MEINKAMPF
Adolf Hitler
HURST AND BLACKETTLTD.,
Publishers since 1812
LONDON • NEW YORK • MELBOURNE
was first published onMarch 21st, 1939
Volume I: A RETROSPECT
Volume II: THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT
Volume II:
THENATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT
CHAPTER I
On February 24th, 1920, the firstgreat mass meeting under the auspices of the new movement took place. In theBanquet Hall of the Hofbräuhaus in Munich the twenty-five theses whichconstituted the programme of our new party were expounded to an audience ofnearly two thousand people and each thesis was enthusiastically received.
Thus we brought to the knowledgeof the public those first principles and lines of action along which the newstruggle was to be conducted for the abolition of a confused mass of obsoleteideas and opinions which had obscure and often pernicious tendencies. A newforce was to make its appearance among the timid and feckless bourgeoisie. Thisforce was destined to impede the triumphant advance of the Marxists and bringthe Chariot of Fate to a standstill just as it seemed about to reach its goal.
It was evident that this newmovement could gain the public significance and support which are necessarypre-requisites in such a gigantic struggle only if it succeeded from the veryoutset in awakening a sacrosanct conviction in the hearts of its followers,that here it was not a case of introducing a new electoral slogan into thepolitical field but that an entirely new Weltanschhauung, which was of aradical significance, had to be promoted.
One must try to recall themiserable jumble of opinions that used to be arrayed side by side to form theusual Party Programme, as it was called, and one must remember how theseopinions used to be brushed up or dressed in a new form from time to time. Ifwe would properly understand these programmatic monstrosities we must carefullyinvestigate the motives which inspired the average bourgeois ‘programmecommittee’.
Those people are always influencedby one and the same preoccupation when they introduce something new into theirprogramme or modify something already contained in it. That preoccupation isdirected towards the results of the next election. The moment these artists inparliamentary government have the first glimmering of a suspicion that theirdarling public may be ready to kick up its heels and escape from the harness ofthe old party wagon they begin to paint the shafts with new colours. On suchoccasions the party astrologists and horoscope readers, the so-called‘experienced men’ and ‘experts’, come forward. For the most part they are oldparliamentary hands whose political schooling has furnished them with ampleexperience. They can remember former occasions when the masses showed signs oflosing patience and they now diagnose the menace of a similar situationarising. Resorting to their old prescription, they form a ‘committee’. They goaround among the darling public and listen to what is being said. They diptheir noses into the newspapers and gradually begin to scent what it is thattheir darlings, the broad masses, are wishing for, what they reject and whatthey are hoping for. The groups that belong to each trade or business, and evenoffice employees, are carefully studied and their innermost desires areinvestigated. The ‘malicious slogans’ of the opposition from which danger isthreatened are now suddenly looked upon as worthy of reconsideration, and itoften happens that these slogans, to the great astonishment of those whooriginally coined and circulated them, now appear to be quite harmless andindeed are to be found among the dogmas of the old parties.
So the committees meet to revisethe old programme and draw up a new one.
For these people change theirconvictions just as the soldier changes his shirt in war – when the old one isbug-eaten. In the new programme everyone gets everything he wants. The farmeris assured that the interests of agriculture will be safeguarded. Theindustrialist is assured of protection for his products. The consumer isassured that his interests will be protected in the market prices. Teachers aregiven higher salaries and civil servants will have better pensions. Widows andorphans will receive generous assistance from the State. Trade will bepromoted. The tariff will be lowered and even the taxes, though they cannot beentirely abolished, will be almost abolished. It sometimes happens that onesection of the public is forgotten or that one of the demands mooted among thepublic has not reached the ears of the party. This is also hurriedly patched onto the whole, should there be any space available for it: until finally it isfelt that there are good grounds for hoping that the whole normal host ofphilistines, including their wives, will have their anxieties laid to rest andwill beam with satisfaction once again. And so, internally armed with faith inthe goodness of God and the impenetrable stupidity of the electorate, thestruggle for what is called ‘the reconstruction of the Reich’ can now begin.
