Thread by @torstenkathke

Yes, do read the Nazi 25 point program.

The @GHIWashington has both the German original (germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.c…) and an English translation (germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.c…).

https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1209182055860494342

I've discussed the whole thing at length before. Here's that thread:

https://twitter.com/torstenkathke/status/1026088868037226497?s=20

If you don't want to read the thread, the gist is attached as images here.

Note, to begin, that this program is from 1920.

It was cribbed in part from the programs of other parties, and its seemingly socialist policies were largely abandoned after the Nazis rose to power.

Here's more on the program from the @HolocaustMuseum: encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/art…

Now, if you read the program, you will find that for the four things @DineshDSouza mentions – banks, education, churches, industry – one can make the argument that "state control" is the goal only for the topics of education and, to a degree, industry.

On education, the program says:

"The State must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education (with the aim of opening up to every able and hard-working German the possibility of higher education and of thus obtaining advancement). The curricula…

…of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life. The aim of the school must be to give the pupil, beginning with the first sign of intelligence, a grasp of the notion of the State (through the study of civic affairs)."

On industry: "We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts)."

Also:

"We demand… the immediate communalizing of big department stores, and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders, and that the utmost consideration shall be shown to all small traders in the placing of State and municipal orders."

Nationalize trusts, lease out communalized department stores to small traders.

Why department stores? Many successful department stores had Jewish owners.

Communalizing them and handing them over to "small traders" would ensure these stores were in the hands of Volks Germans.

On banks… well, banks aren't actually mentioned at all.

What is mentioned is "the breaking of the slavery of interest" and the demand that "common criminals, usurers, profiteers, etc., must be punished with death".

Very, very thinly veiled antisemitism here.

On churches… again, not mentioned specifically.

But the program says:

"We demand freedom for all religious denominations in the State, provided they do not threaten its existence nor offend the moral feelings of the German race…

The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not commit itself to any particular denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us…"

Now, tell me how that amounts to calling for state control?

And this is despite the fact that the program tried to win over voters who liked some socialist ideas. Nazi "socialism" could never be disentangled from its "völkisch rhetoric intended to appeal to masses of Germans."

The "read the 25 points" line is asking you to:

A) assume that this program put together in 1920 stands for what "the Nazis" wanted, unchangingly through time, including from '33–'45, and

B) believe that this fits with an accepted definition of socialism.

Neither is true.