Obviously Nazi has been a term recently used to describe people on the far right of the political spectrum. This seems to be correct as people such as Neo-Nazi's are most definitely very far right. But looking back to the 1930's it seems that the Nazi party aligns more on the left of the political spectrum at that time. They were a socialist policy and it seems that the state took over many aspects of life. Not based on how they are viewed now, how would they be considered then? Where did their ideology fall? (Clearly this isn't meant to be supportive of the Nazis in anyway i'm merely wondering how the politics at the time would have viewed them if that makes sense.)
This discussion pops up now and then on reddit and other social media and focus always seems to be the same, a question about where the nazis stood on the political scale of pre-WW2 Germany, often with the insinuation that they were in fact on the left side of the political spectrum because of their social policies.
Let us put one thing straight before we even get into this. The german welfare state predates the political climate of 1930's Germany by far. Much of it is the product of Otto von Bismarcks government and it was implemented in no small part in response to the rise of leftism/internationalism in all of Europe at the time. These social reforms were more or less directly a response to leftist demands. An attempt, if you will, to take the wind out of their sails by adressing some of their most popular talking points. Once implemented, these institutions and policies became very much a part of the German political climate and all parties in Germany at the time had them as part of their platform in one form or another.
As such, the inclusion of the German welfare state in the political platform does not help in any way to place a party to the left or right of the political spectrum of Germany in the 1930's. The discussion only makes sense if you try to impose a modern, predominantly US, understanding of social policies to the political spectrum of Germany in the 1930's but if you do, the answer is that ALL parties on the political spectrum were leftists by that definition which makes no sense. It would be akin to saying both political parties in the US today are equally far to the right because both support liberal market capitalism. They clearly are not, liberal market capitalism is just a fundament of the US political landscape.
So, before we try to answer this, the social polcies of the NSDAP does not place them on the left side of the German political spectrum. We clear on this? Good.
Now to answer your actual question. Where were they on the political specturm?
Authoritarian. I would hesitate to call them left or right at all because they had no real strong leaning in either directions by modern standards, however, the measures taken against the German socialists, unions and indeed the leftist faction of the NSDAP (at Bamberg in -26 and during the purges in -34) were harsher by orders of magnitude than they ever were against the right wing of the NSDAP or followers of the right wing parties in 1930's Germany. So against this background, strongly authoritarian, right of center.