When the election day is over andthe parliamentarians have held their last public meeting for the next fiveyears, when they can leave their job of getting the populace to toe the lineand can now devote themselves to higher and more pleasing tasks – then theprogramme committee is dissolved and the struggle for the progressivereorganization of public affairs becomes once again a business of earning one’sdaily bread, which for the parliamentarians means merely the attendance that isrequired in order to be able to draw their daily remunerations. Morning aftermorning the honourable deputy wends his way to the House, and though he may notenter the Chamber itself he gets at least as far as the front hall, where hewill find the register on which the names of the deputies in attendance have tobe inscribed. As a part of his onerous service to his constituents he entershis name, and in return receives a small indemnity as a well-earned reward forhis unceasing and exhausting labours.
When four years have passed, or inthe meantime if there should be some critical weeks during which theparliamentary corporations have to face the danger of being dissolved, thesehonourable gentlemen become suddenly seized by an irresistible desire to act.Just as the grub-worm cannot help growing into a cock-chafer, theseparliamentarian worms leave the great House of Puppets and flutter on new wingsout among the beloved public. They address the electors once again, give anaccount of the enormous labours they have accomplished and emphasize themalicious obstinacy of their opponents. They do not always meet with gratefulapplause; for occasionally the unintelligent masses throw rude and unfriendlyremarks in their faces. When this spirit of public ingratitude reaches acertain pitch there is only one way of saving the situation. The prestige ofthe party must be burnished up again. The programme has to be amended. Thecommittee is called into existence once again. And the swindle begins anew.Once we understand the impenetrable stupidity of our public we cannot besurprised that such tactics turn out successful. Led by the Press and blindedonce again by the alluring appearance of the new programme, the bourgeois aswell as the proletarian herds of voters faithfully return to the common stalland re-elect their old deceivers. The ‘people’s man’ and labour candidate nowchange back again into the parliamentarian grub and become fat and rotund asthey batten on the leaves that grow on the tree of public life – to beretransformed into the glittering butterfly after another four years havepassed.
Scarcely anything else can be sodepressing as to watch this process in sober reality and to be the eyewitnessof this repeatedly recurring fraud. On a spiritual training ground of that kindit is not possible for the bourgeois forces to develop the strength which isnecessary to carry on the fight against the organized might of Marxism. Indeedthey have never seriously thought of doing so. Though these parliamentaryquacks who represent the white race are generally recognized as persons ofquite inferior mental capacity, they are shrewd enough to know that they couldnot seriously entertain the hope of being able to use the weapon of WesternDemocracy to fight a doctrine for the advance of which Western Democracy, withall its accessories, is employed as a means to an end. Democracy is exploitedby the Marxists for the purpose of paralysing their opponents and gaining forthemselves a free hand to put their own methods into action. When certaingroups of Marxists use all their ingenuity for the time being to make it bebelieved that they are inseparably attached to the principles of democracy, itmay be well to recall the fact that when critical occasions arose these samegentlemen snapped their fingers at the principle of decision by majority vote,as that principle is understood by Western Democracy. Such was the case inthose days when the bourgeois parliamentarians, in their monumentalshortsightedness, believed that the security of the Reich was guaranteedbecause it had an overwhelming numerical majority in its favour, and theMarxists did not hesitate suddenly to grasp supreme power in their own hands,backed by a mob of loafers, deserters, political place-hunters and Jewishdilettanti. That was a blow in the face for that democracy in which so manyparliamentarians believed. Only those credulous parliamentary wizards whorepresented bourgeois democracy could have believed that the brutaldetermination of those whose interest it is to spread the Marxist world-pest,of which they are the carriers, could for a moment, now or in the future, beheld in check by the magical formulas of Western Parliamentarianism. Marxismwill march shoulder to shoulder with democracy until it succeeds indirectly insecuring for its own criminal purposes even the support of those whose mindsare nationally orientated and whom Marxism strives to exterminate. But if the Marxistsshould one day come to believe that there was a danger that from this witch’scauldron of our parliamentary democracy a majority vote might be concocted,which by reason of its numerical majority would be empowered to enactlegislation and might use that power seriously to combat Marxism, then thewhole parliamentarian hocus-pocus would be at an end. Instead of appealing tothe democratic conscience, the standard bearers of the Red International wouldimmediately send forth a furious rallying-cry among the proletarian masses andthe ensuing fight would not take place in the sedate atmosphere of Parliamentbut in the factories and the streets. Then democracy would be annihilatedforthwith. And what the intellectual prowess of the apostles who representedthe people in Parliament had failed to accomplish would now be successfullycarried out by the crow-bar and the sledge-hammer of the exasperatedproletarian masses – just as in the autumn of 1918. At a blow they would awakenthe bourgeois world to see the madness of thinking that the Jewish drivetowards world-conquest can be effectually opposed by means of WesternDemocracy.
