Not surprisingly, some of the first measures enacted after the Nazis came to power were aimed at alleviating the threat, felt by the majority of Germ… - Götz Aly

In 1894, historian Theodor Mommsen wrote that the root cause of the anti-Semitic ‘affliction’ was ‘envy and the basest instincts,… a barbaric hatred for education, freedom, and humanism.’

Another source of the Nazi Party’s popularity was its liberal borrowing from the intellectual tradition of the socialist left. Many of the men who would become the movement’s leaders had been involved in communist and socialist circles.

Many property owners feared they would be ‘fleeced’ by government rent controls, compulsory reserve funds, or increases in the basic real estate tax. Indeed, a few months later, Economics Minister Walther Funk announced: ‘So-called real value assets [Substanzwerte] will represent an especially lucrative source of state revenue after the war.’ And in early 1944, Reich economists began discussing new ways ‘to better exploit property owners to cover state debts.’ Polemics against landlords continued to appear in party organs such as Das schwarze Korps, the official newspaper of the SS.