Quoting Karsten Heinz Schönbach’s ‘Hitler and the German Coal Industrialists: Passing the Keys to A Kingdom’, pages 28–9:

“While the NSDAP had placed the anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist slogans and the nationalist side of its program at the center of its struggle in the earlier years, it has recently emphasized its social revolutionary goals and the struggle against the bourgeoisie and capitalism.”¹³⁴

These sentences come from a report by the police in Germany, which investigated the NSDAP’s election rallies and election propaganda in the course of the Reichstag elections of 1928. This police report is interesting in several respects, as it clearly states that the NSDAP did not approach voters with anti-Semitism or nationalism, but that it placed “its social revolutionary goals and the fight against the bourgeoisie and capitalism” at the forefront of its agitation. The much-vaunted anti-Semitism had obviously not attracted voters in previous years.

It was only logical to focus on “social revolutionary goals and the fight against the bourgeoisie and capitalism”, as the NSDAP claimed to be a “workers’ party”. From 1928 onwards, it tried to appear as such. The NSDAP leader Joseph Goebbels promised voters “German” or "national socialism”. He wrote, for example, about the so-called “National Socialism”:

“It is about more, and we solemnly declare that we have not come to fob off the worker with small makeshift remedies, but on the contrary, to solve the question of the liberation of the working man from the ground up.”¹³⁵

This seemingly anti-capitalist agitation led to misunderstandings, as the coal industrialists in particular were very sensitive in their struggle with the labor movement. And indeed, this led to resentment even in the camp of the most convinced Hitler supporters. Even Kirdorf himself wrote an angry letter to the Reich leadership of the NSDAP in which he resigned from his membership in the NSDAP, which he had only recently joined.¹³⁶ Some industrialists accused Hitler of having socialist ideas.¹³⁷

This misunderstanding forced Hitler to undertake another trip through the Ruhr region in order to inform the industrialists about the purely agitational nature of this election propaganda and to calm the waves.¹³⁸ A police report provided information on this, which continued to keep a close eye on the activities of the NSDAP. The police report stated:

“The leader of the NSDAP, Adolf Hitler, is said to have visited Essen several times (about three times) in recent months for negotiations with the leading men of the Ruhr large-scale industry. He is said to have arrived here in his own car on these visits, but used a car provided by an industrialist to travel within the city. The negotiations are said to have been conducted with the general counsel of the ‘Association for Mining Interests’ in Essen, mining assessor Dr. von und zu Löwenstein, with the assistance of several other gentlemen who are not known by name. Following an election meeting in Essen on August 15, 1930, Hitler is said to have stayed with Mr. von und zu Löwenstein.”¹³⁹

The aim of the “negotiations with the leading men of Ruhr-Gross-Industrie” was described in the police report as follows:

“The purpose of the negotiations was twofold: to inform big industry about Hitler’s actual position on the various labor issues, and to raise funds for the NSDAP from industry.”¹⁴⁰

According to this police report, Hitler explained to the Ruhr industrialists that “…today’s propaganda must not be made the basis of the practice to be practiced later. The attitude of today’s propaganda was necessary in order to withdraw the working masses from Marxism and to attract them to the NSDAP”, because the “actual position of the NSDAP” on the political questions of the German working class was “different from what is expressed in the present propaganda”.¹⁴¹

According to the police report, Hitler succeeded in convincing the Ruhr industrialists of the necessity of this propaganda strategy. The police report states:

“On the basis of this view of Hitler, which was closer to the employer’s point of view, some gentlemen of big industry made very substantial funds available to Hitler, namely two donations amounting to 700,000 and 400,000 RM. These contributions were not transferred directly from the donor to the recipient, but passed through the accounts of two inconspicuous intermediaries.”¹⁴²

This police report has been qualified by recent research as absolutely authentic, even if the exact reproduction of the sums of money mentioned remains questionable.¹⁴³

Ultimately, the decisive factor in this development is that Hitler succeeded in convincing the Ruhr industrialists of the necessity of this NSDAP propaganda strategy. Rudolf Hess also reported on the success of Hitler’s campaign as follows:

“Probably the best thing that H[itler] accomplished recently was a speech to about 25 of Germany’s leading economists (industrialists), after which almost all of them subscribed to his views…”¹⁴⁴

Quoting James E. Pool & Suzanne Pool’s Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler’s Rise to Power, 1919–1933, pages 339–340:

Big businessmen were undoubtedly interested in Hitler’s social welfare policy and his views on the Jews, but what concerned them most was the question of capitalism and free enterprise. At first Dietrich himself was disturbed by Nazi slogans about “eliminating unearned income” and “smashing the bondage of interest.”

After discussing economic matters with Hitler at some length, Dietrich was reassured. He later wrote: “Hitler accepted private property and the role of capital in modern economic life because he recognized these as the economic foundations of our culture.” He opposed only the abuse of capitalism, but not capitalism in principle.

Although “smashing interest slavery” was one of the points of the [NSDAP’s] program, Hitler recognized that he could not eliminate the system of interest from the economy, “without undermining his own political existence.”⁹

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

Making empty threats against the upper classes was not the exclusive domain of the German Fascists, as we can see by Trump’s meaningless threats against ‘the élites’ despite being an élite himself. One cannot serve two masters; it’s theatre, and the upper classes know that.