One of the great errors of political taxonomy is to classify Hitler as right-wing. He, and still more his closest colleague, Goebbels, were socialists, and the fact they were nationalists first did not orient them more to the right. There are six indispensable hallmarks of a conservative. First, firm belief in one, beneficent and omnipotent God. Second, absolute morality as the basis of public law. Third, strict limits on the size of the state. Fourth, respect for a multiplicity of traditional power centres. Fifth, restraint and self-restraint in all things. Sixth, search for the right balance between the individual and the traditional units of society. Hitler broke all these rules: he was an atheistic pagan, a moral relativist, a totalitarian, an ultra-centralist, an uninhibited exhibitionist and a collectivist. In many ways Stalin was to the right of him. There is a seventh point. A conservative is not afraid of force, or of using it thoroughly. But always as a last resort. With Hitler it was the first.
Who was the most right-wing man in history? - Paul Johnson, The Spectator, 25/2/2006
Hmm. And they styled themselves, after all, "national socialists". My dad always said that the difference between politics at its left and right extremes was less than you might think.
