Did Hitler say that National Socialism and Marxism are the same thing?

A number of sources claim that the Fuhrer of the German nation in one of his speeches equated the ideology of his party with Marxism. We checked whether this is indeed the case.

As he writes in his work "Russian Revolution" Richard Pipes, a famous professor of Russian studies and Russian history at Harvard University, in a speech delivered on February 24, 1941, Hitler openly argued that “at the core, National Socialism and Marxism are the same thing.” This quote can also be found on social networks (VK, LJ). It is also very popular in the West, where it is found in numerous collections quotes.

On February 24, 1941, a meeting was held in the famous Munich beer restaurant Hofbräuhaus on the occasion of the 21st anniversary of the founding of the NSDAP. It was here, in a place where the Bavarian kings, Mozart and Lenin once visited, that in 1920 Hitler proclaimed the creation of his party and announced the program "25 points". This time, his speech did not contain any particularly epoch-making statements, except that the Fuhrer announced a plan to intensively use submarines in combat operations and recalled that he had repeatedly offered peace to France and England, who rejected it.

The speech of the leader of the Third Reich is fully documented - there is how text, so audio version along with full translation into English. Hitler speaks about something “Marxist” only three times in it, and in none of the cases is this what we need, only words about the futility of such movements.

Where did this quote come from then? The beginning of its widespread use dates back to 1944, when the book of the Austro-British economist and political philosopher, future Nobel Prize winner in economics Friedrich von Hayek, entitled “The Path to Freedom,” was published. On one of its pages you can see the following footnote:

“In this regard, it may be recalled that in February 1941, in one of his public speeches, Hitler ... considered it appropriate to declare that “National Socialism and Marxism are basically the same thing.”

The author refers to the English-language (like the book itself) International News Bulletin, even indicating a specific page. And indeed, on March 8, 1941, this periodical published article, dedicated to Hitler's speech at the Heufbrauhaus. It contains a brief summary of the speech, and about the quote that interests us only said, that it sounded “in the final part.” However, as we already know, Hitler did not say anything like that.

It is curious that already on May 2 of the same year, a note from a reader named Waters appeared in the publication Free Europe, according to whom Hitler did not say that “National Socialism and Marxism are basically the same thing.” Waters added that the contrary statement was the result of “an error by one of the news outlets, as reported on March 1.” reported British magazine The New Statesman and Nation":

It is difficult to say anything specific about the mechanism for the appearance of this error in the press - the magazine talked about using the word “fascism” instead of “Marxism”, but there is no such quotation in the original. Nevertheless, the fact remains: in his speech of February 24, 1941, as in other public speeches, Adolf Hitler never equated Marxism with fascism. In the book of the German politician Hermann Rauschning "Hitler Speaks: The Beast from the Abyss" The following quote from Hitler is given, allegedly heard personally by Rauschning: “I have learned a lot from the Marxists. And I admit it without hesitation. But I didn’t study their boring social studies, historical materialism and all that “marginal utility”. I learned their methods. <…> National Socialism is what Marxism could become if it were freed from its absurd artificial connection with a democratic structure.”

As you can see, these words have a fundamentally different meaning. In addition, Rauschning’s memoirs are questioned by historians - countsthat the German had invented most of his conversations with the Fuhrer, whom he met only a few times in his life. Nevertheless, quotes from them continue to be published - for example, the same Richard Pipes in his "Russian Revolution". And the fake quote we examined about National Socialism and Marxism lives on, largely thanks to its mention in Friedrich von Hayek’s book “The Path to Freedom.”

Cover image: Wikipedia.

Not true

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