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Frequently asked questions

Why does this article say that the Nazis were right-wing?

Because that is the consensus of reliable sources, in this case historians and political scientists.

But the word "socialist" is right in their name!

Many political entities have names that can be misleading. Consider, for example, the Holy Roman Empire (a confederation of mainly German territories during the Middle Ages and the early modern period) and North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (a totalitarian dictatorship). In addition to this, the usage of the word "socialism" by the Nazis is different from the common usage of the term "socialism", which refers to an economic philosophy involving advocacy for social ownership of the means of production.
In the case of the Nazi party, the phrase "national socialist" was a nationalist response to the rise of socialism in Europe by offering a redefinition of "socialism" to refer to the promotion of the interests of the nation, as opposed to ideas of individual self-interest. But there was no policy of social ownership of the means of production. The Nazis did talk about capitalism being bad, but they defined it as a Jewish-originated economic philosophy based on individualism that promoted plutocracy in the interest of the Jews, at the expense of non-Jewish nations and races. This was put in contrast to the Nazis' conception of socialism, which was done in order to win over people attracted to anti-capitalist and socialist ideas to their cause. They rejected ideas of equality and working class solidarity, instead advocating for social hierarchy and national strength. This article sums it up well.

I made an offhand comment about it and somebody just came along and deleted it! What should I do?

Nothing. See this discussion where the community came to a consensus that we have entertained the numerous questions and claims about the Nazis being left-wing enough, and that continued engagement with people pushing this line of reasoning is not helpful to the article.

That doesn't seem very fair. Don't Wikipedia policies require editors to assume good faith? What if somebody posts that position here with a really good argument?

See the following links, all of which are to discussions about this very question over time. Any argument someone thinks is novel has already been made, been responded to, and failed to convince anyone. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28]

But what if I find a large number of very reliable sources all claiming that Nazism is left-wing?

Then you will be more than welcome to show them to us, so that we can see that they are very reliable and that they assert that Nazism is a left-wing ideology. If they are, then we will change the article.

Nazism is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
August 6, 2004	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
July 11, 2005	Peer review	Reviewed

Current status: Former featured article candidate

Politics High‑importance

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Jewish history High‑importance

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Philosophy: Social and political Mid‑importance

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Nazism is a far-right ideology.

The consensus of political scientists, historians, and other reliable sources is that Nazism is a far-right ideology and not a left-wing or far-left one. This has been discussed numerous times. Please see this FAQ and read the talk page archives.

Please do not request that "far-right" be changed to "left-wing" or "far-left"; your request will be denied, and you may be blocked from editing if you persist in doing so.

"Nazi Party" is the English-language common name for the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Per our policy, WP:COMMONNAME, English Wikipedia uses the common name in English for the titles of our articles, and in most references to that subject. Thus "Nazi Party" and "Nazism" are the names of our articles on those subjects, and in most instances the National Socialist German Workers Party is referred to as the Nazi Party, but occasionally, to avoid repetition, by the full English-language name, or by its German acronym, NSDAP.

Please do not request that the name of the party be changed; such requests are routinely turned down.

Section sizes

Section size for Nazism (28 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	12,145	12,145
Etymology	5,096	5,096
Position within the political spectrum	19,147	19,147
Origins	1,446	46,845
Völkisch nationalism	18,956	18,956
Racial theories and antisemitism	14,464	15,657
Use of the American racist model	1,193	1,193
Response to World War I and Italian Fascism	10,786	10,786
Ideology and programme	2,771	109,113
Nationalism and racialism	2,414	32,662
Irredentism and expansionism	11,292	11,292
Racial theories	18,956	18,956
Social class	10,770	10,770
Sex and gender	13,127	15,091
Opposition to homosexuality	1,964	1,964
Religion	9,647	9,647
Economics	15,434	30,860
Anti-communism	5,648	5,648
Views of capitalism	9,778	9,778
Totalitarianism	7,312	7,312
Classification: Reactionary or Revolutionary	7,785	16,139
Contemporary events and views	7,273	7,273
Post-war Nazism	1,081	1,081
See also	654	654
References	17	36,065
Notes	29,074	29,074
Bibliography	6,974	6,974
External links	1,342	1,342
Total	246,546	246,546

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by when more than 3 sections are present.

Inclusion of Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels

I believe it may be a good idea to mention the influence leibenfels and his magazine Ostara had on Nazism 2001:56A:778C:2F00:EE5:4A15:E00:6448 (talk) 02:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Source? Slatersteven (talk) 11:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 24 January 2025

not done.

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

174.140.119.147 (talk) 07:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nazis were the national socialist party. So by definition, it's not a far right ideology. It's a far left radically violent ideology, just like all of the leftist, progressive Democrat ideologies.

Not done: See the #FAQ and red banners at the top of this page. — Czello ^(music) 07:41, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Calling nazis leftists and comparing them to progressive democrats is a really bad statement 185.37.26.165 (talk) 16:33, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Siedlungspolitik

Hi, I'm wondering why I can't find information on Wikipedia about the NS "Siedlungspolitik". This was a program in the mid- to late 1930s to settle parts of the urban populations in new suburban communities with organized community structures integrated into the "Gleichschaltung" policy, and with gardens around each house to allow people to grow their own food during the war that they knew was coming. I used to live in the Konradsiedlung in Regensburg, which was built as one of these and still has a "Siedlerverein" (or at least it did in the 1990s), with a little man who knocks on people's doors and tells them off if they're not growing potatoes properly, and you can't help noticing that all the roads are named after towns just outside the German borders that the Nazis wanted to "bring home" (heim ins Reich) - my favourite is a square still called "Danziger Freiheit". Anyway, I was just doing some editing at Gummiinsel, which is a terrible translation of the German article, and found I had no-where to link "Siedlung" in its specifically NS sense. I'm not sure that the half-paragraph on the NS period at Settlement archaeology is on quite the same topic. Am I missing something, or is this an article we should be creating? A quick Google search finds sources like this [29] or this [30] but there must be much better ones. Doric Loon (talk) 16:33, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

De-wiki seems to also be absent an article on this specifically, though the word ("settlement policy") is used a lot in more modern contexts, mostly Israel. I find a search for "NS" "siedlungspolitik" is fruitful. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 03:16, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jpgordon Yes indeed, but the Israeli situation is a little different. My question wasn't really asking for sources, because I'm sure I could trot down to the library and find good ones. The question is, do we want to be writing this up on Wiki, and if so, where? (And is there a historian specialized in the NS-period who is working here who would be competent to do it - I could try it, but not if there are people already here who are more expert.) Doric Loon (talk) 09:00, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]