As I have said, only a verycredulous soul could think of binding himself to observe the rules of the gamewhen he has to face a player for whom those rules are nothing but a mere bluffor a means of serving his own interests, which means he will discard them whenthey prove no longer useful for his purpose.
All the parties that professso-called bourgeois principles look upon political life as in reality astruggle for seats in Parliament. The moment their principles and convictionsare of no further use in that struggle they are thrown overboard, as if theywere sand ballast. And the programmes are constructed in such a way that theycan be dealt with in like manner. But such practice has a correspondinglyweakening effect on the strength of those parties. They lack the great magneticforce which alone attracts the broad masses; for these masses always respond tothe compelling force which emanates from absolute faith in the ideas putforward, combined with an indomitable zest to fight for and defend them.
At a time in which the one side,armed with all the fighting power that springs from a systematic conception oflife – even though it be criminal in a thousand ways – makes an attack againstthe established order the other side will be able to resist when it draws itsstrength from a new faith, which in our case is a political faith. This faithmust supersede the weak and cowardly command to defend. In its stead we mustraise the battle-cry of a courageous and ruthless attack. Our present movementis accused, especially by the so-called national bourgeois cabinet ministers –the Bavarian representatives of the Centre, for example – of heading towards arevolution. We have one answer to give to those political pigmies. We say tothem: We are trying to make up for that which you, in your criminal stupidity,have failed to carry out. By your parliamentarian jobbing you have helped to dragthe nation into ruin. But we, by our aggressive policy, are setting up a new Weltanschhauungwhich we shall defend with indomitable devotion. Thus we are building the stepson which our nation once again may ascend to the temple of freedom.
And so during the first stages offounding our movement we had to take special care that our militant group whichfought for the establishment of a new and exalted political faith should notdegenerate into a society for the promotion of parliamentarian interests.
The first preventive measure wasto lay down a programme which of itself would tend towards developing a certainmoral greatness that would scare away all the petty and weakling spirits whomake up the bulk of our present party politicians.
Those fatal defects which finallyled to Germany’s downfall afford the clearest proof of how right we were inconsidering it absolutely necessary to set up programmatic aims which weresharply and distinctly defined.
Because we recognized the defectsabove mentioned, we realized that a new conception of the State had to beformed, which in itself became a part of our new conception of life in general.
In the first volume of this book Ihave already dealt with the term völkisch, and I said then that this term hasnot a sufficiently precise meaning to furnish the kernel around which a closelyconsolidated militant community could be formed. All kinds of people, with allkinds of divergent opinions, are parading about at the present moment under thedevice völkisch on their banners. Before I come to deal with the purposes andaims of the National Socialist Labour Party I want to establish a clearunderstanding of what is meant by the concept völkisch and herewith explain itsrelation to our party movement. The word völkisch does not express any clearlyspecified idea. It may be interpreted in several ways and in practicalapplication it is just as general as the word ‘religious’, for instance. It isdifficult to attach any precise meaning to this latter word, either as atheoretical concept or as a guiding principle in practical life. The word‘religious’ acquires a precise meaning only when it is associated with adistinct and definite form through which the concept is put into practice. Tosay that a person is ‘deeply religious’ may be very fine phraseology; but,generally speaking, it tells us little or nothing. There may be some few peoplewho are content with such a vague description and there may even be some towhom the word conveys a more or less definite picture of the inner quality of aperson thus described. But, since the masses of the people are not composed ofphilosophers or saints, such a vague religious idea will mean for them nothingelse than to justify each individual in thinking and acting according to hisown bent. It will not lead to that practical faith into which the innerreligious yearning is transformed only when it leaves the sphere of generalmetaphysical ideas and is moulded to a definite dogmatic belief. Such a beliefis certainly not an end in itself, but the means to an end. Yet it is a meanswithout which the end could never be reached at all. This end, however, is notmerely something ideal; for at the bottom it is eminently practical. We mustalways bear in mind the fact that, generally speaking, the highest ideals arealways the outcome of some profound vital need, just as the most sublime beautyowes its nobility of shape, in the last analysis, to the fact that the mostbeautiful form is the form that is best suited to the purpose it is meant toserve.
