness’, an ideology of ‘lack of demands’ or the expression of the ‘Bolshevist ideal of the gradual regression of the demands of civilization’. It should be noted here that Hitler regarded the constant rise of the standard of living as ‘an objective’ law and also, as his statements clearly show, that he welcomed it – not because he saw the increase of material well-being as the possibility of increasing individual happiness but because he regarded the constant increase of needs as a sort of ‘barb’ which preserved people from passivity and thereby finally followed the law of the ‘eternal battle’ which he defined in socio-Darwinistic terms. Hitler’s objective – and this will be stressed again at the end of this chapter – was not, as Turner claims, the return to a ‘mystically and eclectically prepared past’ and a ‘flight from the modern world’.170 Quite the opposite. His example was the highly technical industrial society of the United States, of which he was contemptuous because it lacked culture, and whose capitalist economic system he criticized but whose industrial power he nonetheless admired.
• Hitler was ook zeer enthousiast over technologie en technologische vooruitgang (scientific socialism?). Hij was bijzonder progressief op dat vlak:
  While such decrees, and the statements cited above, demonstrate that Hitler was aware of the importance of technology and technicians for modern warfare, we must also note that, quite independently of military considerations, he was generally fascinated by the promise technology held for the future. He clung to his autobahn project even though the military experts were unanimously sceptical of its military value.199 When he declared on 18 July 1942 in his table talks how much ‘the autobahns had become dear to his heart’,200 he was not referring, as Ludwig has rightly pointed out, ‘to the attack possibilities of an aggressive war policy, but to a belated manifestation of the technical design interests of his own youth’.201 His enthusiasm for the possibilities of technology surfaced during his election campaign trips in 1932.
  Hitler was the first speaker at elections who travelled by aeroplane, a fact that was extensively exploited by NS propaganda. Even in his evening table talks during the war he categorically maintained that, as compared to the ship, the future certainly belonged to the aircraft,202 and on 13 June 1943 he prophesied during one of his evening monologues at Führer headquarters that ‘Today technology is still facing an enormous development.
  Such statements in particular demonstrate the fundamental difference between Hitler’s modernistic Weltanschauung and the anti-modernism of many representatives of that prevailing trend of the times called ‘conservative revolution’. Quite in opposition to Hitler, many supporters of this school of thought believed that in the twentieth century the classic age of epoch-making inventions had passed and that mankind could now basically only continue to exploit the technical solutions already known.204 The global economic crisis appeared to be a manifestation of the fact that the development of industrial technology was, in principle, over, and over-production and mass unemployment were seen as being clear indicators of this by the representatives of this school of thought.205 While Hitler also succeeded in exploiting this trend for his purposes, and in ‘instrumentalizing’ such anti-modernistic motives for his battle against ‘the system’, he did so without really identifying himself with their teachings. This led to massive disappointment among the members of this school of thought. Werner Sombart may serve as an example: in 1934 he noted sceptically that, among the National Socialists, ‘quite a lot have still not recognized the demonic power of technology and believe in it and its marvels and therefore in eternal progress’.206 And Hitler was in fact not alone in his enthusiasm for technology. Leading National Socialists like Fritz Todt, Robert Ley, Joseph Goebbels and Albert Speer vehemently opposed any tendencies which were anti-modernistic and hostile towards technology and shared with Hitler the belief in the possibilities of technical progress.207 In view of this dominating positive assessment of modern technology in the Third Reich, it is small wonder that Sombart’s criticism was immediately rejected in a review in the Völkische Beobachter. ‘ ‘ National Socialism’s opinion on technology does not agree in the slightest with that of Sombart ... For us modern technology is the offspring of the Nordic spirit. It expresses the power of our humanity.’208 Nonnenbruch, the economics editor of the Völkische Beobachter, was able to state in 1939 that ‘The opposition against technology has broken down so thoroughly that there is nothing left for those who still continue to engage in it but to break down themselves.’
