Despite Hitler’s backpedaling from social democracy, he confided in 1942 that “The only problem for the Social Democrats at the time was that they did not have a leader.”
They have a leader now.
By L.K. Samuels
Sen. Bernie Sanders is always happy to explain to the public his social democracy ideology, or what he often labels democratic socialism. Despite his enthusiasm, he has never revealed the more infamous past admirers of his brand of authoritarian socialism. Sanders and other Social Democrats always fail to identify one of their most prominent political colleagues— Adolf Hitler. In 1919 the future Führer considered himself a big fan of “national Social Democracy,” and told others that he planned to join the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP).
So what caused Hitler to embrace social democracy? After his arrest as a leader of the short-lived Communist-run Bavarian Soviet Republic, Hitler felt pressured to plead innocent to charges of being a radical leftwing communist. During his interrogation by Weimar Republic officials, Hitler confessed that he was moderate leftist, a “Social Democrat,” not a diehard communist.
Most of this evidence comes from the German historians Thomas Weber and Konrad Heiden. According to Heiden, a journalist based in Munich during the 1920s, Hitler “espoused the cause of Social Democracy against that of the Communists.” Since Hitler did not flee or resign his position with the communist Räterepublik, he likely found it necessary to change his tune after fierce street battles that led to over 600 casualties and the capture of Munich by Weimar Republic and Freikorps troops. In fact, within days after the communist republic was overthrown, Hitler decided to turn “informant” against his former comrades to avoid the possibility of being imprisoned or shot.
Later, as a correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung, Heiden wrote that “Hitler had supported the SPD” (Social Democratic Party of Germany) and he “talked about joining the party.” At an early meeting of a political group that eventually turned into the Nazi Party, Hitler told Friedrich Krohn, an early supporter of the party, that he preferred a type of “socialism” he referred to as “national Social Democracy” like that in nations such as Scandinavia, England, and prewar Bavaria. One wonders if Stalin had it right all along when he condemned the Social Democrats and the National Socialists as “twins” birthed by the same socialist mother. By the early 1930s, both Stalin and the Communist International were describing Social Democratic parties as “social fascists.”
In 1921 when Hitler felt compelled to defend an early Nazi supporter, Hermann Esser, from internal Nazi party attacks, he stated, “Everyone was at one time a Social Democrat.” Several news stories detailed Hitler’s endorsement of social democracy. One newspaper, the liberal daily Berliner Tageblatt, wrote in Oct. 29, 1930, that Hitler had identified himself “as a supporter of Social Democracy.”
However, Hitler’s favorable backing of the Social Democrats was short lived. His sudden feelings of animosity was not over socioeconomic theories or a dislike of socialism, but because the SPD was directly responsible for a punitive peace treaty that made Germans realize that they had actually lost World War I. Most Germans were traumatized by this turn of events. During this juncture, Hitler experienced his own road-to-Damascus conversion through the realization of Germany’s total defeat when the newly formed SPD-led government signed and ratified the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. Hitler saw the SPD as traitors to Germany’s national interests and ethnic identity. This signified his political transformation towards a militant racial radicalization and away from the social democracy. Despite Hitler’s backpedaling from social democracy, he confided in 1942 that “The only problem for the Social Democrats at the time was that they did not have a leader.”…
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