By helping to lift the human beingabove the level of mere animal existence, Faith really contributes toconsolidate and safeguard its own existence. Taking humanity as it existsto-day and taking into consideration the fact that the religious beliefs whichit generally holds and which have been consolidated through our education, sothat they serve as moral standards in practical life, if we should now abolishreligious teaching and not replace it by anything of equal value the resultwould be that the foundations of human existence would be seriously shaken. Wemay safely say that man does not live merely to serve higher ideals, but thatthese ideals, in their turn, furnish the necessary conditions of his existenceas a human being. And thus the circle is closed.
Of course, the word ‘religious’implies some ideas and beliefs that are fundamental. Among these we may reckonthe belief in the immortality of the soul, its future existence in eternity,the belief in the existence of a Higher Being, and so on. But all these ideas,no matter how firmly the individual believes in them, may be criticallyanalysed by any person and accepted or rejected accordingly, until theemotional concept or yearning has been transformed into an active service thatis governed by a clearly defined doctrinal faith. Such a faith furnishes thepractical outlet for religious feeling to express itself and thus opens the waythrough which it can be put into practice.
Without a clearly defined belief,the religious feeling would not only be worthless for the purposes of humanexistence but even might contribute towards a general disorganization, onaccount of its vague and multifarious tendencies.
What I have said about the word‘religious’ can also be applied to the term völkisch. This word also impliescertain fundamental ideas. Though these ideas are very important indeed, theyassume such vague and indefinite forms that they cannot be estimated as havinga greater value than mere opinions, until they become constituent elements inthe structure of a political party. For in order to give practical force to theideals that grow out of a Weltanschhauung and to answer the demandswhich are a logical consequence of such ideals, mere sentiment and innerlonging are of no practical assistance, just as freedom cannot be won by auniversal yearning for it. No. Only when the idealistic longing forindependence is organized in such a way that it can fight for its ideal withmilitary force, only then can the urgent wish of a people be transformed into apotent reality.
Any Weltanschhauung, thougha thousandfold right and supremely beneficial to humanity, will be of nopractical service for the maintenance of a people as long as its principleshave not yet become the rallying point of a militant movement. And, on its ownside, this movement will remain a mere party until is has brought its ideals tovictory and transformed its party doctrines into the new foundations of a Statewhich gives the national community its final shape.
If an abstract conception of ageneral nature is to serve as the basis of a future development, then the firstprerequisite is to form a clear understanding of the nature and character andscope of this conception. For only on such a basis can a movement he foundedwhich will be able to draw the necessary fighting strength from the internalcohesion of its principles and convictions. From general ideas a politicalprogramme must be constructed and a general Weltanschhauung must receivethe stamp of a definite political faith. Since this faith must be directedtowards ends that have to be attained in the world of practical reality, notonly must it serve the general ideal as such but it must also take intoconsideration the means that have to be employed for the triumph of the ideal.Here the practical wisdom of the statesman must come to the assistance of theabstract idea, which is correct in itself. In that way an eternal ideal, whichhas everlasting significance as a guiding star to mankind, must be adapted tothe exigencies of human frailty so that its practical effect may not befrustrated at the very outset through those shortcomings which are general tomankind. The exponent of truth must here go hand in hand with him who has apractical knowledge of the soul of the people, so that from the realm ofeternal verities and ideals what is suited to the capacities of human naturemay be selected and given practical form. To take abstract and generalprinciples, derived from a Weltanschhauung which is based on a solidfoundation of truth, and transform them into a militant community whose membershave the same political faith – a community which is precisely defined, rigidlyorganized, of one mind and one will – such a transformation is the most importanttask of all; for the possibility of successfully carrying out the idea isdependent on the successful fulfilment of that task. Out of the army ofmillions who feel the truth of these ideas, and even may understand them tosome extent, one man must arise. This man must have the gift of being able toexpound general ideas in a clear and definite form, and, from the world ofvague ideas shimmering before the minds of the masses, he must formulateprinciples that will be as clear-cut and firm as granite. He must fight forthese principles as the only true ones, until a solid rock of common faith andcommon will emerges above the troubled waves of vagrant ideas. The generaljustification of such action is to be sought in the necessity for it and theindividual will be justified by his success.
