At an early meeting of a political group that eventually turned into the Nazi Party, Hitler told Friedrich Krohn, an early supporter of the party, that he preferred a type of ‘socialism’ he referred to as ‘national Social Democracy’ that was not dissimilar to nations like Scandinavia, England, and prewar Bavaria.

Hitler in 1919 took a position in the Communist run Bavarian Soviet Republic, wearing in public a red armband, according to a number of historians including Thomas Weber. And a little later after the Bavarian Soviet Republic was defeated, Hitler claimed to be a ‘social democrat.’

When [Friedrich] Krohn and Hitler first met around the time that Hitler first attended a meeting of what was to become the Nazi Party, Hitler told him that he favored a ‘socialism’ that took the form of a ‘national Social Democracy’ that was loyal to the state, not dissimilar to that of Scandinavia, England, and prewar Bavaria.

On May 3, 1919, 6 months after the revolution, Hitler said he was in favor of majoritarian democracy at a meeting of members of the 2nd Infantry Regiment in the regimental canteen on Oberwiesenfeld. The testimony states that the meeting had been called to discuss who should become the new commander of the regiment, adding that Hitler identified himself 'as a supporter of Social Democracy [Mehrheitssozialdemokratie; i.e. the SPD], albeit with some reservations.'

Hitler not only supported Germany’s communist regime during this brief time period, but also bestowed his blessings to a government that had pledged allegiance to Lenin’s Soviet Russia in Moscow. Hitler apparently displayed few qualms over the international (or supposedly Jewish) aspects of Marxism. The significance of Hitler’s elected posts cannot be overstated. By serving under both the socialist, and later communist, governments, Hitler ‘held a position that existed to serve, support and sustain the left-wing revolutionary regime.’ One wonders, given this, why Hitler would be regarded as more of a right-wing socialist or revolutionary conservative than a left-wing socialist. Social Democrats have considered themselves left-wing and favored similar socialist policies that corresponded well to Hitler’s own collectivist visions and socioeconomic ideology.

Hitler was not a socialist. He was a nationalist and a racialist; and in Mein Kampf himself tells how he designed to use social services and equality for the purpose of the Reich for conquest of the world. The purposes of socialism — equality, prosperity, charity, and international peace — were not the aims of Hitler. He detested all of them. It is irrelevant altogether to quote to us, as Hayek does, a number of obscure economic professors who may have impressed him when he was a student, men who said they were socialists but who characteristically derided Great Britain because she was a nation of merchants, while Germany was a nation of heroes! The writings he refers to were written in the course of World War I and were war polemics.

Hitler stayed on even when, on April 13, Palm Sunday, the revolution devoured its children, as the most radical regime yet, a new and more hard-core Soviet Republic headed by Communists, was established in Munich. Its government, the Vollzugsrat, had a direct line of communication to the Soviet leadership in Moscow and in Budapest. Encoded telegrams went back and forth between Russia’s capital and Munich. In fact, in the person of Towia Axelrod, Lenin and his fellow Bolshevik leaders in Moscow even had one of their own men on the Vollzugsrat, through whom they could directly influence the decisions made by the Munich Soviet Republic.

Hitler himself would imply that he had had Social Democratic leanings in the past when he told some of his fellow National Socialists in 1921, ‘Everybody was a Social Democrat once.’

Hitler was picked as the representative of the men in his company. He now held a position that existed to serve, support, and sustain the left-wing revolutionary regime. Hitler’s task was to help facilitate the smooth running of the regiment. If we can believe an article published in March 1923 in the Münchener Post—a partisan Social Democratic newspaper but one that was generally well informed about the nascent National Socialist movement—his responsibilities eventually went further than that. According to the article, he also acted as a go-between with the propaganda department of this regiment and the revolutionary regime. The article claimed that Hitler took an active role in the work of the department, giving talks and made the case for the republic.

Despite his subsequent reputation for anti-Marxist tirades, Hitler did not fight or oppose the communists during this time, as some might presume. He was serving them, although he later shared few details about this period in his life. One thing seems certain: Hitler did not try to escape from the political thicket in Munich, nor did he join the anti-Bolshevik armed forces of General Franz Ritter von Epp.

It appears that Hitler’s involvement with the communist-run Bavarian Soviet Republic (Bayerische Räterepublik in German) demonstrates some type of commitment to communism. After all, Hitler held an elected position during the red Räterepublik government that was under the complete control of the Communist Party of Germany. He did not flee or resign his position.

Hitler had allied with the Communist Party of Germany against the Social Democrats in support of a workers’ wage dispute. In that labor dispute, Hitler’s ‘brownshirts’ and red-flag-waving communists marched side by side through the streets of Berlin and damaged any buses whose drivers had failed to participate in the worker’s strike. Alongside the communists, Nazis ripped up tram lines, stood together, ‘shouted in unison,’ and ‘rattled their collecting tins’ to get donations for their strike funds in support of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) for the communists and National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (NSBO) for the Nazis.

Whatever his inner thoughts and intentions, Hitler now had to serve as a representative of his unit within the new Soviet regime. By his willingness to run for office as Bataillons-Rat, he had become even more significant cog in the machine of Socialism than previously had been the case. Hitler’s actions helped sustain the Soviet Republic.

Being that soldiers, who overwhelmingly had voted for the SPD in the Bavarian elections in January 1919, had elected Hitler as their representative, that Hitler’s closest companion during the revolution had been a member of an SPD-affiliated union; and that the SPD under Erhard Auer had stood against international socialism and cooperated on many an occasion with conservative and centrist groups, one thing is quite clear: Hitler had stood close to the SPD but either had missed the opportunity or lacked the willpower to jump ship after the establishment of the second Soviet Republic.