Well a half-hearted democratic Rightist, so again Ray misses the point. His appointment was legal and democratic but at the same time arguably the biggest mistake made in the Weimar Republic. Prior to "the legal chancellor marching irresistibly into the legal dictator" Hitler did promise he would "destroy democracy with the weapons of democracy". In Mein Kampf he actually labelled social democracy as being a "pestilential whore" as you have already seen. Yes he did use left wing methods in order to deliever the masses to the right, but that is part and parcel of his appeal to the widest spectrum possible.
Only one paragraph here is worthy of note:
The fact that Hitler appealed to the German voter as basically a rather extreme social democrat is also shown by the fact that the German Social Democrats (orthodox democratic Leftists who controlled the unions as well as a large Reichstag deputation) at all times refused appeals from the German Communist party for co-operation against the Nazis. They evidently felt more affinity with Hitler than with the Communists. Hitler's eventual setting up of a one-party State and his adoption of a "four year plan", however, showed who had most affinity with the Communists. Hitler was more extreme than the Social Democrats foresaw.
The Four year plan only stepped in where the existing companies would not. It was concerned with re-armament and there have been other capitalist countries that have used the same method to build up selected sectors, South Korea being probably the most prominent. Nazi planning had nothing to with bettering the overall state of the people as the, at least professed goals were in the USSR [though in reality the USSR plans were really related to the overseeing of the economy], but just to build up the military. Just because there is an outward superficial appearance does not mean there is any real similarity. Again property and profits remained private in Nazi Germany. The Four Year Plan was just a Right Wing Military building program that did a lot to enrich the large private corporations along the way.
(Another thing as well, I've been told in private the whitlam era in Australia is seen as one of great social change, secondly Ray's link with nationalism is bullshit and the historical record does not reflect the "evidence" he presented. Whitlam presided over a government which introduced free uni, universal healthcare etc and was dismissed by the "governor general" at the request of the unelected opposition who set up the method for dismissal by using the constitutional rules to their advantage and breaking with tradition. [Tip o' the hat to my friend Franks])
Hitler's Post-election Manoeuvres.
Apparantly Hitler's consolidating of his power can be compared to "The post-war Liberal Democratic (conservative) government of Japan" and "Mintoff and Mifsud-Bonnici" on the left So really what is admitted here is that consolidation of power via some not so democratic means, can be found on both the left and the right, so this is meaningless.
Hitler's Socialist Deeds.
When in power Hitler also implemented a quite socialist programme. Like F.D. Roosevelt, he provided employment by a much expanded programme of public works (including roadworks) and his Kraft durch Freude ("power through joy") movement was notable for such benefits as providing workers with subsidized holidays at a standard that only the rich could formerly afford.
The truth of the matter is not as clear cut as that:
"Many of the policies, including 'work creation' projects, control of forigen exchange, government intervention in banking and agricultural protection, were the products of the Weimar period and were not uniquely Nazi policies at all. The German economy had always enjoyed a higher degree of state involvement than the more liberal western economies." - Richard Overy, "The Nazi economic recovery, 1932-1938", p10.
So all Hitler did was implement policies of the Weimar republic out of political expediency, Programmes like the "strength through joy" were little more than a propaganda carrot in effect, Nothing more. And as Richard Evans will tell you, in reality Nazi ideology opposed the welfare state and in fact cut back on it. And as to Poland, what Ray wont tell you is that after the second World War, Communist Poland nationalized all enterprises with over 50 employees without compensation. These are the rules, not the exceptions and to suggest that this was the case in Nazi germany too is to be very superficial indeed. And Mises, well all he does is comment on the Dirigisme capitalism the Nazis had and calls it "socialism", unfortunately for him as i've already demonstrated Japan also practices dirigisme economics, in fact as do alot of the "Tiger economies" in the east like Singapore, So sorry there is still no socialism in Nazi Germany regardless of what his poor, biased hack sources says.
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