If we try to penetrate to theinner meaning of the word völkisch we arrive at the following conclusions:
The current political conceptionof the world is that the State, though it possesses a creative force which canbuild up civilizations, has nothing in common with the concept of race as thefoundation of the State. The State is considered rather as something which hasresulted from economic necessity, or, at best, the natural outcome of the playof political forces and impulses. Such a conception of the foundations of theState, together with all its logical consequences, not only ignores theprimordial racial forces that underlie the State, but it also leads to a policyin which the importance of the individual is minimized. If it be denied thatraces differ from one another in their powers of cultural creativeness, thenthis same erroneous notion must necessarily influence our estimation of thevalue of the individual. The assumption that all races are alike leads to theassumption that nations and individuals are equal to one another. Andinternational Marxism is nothing but the application – effected by the Jew,Karl Marx – of a general conception of life to a definite profession ofpolitical faith; but in reality that general concept had existed long beforethe time of Karl Marx. If it had not already existed as a widely diffusedinfection the amazing political progress of the Marxist teaching would neverhave been possible. In reality what distinguished Karl Marx from the millionswho were affected in the same way was that, in a world already in a state ofgradual decomposition, he used his keen powers of prognosis to detect theessential poisons, so as to extract them and concentrate them, with the art ofa necromancer, in a solution which would bring about the rapid destruction ofthe independent nations on the globe. But all this was done in the service ofhis race.
Thus the Marxist doctrine is theconcentrated extract of the mentality which underlies the general concept oflife to-day. For this reason alone it is out of the question and evenridiculous to think that what is called our bourgeois world can put up anyeffective fight against Marxism. For this bourgeois world is permeated with allthose same poisons and its conception of life in general differs from Marxismonly in degree and in the character of the persons who hold it. The bourgeoisworld is Marxist but believes in the possibility of a certain group of people –that is to say, the bourgeoisie – being able to dominate the world, whileMarxism itself systematically aims at delivering the world into the hands ofthe Jews.
Over against all this, thevölkisch concept of the world recognizes that the primordial racial elementsare of the greatest significance for mankind. In principle, the State is lookedupon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation of the racialcharacteristics of mankind. Therefore on the völkisch principle we cannot admitthat one race is equal to another. By recognizing that they are different, thevölkisch concept separates mankind into races of superior and inferior quality.On the basis of this recognition it feels bound in conformity with the eternalWill that dominates the universe, to postulate the victory of the better andstronger and the subordination of the inferior and weaker. And so it payshomage to the truth that the principle underlying all Nature’s operations isthe aristocratic principle and it believes that this law holds good even downto the last individual organism. It selects individual values from the mass andthus operates as an organizing principle, whereas Marxism acts as adisintegrating solvent. The völkisch belief holds that humanity must have itsideals, because ideals are a necessary condition of human existence itself.But, on the other hand, it denies that an ethical ideal has the right toprevail if it endangers the existence of a race that is the standard-bearer ofa higher ethical ideal. For in a world which would be composed of mongrels andnegroids all ideals of human beauty and nobility and all hopes of an idealizedfuture for our humanity would be lost forever.
On this planet of ours humanculture and civilization are indissolubly bound up with the presence of theAryan. If he should be exterminated or subjugated, then the dark shroud of anew barbarian era would enfold the earth.
To undermine the existence ofhuman culture by exterminating its founders and custodians would be anexecrable crime in the eyes of those who believe that the folk-idea lies at thebasis of human existence. Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand againstthat highest image of God among His creatures would sin against the bountifulCreator of this marvel and would collaborate in the expulsion from Paradise.
Hence the folk concept of theworld is in profound accord with Nature’s will; because it restores the freeplay of the forces which will lead the race through stages of sustainedreciprocal education towards a higher type, until finally the best portion ofmankind will possess the earth and will be free to work in every domain allover the world and even reach spheres that lie outside the earth.
We all feel that in the distantfuture many may be faced with problems which can be solved only by a superior raceof human beings, a race destined to become master of all the other peoples andwhich will have at its disposal the means and resources of the whole world.
