A recurring theme in Elon Musk’s posts on X in recent months has been his claim that Adolf Hitler was a socialist. He has received both a great deal of support and a great deal of criticism on the platform, but hardly any of those taking part in the debate have seriously examined the issue. Critics of the thesis point out that the means of production were not nationalized in National Socialist Germany. They also argue that the fact that Hitler had communists and Social Democrats imprisoned in concentration camps speaks against this thesis.
The second argument is not convincing. Stalin, too, had tens of thousands of fellow communists murdered, denouncing many of them as “Trotskyists,” or “fascist agents.” But what about the argument that the means of production were not nationalized on a large scale in National Socialist Germany?
