True Left

Some information from Alfred Rosenberg's memoirs.


During the German civil war in 1919, the communist Bavarian Soviet Republic spared DAP co-founder Dietrich Eckart because of his leftism:

He published a leaflet, To all workers, in which he called them to arms against usury, and which he signed with his full name and address. He printed quite a large edition, and hired two taxicabs from which we scattered them on the streets of Munich. Since many such pamphlets were printed and distributed in these days of revolutionary fermentation, Eckart at first had no difficulties. In fact, when he was about to be arrested during the Raterepublik (the short-lived Communist regime in Munich), and placed among the hostages, this pamphlet may very well have saved his life, for his own janitor and the men who came to arrest him declared with one accord that the author of such a leaflet could not possibly by a reactionary. He went free.

Alfred Rosenberg. (written 1946, published in German 1949). Memoirs. (English translator and date unspecified). Pages not numbered.
https://archive.org/details/MemoirsOfAlfredRosenberg/page/n1/mode/2up

Actual rightists in the 1930s accused National Socialists of being nothing more than Communists:

In their attacks our opponents spared us absolutely nothing. For the middle classes we were camouflaged Bolshevists and atheists, for the Marxists, agents of Deterding, capitalistic varlets, and monarchistic reactionaries.

Again, right-leaning citizens in the 1920s had been prejudiced against the National Socialist party because it had the word "Socialist" in it. I.e., they perceived it to be leftist.

In later years Heinrich Lohse, the son of Holstein peasants, told me repeatedly that it was from me that he had first heard details about Hitler, his speeches, the Feldherrnhalle and our program. The decision he made that day at Weimar was final. So he went to call on his hard-headed, mistrustful peasants who, like those in Oldenburg, were constantly up in arms against any name that contained the world Socialist. It took a long time to break down their resistance, but he did finally succeed.

Rosenberg criticizes Goebbels for being too egocentric (and he seems quite jealous that the propaganda-minded, rather than intellectual-minded, Goebbels was favored by Hitler over himself), but it was obvious to Rosenberg that Goebbels was indeed a leftist:

It is not easy for me to talk about Doctor Joseph Göbbels. From a purely human point of view, his dying in Berlin, together with his wife and five children, takes the sting out of much that is past. Nevertheless, his activities from 1925 until the collapse remain something in the development of the National Socialist revolution that must be studied from a historical point of view. And that, whether open or secret, they were of tremendous importance, I know very well without being cognisant of details. He was the Mephisto of our once so straightforward movement.
[...]
Hitler and I looked at each other and nodded. I was quite willing to forget any instinctive aversion I might have felt. The revolution set him afire. Stürtz and others told me how they all wanted to re-enact, so to speak, certain parallel roles that had once been played in the French Revolution. To become important by joining the opposition was in Göbbels's mind, too, when he came to the fore with articles and speeches. Considering his character and the depth of his social thinking, I came to the conclusion that there was no obstacle that would have prevented Göbbels from joining the Communists. But somehow and somewhere within himself-- this much I am willing to admit unreservedly -- he, too, loved Germany. That's why he turned to Hitler. This was the good that existed even in Göbbels, and that gave to all his activities the magnetic power of the genuine.

Hermann Goering also blamed Goebbels for having too strong of an impact on Hitler.

He influenced Hitler to become anti-Semitic more than Hitler had been before. Hitler used to come to my house once in a while for a cup of coffee, and because I led a normal life, he would leave about nine o'clock. I was in the habit of retiring early. However, Hitler used to spend practically all of his nights, sometimes until four a.m., with Goebbels and his family. God knows what evil influence Goebbels had on him during those long visits.
   -Hermann Goering to Leon Goldensohn, May 24, 1946

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels#Quotes_about_Goebbels

Again, recall that Goebbels was a straight-up Communist far-leftist when he joined the party. Hitler would not have become so close to him if Hitler was a far-rightist. (I doubt Rosenberg read Goebbel's diary where he said he was indeed a Communist!)
https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/national-socialists-were-socialists/msg10621/#msg10621


Back to Rosenberg. Hitler demanded social justice and a Socialism that did not involve itself in nonsensical class warfare:

In view of all these contradictory forces and developments, Adolf Hitler, who had encountered such problems in Austria, before serving for four and a half years as a soldier in the German army, not only recognised the necessity of national unity above everything else, but was also willing to press to the hilt the demand for social justice. The National Socialist Party entered the battle. Adolf Hitler became its leader. The point of departure of his way of thinking was this: If so many honest men stand in each of the two opposing camps, no matter how their individual programs look, they must be impelled by decent motives. But if the totality of the bourgeoisie and the totality of the proletariat are such bitter enemies, there must needs be spiritual, political and social causes that prevent understanding, to say nothing of co-operation in regard to all great tasks confronting the Reich. Without going into economic details. National Socialism affirmed the demand for justice for the working classes. But the conviction that social justice could be secured only within the national framework became ever more firm. And here basic dogmas barred the way, dogmas which had been taught only too well to a people more often than not inclined to place veracity above practicality. The class war was looked upon as something factual, and Marxism had not been able to offer anything beyond still more class war -- An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
[...]
It was Adolf Hitler who declared war against all this. ... Hitler had come to the conclusion that a just socialism had, PER SE, nothing to do with class war and internationalism. To perpetuate class war was wrong. It would have to be eliminated.

Hitler spoke to several small gatherings of the party, which was now no longer called the German Workers' Party, but the National Socialist German Workers' Party. This change indicated the union of a cleansed nationalism and a purified socialism.

Rosenberg stresses how similar his views were to Hitler. Since the other quotes have established Hitler was indeed a leftist Socialist and also quite close to the leftist Socialist Goebbels, then, transitively, Rosenberg must have been leftist as well.

Although, briefly skimming through his memoirs, it seems his ideological views were a bit traditionalist in some respects. Perhaps this is why Hitler favored Goebbels more--he was more anti-traditionalist and understood the mission of reshaping and manifesting something entirely new in society? It seems Rosenberg's intellectualism may have prejudiced him to become too attached to the establishment culture to be able to fully imagine a radically new society?

I must say that it was absolutely uncanny how similar our opinions frequently were. Once, after I had written an article on the problems of alcohol for the Folkish Observer, and was just reading the galley proofs. Hitler called on me at the editorial office. He had with him an article on the problems of alcohol which he wanted me to publish in the near future. With a laugh I showed him mine. Then we read each other's articles and found that, starting from different premises, we had reached identical conclusions. When I told him that I naturally would kill my own article. Hitler said, under no circumstances; it was excellent, and it would be a good thing if both of them were published. Thus the Folkish Observer published the two articles in the same issue. Hitler insisted that most of the important speeches to be made at party conventions be submitted to him. Once, when I personally handed him one of mine, he read it immediately and said: This is as much like mine as if we had compared notes beforehand. I might describe the gradually developing personal relationship somewhat like this: he esteemed me highly, but he did not love me. That PER SE was not particularly surprising. For one who came from the Gulf of Bothnia brought along an entirely different temperament than one from Braunau on the Inn. What was surprising, on the contrary, was our miraculously similar judgement regarding the basic traits of so many problems.