Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who infamously gave a salute at US president Donald Trump many considered to be a Nazi salute (which he denied), has now falsely claimed Adolf Hitler was a “far left socialist”.
Yes, really.
Responding to a X/Twitter account on Saturday (24 January), the former Trump aide said: “Hitler was a far left socialist. His party was called the national socialists [sic].”
Formally known as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, the Holocaust Encyclopedia notes the Nazi Party was a “far-right racist and antisemitic political party” which “sought to woo German workers away from socialism and communism and commit them to its antisemitic and anti-Marxist ideology”.
Its article goes on to add ‘National Socialism’ was a “racist and antisemitic political theory” and the Nazi Party campaigned to eradicate ‘Marxism’ which it used to mean “both communism and socialism”.
Meanwhile, Brittanica states in April 1933, “communists, socialists, democrats and Jews were purged from the German civil service, and trade unions were outlawed the following month”, with “prominent members” of the country’s communist and social democratic parties arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps.
Fortunately, other X/Twitter users also debunked Musk’s claim:
Political commentator Brian Krassenstein replied: “Adolf Hitler led Nazism, which was a far-right, ultranationalist, authoritarian ideology”:
Another account named SP Historian described Musk’s tweet as “plain idiotic”:
While another pointed out a flaw in Musk’s argument by sarcastically claiming “North Korea is a democracy” because “it’s called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”:
Even Musk’s own AI chatbot Grok said “historical consensus classifies Hitler and Nazism as far-right fascism”:
It’s not the first time that someone on the right has pushed the myth that Hitler was a socialist, as conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson attempted to make the very same point in 2018.
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