It is evident that such a generalsketch of the ideas implied in the folk concept of the world may easily beinterpreted in a thousand different ways. As a matter of fact there is scarcelyone of our recent political movements that does not refer at some point to thisconception of the world. But the fact that this conception of the world stillmaintains its independent existence in face of all the others proves that theirways of looking at life are quite difierent from this. Thus the Marxistconception, directed by a central organization endowed with supreme authority,is opposed by a motley crew of opinions which is not very impressive in face ofthe solid phalanx presented by the enemy. Victory cannot be achieved with suchweak weapons. Only when the international idea, politically organized byMarxism, is confronted by the folk idea, equally well organized in a systematicway and equally well led – only then will the fighting energy in the one campbe able to meet that of the other on an equal footing; and victory will befound on the side of eternal truth.
But a general conception of lifecan never be given an organic embodiment until it is precisely and definitelyformulated. The function which dogma fulfils in religious belief is parallel tothe function which party principles fulfil for a political party which is inthe process of being built up. Therefore, for the conception of life that isbased on the folk idea it is necessary that an instrument be forged which canbe used in fighting for this ideal, similar to the Marxist party organizationwhich clears the way for internationalism.
And this is the aim which theGerman National Socialist Labour Movement pursues.
The folk conception must thereforebe definitely formulated so that it may be organically incorporated in theparty. That is a necessary prerequisite for the success of this idea. And thatit is so is very clearly proved even by the indirect acknowledgment of thosewho oppose such an amalgamation of the folk idea with party principles. Thevery people who never tire of insisting again and again that the conception oflife based on the folk idea can never be the exclusive property of a singlegroup, because it lies dormant or ‘lives’ in myriads of hearts, only confirm bytheir own statements the simple fact that the general presence of such ideas inthe hearts of millions of men has not proved sufficient to impede the victoryof the opposing ideas, which are championed by a political party organized onthe principle of class conflict. If that were not so, the German people oughtalready to have gained a gigantic victory instead of finding themselves on thebrink of the abyss. The international ideology achieved success because it wasorganized in a militant political party which was always ready to take theoffensive. If hitherto the ideas opposed to the international concept have hadto give way before the latter the reason is that they lacked a united front tofight for their cause. A doctrine which forms a definite outlook on life cannotstruggle and triumph by allowing the right of free interpretation of itsgeneral teaching, but only by defining that teaching in certain articles offaith that have to be accepted and incorporating it in a politicalorganization.
Therefore I considered it myspecial duty to extract from the extensive but vague contents of a general Weltanschhauungthe ideas which were essential and give them a more or less dogmatic form.Because of their precise and clear meaning, these ideas are suited to thepurpose of uniting in a common front all those who are ready to accept them asprinciples. In other words: The German National Socialist Labour Party extractsthe essential principles from the general conception of the world which isbased on the folk idea. On these principles it establishes a political doctrinewhich takes into account the practical realities of the day, the nature of thetimes, the available human material and all its deficiencies. Through thispolitical doctrine it is possible to bring great masses of the people into anorganization which is constructed as rigidly as it could be. Such an organizationis the main preliminary that is necessary for the final triumph of this ideal.
CHAPTER II
THE STATE
Already in 1920–1921 certaincircles belonging to the effete bourgeois class accused our movement again and againof taking up a negative attitude towards the modern State. For that reason themotley gang of camp followers attached to the various political parties,representing a heterogeneous conglomeration of political views, assumed theright of utilizing all available means to suppress the protagonists of thisyoung movement which was preaching a new political gospel. Our opponentsdeliberately ignored the fact that the bourgeois class itself stood for nouniform opinion as to what the State really meant and that the bourgeoisie didnot and could not give any coherent definition of this institution. Those whoseduty it is to explain what is meant when we speak of the State, hold chairs inState universities, often in the department of constitutional law, and considerit their highest duty to find explanations and justifications for the more orless fortunate existence of that particular form of State which provides themwith their daily bread. The more absurd such a form of State is the moreobscure and artificial and incomprehensible are the definitions which areadvanced to explain the purpose of its existence. What, for instance, could aroyal and imperial university professor write about the meaning and purpose ofa State in a country whose statal form represented the greatest monstrosity ofthe twentieth century? That would be a difficult undertaking indeed, in view ofthe fact that the contemporary professor of constitutional law is obliged notso much to serve the cause of truth but rather to serve a certain definitepurpose. And this purpose is to defend at all costs the existence of thatmonstrous human mechanism which we now call the State. Nobody can be surprisedif concrete facts are evaded as far as possible when the problem of the Stateis under discussion and if professors adopt the tactics of concealingthemselves in morass of abstract values and duties and purposes which aredescribed as ‘ethical’ and ‘moral’.
