"Why," I asked Hitler, "do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?"
"Socialism," he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.
"Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is patriotic.
"We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national. We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one."
- Interview of Adolf Hitler by George Sylvester Viereck, took place in 1923. It was republished in Liberty magazine in July 1932.
"You cannot be a true nationalist without also being a socialist; you others cannot be true socialists without also being nationalists.
To be a nationalist means loving one's own people more than all others, and to work to be sure that it can hold its own among them. If this people is to hold its own against the rest of the world, I must wish and work for the health of each member, to see that things go as well as possible for each individual, and therefore the whole. But then I am a socialist!"
- Adolf Hitler
