162 Chapter 7
whenGermansare “connectedpurelyand simplyto the promotionof the commonweal—
that is, gainfor all: for the Volkcommunityfor humanity.”^83
In fact,despiteHitler’s eventualhatredfor the Soviets,JoachimFestdisclosesthatthe
Führer“learnedhis mostlastinglessonsfromMarxism.Theenergyhe devotedto the
developmentof a NationalSocialistideology... testifiesto the effectsof the Marxist
modeluponhim.”^84 Accountingfor theserealities,six-timeU.S.SocialistPartypresiden-
tial candidateNormanM. Thomasadmitsthat“boththe communistandfascistrevolu-
tionsdefinitelyabolishedlaissez-fairecapitalism.. .”^85
Therhetoricabouta ThirdWayresonatedwiththe Nazisfromthe beginning,as it
pervadedthe romanticPan-GermanVolkishmovementfromwhichNaziismemerged.
GeorgeL. Mossestates,“Thesearchfor a ‘thirdway,’ as an alternativeto capitalismor
Marxism,... wasan integralpartof the Volkishconcern.... Everywherein Europe,
fascismwasbaseduponthe urgetowarda ‘thirdway,’ andVolkishthoughthereinter-
sectedwiththe mainstreamof an internationalmovement.” Furthermore,“Volkisheco-
nomictheory,in its aversionto anythingmaterialisticand concrete,had neveradvanced
beyondoppositionto the international(bourgeoisor Jewish)capitalistconspiracy,on the
one hand,and the internationalBolshevikconspiracy,on the other.... Manyrevolution-
ariesof ‘the thirdway’ fusedprimitiveeconomicswiththe omnipresentGermanicfaithin
orderto directthe attack... [on]the bourgeoisie,whosecapitalistinclinationsit con-
demned,” as wellas “the Jews.”^86
Recallfromchapter3 thatthisideawaspropagatedby Germanculturalhistorian
ArthurMoellervandenBruck,the samemanfromwhomthe Nazisappropriatedthe
expressionThirdReich.^87 GeorgeMosseidentifiesMoellervan den Bruckas “the prophet
of the ‘thirdway,’” and pointsout thatMoeller’s bookThe ThirdReich, publishedin 1923,
just two yearspriorto his death,^88 wasoriginallyintendedto be titledThe ThirdWay.^89 In
The ThirdReich, Moellerrejectedbothfreeenterpriseandcommunismas too extreme,
advocatingthe mixed-economywelfarestateas the middlepathandGermanyas the
nationfittestto modelit for everyoneelse.MossescribesthatMoellerheldthat“German
socialismwasa socialorderforgedfromthe unionof a medievalcorporatismandthe
culturalpeculiaritiesof the GermanVolk.As he emphaticallyasserted,in condemning
Marxistinternationalism,‘everypeoplehas its ownsocialism.’”^90
Keepin mindthat FritzSternobservessomethingheldin commonby Moellervan den
Bruck,Paulde Lagarde,and JuliusLangbehn.Whatis noteworthybesidestheiranimosity
towardreasonandthe Enlightenmentis thatthesethreeaffixedblamefor nineteenth-
century Germany’s turmoil on laissez-faire “liberalism. They attacked it because it
seemedto themthe premiseof modernsocietyfromwhicheverythingtheydreaded
sprang:the bourgeoislife, Manchesterism,” and “materialism.. .”^91
Anti-Capitalismand Anti-Semitism
For too long,sundryleft-wingwriterstendedto shy frommentioningthe methods
wherebyAdolfHitlerexploitedthe masses’ deep-seatedprejudiceagainstthe Jews.Nor
havetheypaidmuchmindto the reasonwhyhe so begrudgedJewsfromthe outset.
“Contraryto whatis sometimesclaimed,” Ian Kershawperceives,“Hitler’s antisemitism
wasnot promotedby his anti-Bolshevism”—in otherwords,his rivalryagainstSoviet
communismfor dominationoverEurope.His anti-Semitism“longpredatedit.”^92 Instead
Hitlerassertedthat whatmadeJewsso spitefulwasthat theyweregreedymerchantsand
financierswhoaccrueda windfalloff of Germany’s defeatin the FirstWorldWar,^93 while
communistswerereallythe pawnsof the internationalJewishbankingcabal.
As AlbertEinsteindiscerned,one of the biggest“crimeswithwhichthe Jewshave
beenchargedin the courseof history—crimeswhichwereto justifythe atrocitiesperpe-