  If we systematize Hitler’s criticism of the consequences of industrial development, we can distinguish two principal arguments: (1) The social consequences of industrialization (the development of an industrial proletariat which was not integrated into society). For this Hitler did not blame industrialization itself, but the bourgeoisie with its greed for profit.212 (2) The negative ecological consequences of industrialization, i.e. the destruction of the environment.
  Even though Hitler was an outspoken proponent of modern industrial society and technology, he criticized the negative effects of industrialization and the far-reaching interventions by man into nature. Chemical cultivation of the soil and its consequences for health and the ecology; scarcity of resources and dangerous interventions by man into nature; water, wind and the tides as future sources of energy in view of the limited reserves of other energy sources; cultivation of the soil according to the laws of nature; warnings about the ecological consequences (changes in the climate) of the draining of swamps or the clearing of forests; noise pollution as a result of the increase of air traffic; noise and fume pollution as well as overcrowding of the cities as a result of increasing automobile traffic – for Hitler, however, none of these was a reason to reject modern industrial society in general, and, in his optimistic view of the future, he believed he could find solutions to the problems that would arise.
• Hitler was dus voor industrialisering maar
  (1) weet de negatieve sociale gevolgen van industrialisering aan de "bourgeoisie" en hun drang naar winst;
  (2) dacht dat de negatieve milieugevolgen opgelost konden worden door de technologische vooruitgang.
  Hitler was dus een zeer sterke aanhanger inderdaad van Engels "scientific socialism" heeft genoemd. Maar wat dan met zijn opvattingen over ras? Die waren toch onwetenschappelijk?
  We might now interject that Hitler’s racial ideology had nothing to do with science. This is certainly true, but what is important in this context is that from the very beginning Hitler attempted to explain even his hatred of the Jews ‘rationally’ and ‘scientifically’. In his very first discussion of the ‘Jewish question’, namely in a letter written on 16 September 1919, Hitler complains that up till then anti-Semitism had ‘only had the character of a mere emotion’. This was wrong, however, because ‘anti-Semitism as a political movement must not, and cannot, be determined by moments of emotion, but by the discovery of facts’.253 In his study on ‘Hitler’s Weltanschauung’ Jäckel has convincingly demonstrated that, even on the basis of his racial theory, his hatred of the Jews and his concept of the necessity of conquering new Lebensraum, Hitler had still developed a stringent, logical and conclusive Weltanschauung. Even where for us the irrationality of National Socialism becomes most obvious, namely in its racial ideology, Hitler was convinced that he stood on the foundations of proven biological and historical discoveries.
  In his thinking, Hitler was far more rational than has previously been assumed, and, as paradoxical as this may sound, he was also firmly convinced of his rationality where he was irrational. As an adherent of a ‘cult of reason’ and a decidedly ‘scientific theory’ – at least as far as its claim was concerned – as well as in his opposition not only to religion but to any form of ‘superstition’, ‘mysticism’ and irrationality, Hitler was an offspring of the nineteenth century, even though he refused to admit this. From Hitler’s point of view National Socialism was not primarily a counter-movement against rationalism and secularization but rather its most perfect form of expression. What made Hitler different is that for himself he believed in the power of reason, in logical rational deduction, but not for the masses, who – as he had already written in Mein Kampf – were guided less by reason than by emotion. But the cold exploitation of this fact, the propaganda and strategy of political rallies, which deliberately took the irrationality of man into account, show that here Hitler himself was again rational. If we attach rationalism and secularization to the term ‘modernism’, in his thinking Hitler was then certainly modern, notably in his own self-definition.
  The conclusion from the fifth section of our study is clear: Hitler’s objectives did not have an ‘anti-modernistic’ character as research has previously claimed. This assumption was based on a number of misunderstandings, mainly on the misinterpretation of the functions of the Lebensraum to be conquered in the East. Hitler, however, intended neither ‘reagrarianization’ nor opting out of modern industrial society. He defined himself as a deliberate executor of that process of modernization which is characterized by industrialization, technicalization and rationalization. We have already shown, in Chapter III.2, that Hitler also deliberately intended the social implications of this process, i.e. primarily an increase in social mobility.
