“Nazis” chose a very cynical and dangerous “getürk” name for themselves, which The Atlantic in March 1932 plainly explained to American readers (who then headed to the polls to elect Franklin D. Roosevelt their President).

…[Hitler] reorganized in 1926 as the National Socialist German Laborers Party of to day.

This new party Nazi, or Fascist, it is commonly called is ‘National’ because Hitler’s fundamental ideal is nationalism. It is ‘Socialist’ (in Hitler’s own meaning of the word) because he saw that the people would have to be made comfortable before they would listen to his gospel. It is ‘German’ because his national aspirations are for Germans only. It is a ‘Laborers’ party because Hitler intended to appeal particularly to the laboring masses.

What were some notable attributes of the deceptively named National Socialist German Laborers Party, as revealed in 1932 reporting?

One, an inability to share risk, distrust in all credit handling he didn’t run; Hitler described trust in any financial systems as a devastating loss of his own absolute control.

Hitler fears the banks and all newfangled ideas for controlling credit. He objects to stock companies and stresses the value of personal ownership. In short, he believes in the ruthless subordination of economic interests and economic leaders to racial and national considerations.

Two, the subjugation of truth to whatever political or economic aims Hitler cooked up as lies, to shape and curate public sentiment with propaganda, meant to stoke faith in his latest messaging (saturated with “social” fantasies and false fears).

In Hitler’s mind the word ‘propaganda’ seems to bear no relation whatever to truth. The mass of mankind is an instrument to be played upon, nothing more. Propaganda is a means of making people believe what is for the moment effective in moving them to do what he wishes. No moral considerations are involved. His mind is in the herd stage, and he is as grossly material in his politics as Freud in his psychology. Utterly contemptuous of the intelligence of the people, he seems quite to ignore the unwholesome aftereffects of a diet of lies. He is deliberately building upon the weakness of the mass mind, and in this he proves himself a genuine demagogue — honest, no doubt, in believing that what he does is for the general good, demagogue just the same.

That reminds me of a certain doctored photograph.