Generally speaking, these varioustheorists may be classed in three groups:
1. Those who hold that the Stateis a more or less voluntary association of men who have agreed to set up andobey a ruling authority.
This is numerically the largestgroup. In its ranks are to be found those who worship our present principle oflegalized authority. In their eyes the will of the people has no part whateverin the whole affair. For them the fact that the State exists is sufficientreason to consider it sacred and inviolable. To accept this aberration of thehuman brain one would have to have a sort of canine adoration for what iscalled the authority of the State. In the minds of these people the means issubstituted for the end, by a sort of sleight-of-hand movement. The State nolonger exists for the purpose of serving men but men exist for the purpose ofadoring the authority of the State, which is vested in its functionaries, evendown to the smallest official. So as to prevent this placid and ecstaticadoration from changing into something that might become in any way disturbing,the authority of the State is limited simply to the task of preserving orderand tranquillity. Therewith it is no longer either a means or an end. The Statemust see that public peace and order are preserved and, in their turn, orderand peace must make the existence of the State possible. All life must movebetween these two poles. In Bavaria this view is upheld by the artfulpoliticians of the Bavarian Centre, which is called the ‘Bavarian PopulistParty’. In Austria the Black-and-Yellow legitimists adopt a similar attitude.In the Reich, unfortunately, the so-called conservative elements follow thesame line of thought.
2. The second group is somewhatsmaller in numbers. It includes those who would make the existence of the Statedependent on some conditions at least. They insist that not only should therebe a uniform system of government but also, if possible, that only one languageshould be used, though solely for technical reasons of administration. In thisview the authority of the State is no longer the sole and exclusive end forwhich the State exists. It must also promote the good of its subjects. Ideas of‘freedom’, mostly based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of that word,enter into the concept of the State as it exists in the minds of this group.The form of government is no longer considered inviolable simply because itexists. It must submit to the test of practical efficiency. Its venerable ageno longer protects it from being criticized in the light of modern exigencies.Moreover, in this view the first duty laid upon the State is to guarantee theeconomic well-being of the individual citizens. Hence it is judged from thepractical standpoint and according to general principles based on the idea ofeconomic returns. The chief representatives of this theory of the State are tobe found among the average German bourgeoisie, especially our liberaldemocrats.
3. The third group is numericallythe smallest. In the State they discover a means for the realization oftendencies that arise from a policy of power, on the part of a people who areethnically homogeneous and speak the same language. But those who hold thisview are not clear about what they mean by ‘tendencies arising from a policy ofpower’. A common language is postulated not only because they hope that therebythe State would be furnished with a solid basis for the extension of its poweroutside its own frontiers, but also because they think – though falling into afundamental error by doing so – that such a common language would enable themto carry out a process of nationalization in a definite direction.
During the last century it waslamentable for those who had to witness it, to notice how in these circles Ihave just mentioned the word ‘Germanization’ was frivolously played with,though the practice was often well intended. I well remember how in the days ofmy youth this very term used to give rise to notions which were false to anincredible degree. Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressedthat the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the AustrianSlavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people didnot understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only asregards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization was a process offorcing other people to speak the German language. But it is almostinconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think that a Nigger or aChinaman will become a German because he has learned the German language and iswilling to speak German for the future, and even to cast his vote for a Germanpolitical party. Our bourgeois nationalists could never clearly see that such aprocess of Germanization is in reality de-Germanization; for even if all theoutstanding and visible differences between the various peoples could bebridged over and finally wiped out by the use of a common language, that wouldproduce a process of bastardization which in this case would not signifyGermanization but the annihilation of the German element. In the course ofhistory it has happened only too often that a conquering race succeeded byexternal force in compelling the people whom they subjected to speak the tongueof the conqueror and that after a thousand years their language was spoken byanother people and that thus the conqueror finally turned out to be theconquered.