• Nog een paar puntjes blijven over. Ten eerste Hitler en democratie:
  Hitler rejected not only the principle of majority decision but also pluralistic democracy, in which lobbies and parties advocate their sundry interests. The arguments with which he criticized pluralism were neither clearly ‘right wing’ nor ‘left wing’, simply because criticism of pluralism by the Right and by the Left had many points in common. Whereas the conservative criticism of pluralism focused on the term ‘common good’, which is defined by the state, Marxist criticism was based on the claim that the alleged pluralism of the democratic system was only a camouflage for the actual dominance of the interests of capital. And it was exactly this opinion Hitler shared when he criticized democracy as a form of rule by capital.
• Hitler was dus zeker geen democraat maar dat was met name omdat hij vond dat de democratie een camouflage was van de dominantie van de belangen van het kapitaal. Een marxistische kritiek op de democratie dus en geen conservatieve. Ten tweede: wat met individuele vrijheid?
  Hitler did not define the freedom of the individual as a value in itself but believed instead that the precondition for human progress was the restriction of personal freedom. The freedom and tolerance granted in the democratic state was not a positive value for him, not a strength of this system, but a clear sign of weakness and decadence. His conviction of the necessity of revolutionary substitution of democracy by an authoritarian form of government was derived from his socio-Darwinistic Weltanschauung. Democracy had proved its weakness, especially by its tolerance, by the freedom it granted to its political opponents. Since nature did not accept the weak and the cowardly, but only the strong, the uncompromising, the replacement of democracy by another form of government was inevitable. How did Hitler envisage this other form of government? What were the principles upon which it should be based? And, if he did not accept the decision of the majority, the ‘principle of majority’ he ridiculed, on what foundation should the system he aspired to be based?
• Zijn visie was dus aan negatieve. Hitler was hoe dan ook geen liberaal in die zin. Ten derde, zijn visie op het marxisme:
  Of course, it also applies to the same degree to any radical movement, and to the KPD to an even higher degree than to the NSDAP, because during the days of the Weimar Republic it was far more heavily persecuted by the state. Hitler recognized this and, as we have seen, was of the opinion that in parties such as the USPD, or in organizations such as the Rotfront, the ‘best human material’ was also being collected. This did not apply to the bourgeois parties, however, who were only defending the status quo and therefore only attracted the cowardly people. This explains why Hitler only took Marxism seriously as an opponent and not the parties of the bourgeoisie. There is a second conclusion to be drawn from Hitler’s theory. If an emphatically radical movement attracts all those people who have nothing to lose, then this will include many dead-beats who have failed in normal everyday life and who, while perhaps being useful for certain purposes – as SA fighters, for example – will hardly be the élite with which one can build up the new state.
• Hij verwierp het marxisme maar dan omdat het zijn  racisme niet deelde maar net het tegenovergestelde beoogde. Tegelijk nam hij het marxisme serieus als opponent in tegenstelling tot de bourgeois partijen. Dus samenvattend:
  he point of departure is the socio-Darwinistic concept according to which, in nature, the brave and courageous wins and the weak and cowardly is destroyed. From this Hitler derived a basic emphasis on heroic values, a hero-worship that was of decisive importance for his Weltanschauung. From this, the view that only courageous men were called upon to be political leaders follows automatically. And since courage could no longer be proved by entry into the party alone as during the movement phase, and instead opportunists were often more likely to come into the party, artificial ‘tests of courage’ had to be introduced in the élite schools – Adolf Hitler schools, National Political Education Institutions and the Ordensburgen of the NSDAP – in order to separate the cowards from the courageous. But, above all – and this is a further logical conclusion – the opportunities for advancement for the worker had to be improved because he, as opposed to the bourgeois, distinguished himself by determination, courage, the willingness to take decisions and energy.
