Socialism was an embellishment. Keep in mind, Germans thought Socialism was a type of enlightened government - many parties whether or not they actually were Socialist called themselves socialists.
The practice of naming yourself something that you aren't philosophically aligned with is normal. Is the "Democrat" party particularly democratic? Is the "Liberal" party in any way aligned with freedom? What about "New Democrat", who are neither new, nor is their advocacy of Democracy unique.
The national socialist party wasn't socialist (unless we're talking about Hegelian Socialism here, which is a different bird) - and if definitely wasn't Marxist, they hated communists with a passion. It was just a trendy name.
That stated, if you lived there in that time and were affluent in some minor way, you better bet your otherwise-gulag-going-ass that you were expected to make lavish and deep-cutting (or at least looking like deep-cutting) donations to The Party in order to keep in their good graces and not branded a hoarder, "like those undesirables".
Obviously by this measure The Mafia is socialist, which is clearly not true, but they definitely used the flow of "the government is Of The People, if you have wealth that The People don't then you must be evil, so you must give more to The People, by which we mean us in the government" as a bullying stick.
are we talking about the natsocs or the soviets here?
the natsocs openly celebrated individuality and seemed to want to clarify over and over that the duty they kept speaking of where individuality nonetheless had to make some way was for the people and nation, not for the state or party. which to me just makes sense, because otherwise, just... y'know, leave the country.
Socialism was an embellishment. Keep in mind, Germans thought Socialism was a type of enlightened government - many parties whether or not they actually were Socialist called themselves socialists.
The practice of naming yourself something that you aren't philosophically aligned with is normal. Is the "Democrat" party particularly democratic? Is the "Liberal" party in any way aligned with freedom? What about "New Democrat", who are neither new, nor is their advocacy of Democracy unique.
The national socialist party wasn't socialist (unless we're talking about Hegelian Socialism here, which is a different bird) - and if definitely wasn't Marxist, they hated communists with a passion. It was just a trendy name.
That stated, if you lived there in that time and were affluent in some minor way, you better bet your otherwise-gulag-going-ass that you were expected to make lavish and deep-cutting (or at least looking like deep-cutting) donations to The Party in order to keep in their good graces and not branded a hoarder, "like those undesirables".
Obviously by this measure The Mafia is socialist, which is clearly not true, but they definitely used the flow of "the government is Of The People, if you have wealth that The People don't then you must be evil, so you must give more to The People, by which we mean us in the government" as a bullying stick.
are we talking about the natsocs or the soviets here?
the natsocs openly celebrated individuality and seemed to want to clarify over and over that the duty they kept speaking of where individuality nonetheless had to make some way was for the people and nation, not for the state or party. which to me just makes sense, because otherwise, just... y'know, leave the country.