Das ist halt so ein persistenter, gefährlicher Irrtum...

They were strongly capitalist. The Nazis placed great emphasis on private property and free competition. It’s true that they intervened in the free market, but it was also a time of a systemic failure of capitalism on a global scale. Almost all states intervened in the market at the time, and they did so to save the capitalist system from itself. This has nothing to do with socialist sentiment: it was pro-capitalist. In a way, there’s a parallel there with the way big banks were bailed out by governments after the 2008 financial crisis broke out. That, of course, did not reflect socialist intentions in any way, either. It was merely an attempt to stabilize the system a little bit.

Q: But don’t capitalists always want as much freedom as possible?

A: Not necessarily. State interventions at that time took place in agreement with industry. The capitalists even demanded it, because free-market policies are not always in the best interest of capitalists. They sometimes need the state to succor the free market. So, interventions were not simply imposed on the economy by the fascists — it was a consensual development reflecting requirements by many important sections of industry. The goal was essentially to steer the system in favor of big business.

Fast so, als ob das heute wieder der Fall ist.