Reddit reviews Hitler 1936 To 1945 Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

Hitler's party was named the "National Socialists." Their policies had little to do with socialism. The main feature of the Nazis was an authoritarian dictatorship. Like the "socialists" in the "United Soviet Socialist Republic" (USSR), or the Kim family's "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" the name has virtually nothing to do with how the country is/was run or its economic system.

When they first came to power, the Nazis did some quasi-socialist policies of helping the working class. This solidified their political power and mandate. This was however not real socialism, because it was not built on helping all people, just "the right" people. It was a classic divide and conquer combined with demagoguery against Jews, Roma, Homosexuals, etc. Power was concentrated at the top, particularly in a single leader, (der Führer - literally "the leader"), which is diametrically opposed to what socialism is. The Nazis could only extract more and more wealth by continually doing more dividing internally, and eventually only by attacking and overthrowing other countries and extracting their wealth, both materially and by enslaving the captured civilian populations.

The few big German (not to mention internationally, including US) companies who sided with the Nazis early on made a lot of money, as well as the leaders of the party becoming enormously wealthy, by killing, enslaving and stealing. That is also not socialism. It is fascism.

It should also be noted that soon after coming to power, all higher Nazi party members who were interested in socialism were purged from the party (some arrested and imprisoned) and socialist groups in Germany were targeted and eliminated. I'm not an expert on the USSR, but I believe this is similar to what happened there once the Bolsheviks consolidated power.

In Germany, all of this was lead by a bitter, failed painter and WWI corporal from Austria named Adolf. He learned in the early 1900s in Vienna how well anti-semitism can be used to rile people up and turn their economic frustration on minorities, rather than the powerful who control things. Hitler took the lessons of Vienna Mayor Luegner and expanded on them. Trump uses the same playbook, but fortunately, the more modern world still has a few checks on his power.

I wouldn't say Hitler was an unprecedented evil only because the validity of our written history gets very sketchy before the 1900s (and it is pretty sketchy in parts since then as well!), but he was a very, very bad person. Socialism just means society controls the means and distribution of production. There are no pure socialist countries, but almost every country has socialist policies (like the fire department, schools, roads, etc.). The happiest (according to their populations) countries have social democracies, which just means that the public has the most say in how their taxes are spent - and they choose to spread the wealth around to the vast majority of the public. This is different than in the US, where the vast majority of tax money is spent on a few lucky winners.

If you want the really best understanding of Hitler, I recommend the two-volume biography from Ian Kershaw:

Volume I

Volume II

Very long, but super informative. I think that clarifies quite well.

[edit] typo