To show to the people of Germany that he and his party were half socialist, Hitler drew up the ‘twenty five points’. These were the actions Hitler and his party would take if they were allowed to come to power. The twenty five points contained some nationalist elements and some socialist elements.
One socialist element was the nationalisation of trusts. This meant that the frozen money that was left by the dead would be taken by the government and used to rebuild the poor industry of Germany. Hitler realised that he had to appeal to all areas of society, and by nationalising trusts he immediately appealed to the lower class, seeing as they would never be able to set up a trust of their own.
Hitler also realised that after The Treaty of Versailles, the majority of people in Germany were living in poverty. Therefore it was imperative that he appealed to the lower classes which made up the bulk of Germany. To win a vast amount of people over, he decided that he would introduce the abolition of land rents, restrict interest on loans and confiscate profits made by industry during the war.
The abolition of land rents left land owners with less income. However, the lower class would be the ones renting off the land owners. Therefore, they would be saving a lot of money and increasing their support for Hitler’s party.
Restricting interest on loans would not only increase support from the lower classes, but also from anyone who hated the Jews. Just after World War I, many people did begin to dislike the Jews, because Hitler and his party used propaganda to show how the Jews had let the country down at war. Many people were further incensed by the fact that only Jews were allowed to charge interest on money. Therefore by restricting interest on loans, Jews were also losing out, and this made many people who blamed the Jews for losing the war feel better and support Hitler’s party. Obviously anyone who wanted to borrow money (usually the lower classes) would also benefit from this new idea from NSDAP. Therefore it helped strengthen their support for the party.
Confiscating profits made by industries during the war would also help gain support from the lower classes as it would seem that the party was making an extra effort to make the gap between the lower classes and the more inferior classes smaller.
Hitler therefore realised the need to appeal to the majority of people in the country to come into power. He also realised that this majority were the lower classes. To appeal to them he knew he needed to introduce some more socialist ideas. However, Hitler did not stop here. He continued to try and gain support of other classes too.
He introduced profit sharing in industry. This prevented any one industry becoming powerful and having a monopoly over the other industries. This would not just have appealed to the lower classes, but also to anyone who worked in industries. This was many people.
Hitler also wanted to open up department stores to small traders. This encouraged some socialists to take some interest in Hitler’s ideas. He also created a people’s arm based on the SA. This gave Hitler some extra power and the people of Germany realised this. They felt that Hitler could use the SA as a foundation for the main army in the country, defying the Treaty of Versailles.
But, all these socialist ideas did not unfortunately make Hitler a socialist. His party consisted of many nationalist ideas which sometimes contradicted all of his socialist plans. For example, one of the nationalist twenty five points was to give full leadership of the party by an all powerful dictator. Also, Hitler wanted to take back land that Germany had lost due to the Treaty of Versailles. This was a very nationalist way of thinking and was potentially very dangerous.
Hitler did consequently introduce many socialist ideas which appealed to many people in Germany. But did he only introduce these to win the hearts and minds of the nation? Was he really going to stick to any of his Socialist promises if he gained power? With so many nationalist ideas, which contradicted many of the socialist ones, Hitler and his party were only socialist to the extent of gaining support from as many people as possible to come into power.