  As logical as this concept may have been, Hitler was aware that it alone was not sufficient to solve the problem. The ‘power chaos’ so typical for the Third Reich, in other words the battle of competition resulting from the overlapping competences and responsibilities of various institutions, has often been interpreted as one of Hitler’s deliberately employed methods of making the ‘selection of the stronger’, in the sense of his socio-Darwinistic philosophy, possible in the system phase.102 The importance of these ‘polycratic’ elements within the NS system is being discussed just as controversially103 as the reasons for this phenomenon are being interpreted.
  On 3/4 January 1942 Hitler recalled: ‘Our old National Socialists, that was really something wonderful, in those days all you could do in the party was lose everything, not gain anything.’119 On 16/17 January 1942 he declared: ’... I always judge people according to how they behaved during the time of struggle.’120 The reason why Hitler was tied to his old party leaders in such a way can now be understood. He also knew, however, that while many of his old party comrades were ‘brave’ and ‘courageous’, they did not possess the necessary professional knowledge to be able to administer the state or manage a business. In many sectors he therefore leaned on the old civil service structure which, while it had been ‘brought into line’ was, of course, not yet National Socialist. As Mommsen has pointed out, with the exception of the replacements of the top positions of the administration, the military and the associations which had been brought into line, the regime avoided any systematic interference in the position of the traditional élite. A decisive change was only brought about by 20 July 1944:121 the assassination attempt on that date revived the latent resentments against the members of the traditional élite, not only in the National Socialist leadership but also among the mass of the adherents of the NSDAP.
  Hitler had developed a logical concept of how to recruit an élite in the movement phase, which was not transferable to the system phase. While he attempted to modify and adapt this concept to the changed conditions after the seizure of power, he did not succeed in creating a National Socialist élite which could have replaced the traditional élite. Therefore he had to lean extensively on the bourgeois forces who followed him out of opportunism but not from a true National Socialist spirit.
  These plans, the senate as well as Hitler’s other constitutional concepts, were not realized during his lifetime. We have already mentioned the reasons at the beginning of this chapter. For Hitler, far more important than any formal constitution was the development of an élite which could carry the new state, replace the old élite and oversee the re-education of the people. He also wanted to postpone the creation of a fixed form for as long as possible and instead have this develop organically in the course of the revolutionary process. In addition to these motives, there may also have been a further element. During his lifetime Hitler did not want to have his power curtailed under any circumstances by any sort of institutional restrictions. He moreover did not consider any of his associates capable of really becoming his successor. In less than two months after he had publicly appointed Göring as his successor, he said in a speech before the commanders-in-chief of the Wehrmacht ‘Neither a military nor a civilian personality could replace me ... I am convinced of the power of my brain and of my determination ... The fate of the Reich depends on me alone.’
• Dit alles moest dus leiden tot de creatie van een nieuwe nationaal-socialistische elite die de kapitalistische elite zou vervangen (al werd daar in een eerste fase mee samengewerkt). In dat laatste opzet is Hitler niet geslaagd, maar het bleef wel zijn bedoeling. Alles diende dus gecentraliseerd te worden in die elite:
  Hitler addressed himself in detail to the question of federalism or unitarianism which is so important for any constitution. In view of the development of modern technology, particularly transport, he believed that a trend towards centralization was unavoidable. While the abolition of the independence of the states was initially a power-political necessity because he feared his opponents could copy the concept he advocated, i.e. the tactical exploitation of the contradictions between the Reich and individual states (particularly Bavaria) for the destabilization of the system, Hitler also saw himself as the executor of a historic trend towards centralization. On the other hand, he warned of the consequences of over-centralization which would lead to over-regimentation by the authorities in Berlin, and therefore to the stifling of responsibility and initiative on the lower levels.
