Why did Adolf Hitler and the Nazis hate communism?

Answer 1

Certainly the more nationalist parties (like Hitler's Nazi party) would have a fear of communism as their policies usually hurt them and their supporters. Right-winged parties are generally supported by the landowners and company owners, the military and the upper-class citizens of a society. Communism believes in giving more to the workers and peasants in a society, and commonly they will split up land from landowners and give it to the peasants and will usually give more to the common worker at the cost of the company owners. Yet, even though the Nazi party was nationalistic, the danger of communism was actually much lesser than the fear of it that had spread through Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany used the fear of communism to increase their own popularity. I don't think Hitler actually "feared" communism in a conventional sense, but he needed to downplay the Socialist Party and the Communist Party in Germany as they had the second and third largest portions of the German parliament, the Reichstag, with the Nazi Party (Hitler's party) having the largest portion.

A party's representation in the Reichstag was decided through proportional representation, where the ratio of districts that vote for a certain party equivalates to the portion of the Reichstag that is comprised of that party's members. Thus, if any party controlled over 50% of the votes, they would control the Reichstag completely. Hitler's aims were to have the Nazi party's popularity to exceed this ratio so he could completely take over the government.

Hitler's Propaganda used to spread a "Red Scare" (fear of communism) was fairly successful. One of the strongest examples of Hitler's anti-communism propaganda was the Reichstag fire in 1933, where the Reichstag building was set on fire by someone who was never identified. However, Hitler put a spin on this by saying that the the fire was caused by a communist, and the fire was an attempt by the Communist party to take over Germany. Fear of communism spread through the general German population which helped the Nazi party in the Reichstag election a month after the fire. Hitler also used the scare to convince Hindenburg (the German president at the time) to declare a "state of emergency" in Germany in March 1933, where the Reichstag lost all of its power for a set time and the President had complete power. As Chancellor of Germany, Hitler could use this to consolidate his power and by 1934 he had turned the democratic Weimar Germany into a Dictatorship.

Answer 2

"The streets of our country are in turmoil. The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. Russia is threatening us with her might, and the Republic is in danger. Yes - danger from within and without. We need Law and Order! Without it our nation cannot survive." -Adolf Hitler

Hitler hated Communists. He thought that the goal of economics should be efficiency and not equality (he believed economic equality was WRONG) and that Communists were "rabble rousers" who interfered with patriotic production.

Communists were the very first group to qualify for sentencing to death camps, even before Jews and Gypsies. This is because Hitler thought Communism was a Jewish conspiracy to take power. He recognized that Karl Marx, the founder of Communist philosophy, had been 100% ethnically Jewish, although an Athiest, and that many Jews in Germany were Communists. Non-Jewish Communists, according to Hitler, were even worse, they were "race traitors" (Himmler quotes) who wished to share power and wealth due the Aryans with "mud-people".

Answer 3

The rise of Fascism and similar movements in many European countries after World War 1 was a direct reaction to the rise of Bolshevism. It was, above all, the Nazis' loathing of Communism that gained powerful financial backing for Hitler. Without such support he might never have got beyond the beer halls of Bavaria.

It would be a mistake to take the reference to 'socialist' in the name of the Nazi party at face value.

The key reason for the existence of the Nazi party was to fight Communism. The anti-semitism of the Nazis was closely linked to the high proportion of Jews in the early leadership of the Soviet Union (later purged by Stalin) and the perceived role of Jews in the revolution of 1918-19 in Bavaria. (Initially, the Nazis were mainly a Bavarian party).

The recent zest for regarding Nazism as some form of socialism is at odds with the views of nearly all historians of the period. Moreover, for the most part it's a very recent trend. It's also polemical (one-sided and used in order to make a point). If one wants to draw attention to similarities in the way Fascist and Communist regimes function one can talk about totalitarianism. Both types of regimes tried, for example, to politicize vast areas of everyday life.

Germany is over 65% Christian, and it was more Christian in the past. The pope was in the Hitler youth, and everyone had to take an oath to Hitler. Due to the large amount of Christianity in Germany, many Germans feared that the communists would come by and take their religion away, which may have proved true as in Soviet-Occupied East Germany the number of religious people significantly decreased.

The immediate forerunner of the NSDAP - the DAP - was founded on 5 January 1919 expressly as anti-Communist party.

In Mein Kampf and also in his rabble rousing speeches, Hitler expresses hate for communism and also states very clearly, several times, that he is a Christian. Perhaps not a very good Christian but, in fairness to Hitler, the policy of killing Jews had also been carried out by at least one Pope in the past. The war-time Pope (Pius XII) never publicly criticized Hitler, even after the war, nor did he apologize for forming the 'Reichskonkordat' with Hitler, guaranteeing the rights of Catholics.

Hitler's speeches include his biblical 'justification' for exterminating the Jews based loosely on the writings of Martin Luther. In his speeches, as well as declaring clearly that he is a Christian, Hitler also extols the crowd 'in the name of Christ'. The current movement by some Christians to deny that Hitler was a Christian is fairly recent and is not based on fact. It is useful to read Hitler's eulogy from his most Catholic friend Fransisco Franco. "Adolf Hitler, son of the Catholic Church, died while defending Christianity".

Hitler believed in a social hierarchy and in strong private enterprise - both quite the opposite of communism. A significant element of the funding of the very successful growth of the 3rd Reich came from anti-communist USA. Senator Prescott Bush (George's grandfather) was closely involved with banking of Thyssens and other German companies. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy (JFK's father) is reputed to have bought a significant number of Nazi shares.

Answer 4

Because he feared it would out-rank National Socialism (Nazism).

And, of course, most Communists were of Aryan decent, and non-Aryan blood was impure blood to him.

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The immediate forerunner of the Nazi party, the DAP (German Workers' Party) was founded in January 1919 in Munich with the primary objective of anti-Communism. It was completely opposed to the 1918-19 revolution in Bavaria.

Answer 5

He thought that it was a Jewish plot to dominate the world.

Answer 6

he hated the jewish>