A red socialist rose by any other name is still a red socialist rose.

I heard about this kerfuffle and thought I would check it out.  There must be another side of the story.

Nope.  Just another mainstream media journalist beclowning himself with obvious untruths.  And the official fact checker no less.

New #FactChecker --> Greene’s ahistorical claim that the Nazis were socialists https://t.co/SXQDgXYTBb

— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) May 29, 2021

I looked at his Twitter feed to see if he had any follow-up explanations.  No.  I scroll through the responding comments to see if the argument of facts might be there.

Not that I see.  I would have to read his article to know what argument he is making but I can't because it is pay-walled.

I am going with the relatively uncontroversial argument that Nazi is the common abbreviation of the  Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party). 

Now any decent debater can muddy up the waters with definitional questions about where fascism bleeds into socialism and where socialism bleeds into communism.  

But when you look at the National Socialist German Workers' Party platform, it seems pretty definitively a Socialist platform.  Specifically:

7. We demand that the State shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens. If it should prove impossible to feed the entire population, foreign nationals (non-citizens) must be deported from the Reich.

9. All citizens shall have equal rights and duties.

10. It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform physical or mental work. The activities of the individual must not clash with the general interest, but must proceed within the framework of the community and be for the general good.

We demand therefore:

11. The abolition of incomes unearned by work.

The breaking of the slavery of interest

13. We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts).

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises.

15. We demand the extensive development of insurance for old age.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, 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.

17. We demand a land reform suitable to our national requirements, the passing of a law for the expropriation of land for communal purposes without compensation; the abolition of ground rent, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.

19. We demand that Roman Law, which serves a materialistic world order, be replaced by a German common law

20. 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). We demand the education of gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.

21. The State must ensure that the nation’s health standards are raised by protecting mothers and infants, by prohibiting child labor, by promoting physical strength through legislation providing for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and by the extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of youth.

So what might Kessler's argument be?  Seems a hard argument to make.

I am guessing that he is trying to conflate National Socialism with Fascism, arguing that Nazi's are fascists and cannot therefore be Socialists.  Perhaps he is also making an argument that Socialism and Communism are a continuum (as most Communists argue) and that therefore Nazi Germany being at war with Communists must preclude Nazi's from being National Socialists.

But there is that nagging issue of the party platform.  Probably Kessler may be arguing that its original platform was unrepresentative of its actual platform in the later 1930s.  

One of the problems with that whole line of argument is that Italy under Mussolini, a Nazi Germany ally, was accustomed to self-identifying both as fascist and socialist.

It is pretty thin gruel for a convincing argument.  All four Axis enemies in World War II were totalitarian states.  National Socialist in Germany, Fascists in Italy, Communists in Russia, and Nationalists in Japan.  Germany, Italy, and Russia were all gradations of Socialist/Communist.  None of them were committed to rule of law, equality before the law, individual freedoms, or the subservience of the state to the people.  

Kessler seems to be splitting meaningless hairs trying to protect the left wing of the Democrat Party (the socialist wing) from being tarred with the National Socialist brush.  Politically that makes sense.  Factually and historically it does not.  

Especially given the reemergence in the Democratic Party of the interest in and pursuance of racial group identity and blatant anti-semitism.  Racial ideology and anti-semitism also being attributes of National Socialists in Germany, Fascists in Italy, and Communists in Russia.  

There really doesn't seem to be much of a defense for Kessler trying to claim that the National Socialist German Workers' Party in Germany was not a socialist party.  Which leaves us with the question: Why is it so important to Kessler to advance this untruth?