I know this is definitely a dumb question, but I'm trying to follow along with the readings on one of my elective units for uni (a history one about the Holocaust, never studied anything about it before, excluding on a basic high school level) and I'm getting really confused. If the Nazi's were the National Socialists, why did they hate the socialists, communists and other left parties? Also where does capitalism fit in? I'm so embarrassed to be asking this, but I'm not finding anything useful with google searches!
Hi, hopefully someone can provide you with targeted answers to your questions, but just fyi, there have been a few posts on the politics of NSDAP, so you may find something to help get you started in these
Why did the Nazis first label themselves as the National Socialist Party if their fascist ideas were the furthest thing from socialism? - /u/kieslowskifan takes a long look at national socialism within the context of NSDAP, and makes some follow-up comments in this thread In Martin Niemoller's poem "First they came for the socialists," weren't the Nazis self-proclaimed socialists? Why the contradiction?
Where did the idea that Nazism and Fascism are politically "right," whereas Socialism and Communism are politically "left" come from? - /u/adimwit pulls apart fascism, socialism and communism
What exactly makes the Nazis not Socialist? Isn't it in their name? - a discussion thread focussing on the difference between national socialism and socialism
and there's more in this FAQ section How Socialist was National Socialism?
These posts have been archived by now, so if you have follow-up questions for any of the users, just ask them here and tag their username to notify them
The Nazis (NDSAP) called themselves national socialists, which is almost entirely different from socialism/socialists. Socialists seek to transfer the means of production to the workers, I.e. abolishing private property (Capitalism and Socialism are diametrically opposed to each other). The national socialists did not want to abolish private property, and the national socialist ideology is not so focused on economics, but rather on far-right social and governmental policies. The national socialists were emblematic of a political ideology called Fascism. Fascism is typically characterized by intense nationalism (Germans first, in the case of the Nazis), fierce resistance to other ideologies ("Democracies" and the Comintern) as well as warmongering and the set up of a "police state."
The Nazis were particularly adverse to communism because of an idea called the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy which asserted that the Soviet Union ( one of the only socialist countries ) was collaborating / being controlled by a Jewish 'illuminati' of sorts.
Sorry for the rambling, let me know if you have other questions.