• Hitler en democratie nog eens:
  At the end of this chapter we are able to state that Jäckel’s claim that the fact no new constitution had been introduced in the Third Reich was an indication that Hitler had been disinterested in questions of domestic and constitutional policy can no longer be upheld. Hitler, who rejected ‘too timely’ an enactment of a constitution because he feared artificially and arbitrarily cutting off an organic development within the process of the revolution at a certain stage of development, still addressed himself in detail to many questions of domestic and constitutional policy, including the question of succession. Chapter VI has shown that, in the field of domestic policy, Hitler did indeed have conclusive concepts and objectives as well. A democrat will certainly reject these most emphatically. But this does not alter the fact that they are conclusive. Hitler’s criticism of the ‘majority principle’ and pluralistic democracy, his thesis of democracy as a form of rule by capital, his advocacy of a strict separation of politics and business and the creation of the primacy of politics, his contrasting of ‘the common good’ to ‘the politics of interests’, his theory of the ‘historic minority’ and his concepts of the Führer state all fit together logically and are in close context to his social and economic views as well as his socio-Darwinistic philosophy. Our investigation has shown that ‘thinking your way in’ into the world of Hitler’s concepts permits us to understand many contexts and modes of conduct (for example, his ‘reluctance to take decisions’) which would otherwise appear to be inexplicable.
• Was Hitler links of rechts? Geen van beide. Hij zocht een synthese tussen de twee: nationaal-socialisme, als alternatief voor het marxisme, en vertrekkende vanuit het "sociale vraagsteuk" en vanuit het perspectief van het bouwen van een sterke natie:
  Hitler defined himself as being neither left nor right, and was striving for a synthesis, an overcoming of both extremes.32 In order to come closer to Hitler’s political self-definition, it appears to us important to try to trace Hitler’s attempted synthesis of nationalism and socialism, because that, and nothing else, was what National Socialism wanted to be.
  Hitler’s claim to be forming a synthesis between nationalism and socialism was primarily based on a social reason. Hitler believed that neither of the two embattled classes – bourgeoisie and proletariat – was strong enough to defeat the other, i.e. that there was a certain state of balance between the two classes. This fact would finally lead to the downfall of the whole nation. But if neither class were strong enough to overcome the other, then a class war on this basis was no longer sensible: the contradiction had to be resolved on a higher level, a new idea, a new force had to appear, which could form the common platform for both embattled parties.
  Hitler’s relationship to Marxism was determined by a strange ambivalence. On the one hand he admired it, regarded the Marxist movement as an example and tried to learn from it. On the other hand he rejected Marxist ideology because it denied the principle of ‘eternal battle’ as well as the principles of race and personality. His criticism of Marxism – and we should emphasize this once again here – was not directed exclusively against any specific points in the teachings of Karl Marx and was different in many respects from bourgeois anti-Marxism. Nolte has defined Fascism as an ‘anti-Marxism which attempts to destroy by the development of a radically opposed but still related ideology and the application of almost identical but still characteristically reshaped methods, but always within the impenetrable framework of national self-assertion and autonomy’.86 This definition does indeed come very close to the essence of National Socialism. However, National Socialism should not be primarily interpreted as anti-Marxism. It was rather an alternative, competing revolutionary movement which did not have the destruction of Marxism as its main objective but which had to destroy it, not despite, but because of its proximity to it.
• Hitler moest het marxisme dus vernietigen niet omdat het nazisme er ver van verwijderd was maar omdat ze net kort bij mekaar stonden en dus concurrenten voor de macht waren. Het nazisme is (in mijn ogen) de een vorm van marxisme waarbij de primauteit bij de politiek ligt en niet de economie. Ten slotte nog iets over Hitler's antisemitisme: Hitler was absoluut en jodenhater, maar de vraag stelt zich of hij dit ook niet handig kon gebruiken om zijn opponent nl. het marxisme uit te schakelen?
  Hitler was – and this is incontestable – most certainly a fanatical Jew-hater, but he also used anti-Semitism for purely tactical or propaganda reasons. Hitler himself no longer believed in the thesis of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’ that German propaganda kept repeating as a stereotype, but this did not prevent him from continuing to use this abstruse claim for reasons of propaganda. A basic question to raise would be how far, and until when, Hitler believed in the thesis of Marxism as the instrument of Jewry, and how far he only used it because it fitted in with the principles of propaganda he developed in Mein Kampf: Moreover, the art of all truly great leaders of the people through all the ages primarily consisted in not only being able to fragment the attention of a nation, but always to be able to concentrate it against only one opponent.