It doesn’t help that the history books repeatedly refer to the Nazi’s a “right wing” party.
They can’t comprehend that the Nazi Party stood for NATIONAL SOCIALIST PARTY, well in German, but you get the idea. It was a SOCIALIST PARTY.
And that’s what I hit them with first. When they hear the word “socialist” used to define “Nazi,” they usually pause knowing they’re about to take one on the chin, because so much of social policy falls out of a centrally managed economy.
Correctamundo.
The key ideological driver in both Communism and Nazism is the welfare of the People -- Volk in German, Narod in Russian -- narodny this, narodny that got stamped all over everything in Russia after the Bolsheviks took over.
That's the main discriminator between the Leftist Nazis and Communists, on the one hand, and Italian and Spanish Fascists and Phalangists on the other, for whom the preservation and empowerment of the State represented the highest value instead.
Germans and Italians collaborated during the war and even convened "fascist courts" to try traitors to the cause like Count Ciano, after Italy left the war, arrested Mussolini, and was promptly occupied by the Germans. But Germans and Italians alike always understood and were aware of the theoretical differences between Italian fascism and German Nazism.