What makes a people or, to be morecorrect, a race, is not language but blood. Therefore it would be justifiableto speak of Germanization only if that process could change the blood of thepeople who would be subjected to it, which is obviously impossible. A changewould be possible only by a mixture of blood, but in this case the quality ofthe superior race would be debased. The final result of such a mixture would bethat precisely those qualities would be destroyed which had enabled theconquering race to achieve victory over an inferior people. It is especiallythe cultural creativeness which disappears when a superior race intermixes withan inferior one, even though the resultant mongrel race should excel athousandfold in speaking the language of the race that once had been superior.For a certain time there will be a conflict between the different mentalities,and it may be that a nation which is in a state of progressive degenerationwill at the last moment rally its cultural creative power and once againproduce striking examples of that power. But these results are due only to theactivity of elements that have remained over from the superior race or hybridsof the first crossing in whom the superior blood has remained dominant andseeks to assert itself. But this will never happen with the final descendantsof such hybrids. These are always in a state of cultural retrogression.
We must consider it as fortunatethat a Germanization of Austria according to the plan of Joseph II did notsucceed. Probably the result would have been that the Austrian State would havebeen able to survive, but at the same time participation in the use of a commonlanguage would have debased the racial quality of the German element. In thecourse of centuries a certain herd instinct might have been developed but theherd itself would have deteriorated in quality. A national State might havearisen, but a people who had been culturally creative would have disappeared.
For the German nation it wasbetter that this process of intermixture did not take place, although it wasnot renounced for any high-minded reasons but simply through the short-sightedpettiness of the Habsburgs. If it had taken place the German people could notnow be looked upon as a cultural factor.
Not only in Austria, however, butalso in the Reich, these so-called national circles were, and still are, underthe influence of similar erroneous ideas. Unfortunately, a policy towards Poland,whereby the East was to be Germanized, was demanded by many and was based onthe same false reasoning. Here again it was believed that the Polish peoplecould be Germanized by being compelled to use the German language. The resultwould have been fatal. A people of foreign race would have had to use theGerman language to express modes of thought that were foreign to the German,thus compromising by its own inferiority the dignity and nobility of ournation.
It is revolting to think how muchdamage is indirectly done to German prestige to-day through the fact that theGerman patois of the Jews when they enter the United States enables them to beclassed as Germans, because many Americans are quite ignorant of Germanconditions. Among us, nobody would think of taking these unhygienic immigrantsfrom the East for members of the German race and nation merely because theymostly speak German.
What has been beneficiallyGermanized in the course of history was the land which our ancestors conqueredwith the sword and colonized with German tillers of the soil. To the extentthat they introduced foreign blood into our national body in this colonization,they have helped to disintegrate our racial character, a process which hasresulted in our German hyper-individualism, though this latter characteristicis even now frequently praised.
In this third group also there arepeople who, to a certain degree, consider the State as an end in itself. Hencethey consider its preservation as one of the highest aims of human existence.Our analysis may be summed up as follows:
All these opinions have thiscommon feature and failing: that they are not grounded in a recognition of theprofound truth that the capacity for creating cultural values is essentiallybased on the racial element and that, in accordance with this fact, theparamount purpose of the State is to preserve and improve the race; for this isan indispensable condition of all progress in human civilization.
Thus the Jew, Karl Marx, was ableto draw the final conclusions from these false concepts and ideas on the natureand purpose of the State. By eliminating from the concept of the State allthought of the obligation which the State bears towards the race, withoutfinding any other formula that might be universally accepted, the bourgeoisteaching prepared the way for that doctrine which rejects the State as such.
That is why the bourgeois struggleagainst Marxist internationalism is absolutely doomed to fail in this field.The bourgeois classes have already sacrificed the basic principles which alonecould furnish a solid footing for their ideas. Their crafty opponent hasperceived the defects in their structure and advances to the assault on it withthose weapons which they themselves have placed in his hands though not meaningto do so.
Therefore any new movement whichis based on the racial concept of the world will first of all have to putforward a clear and logical doctrine of the nature and purpose of the State.
The fundamental principle is thatthe State is not an end in itself but the means to an end. It is thepreliminary condition under which alone a higher form of human civilization canbe developed, but it is not the source of such a development. This is to besought exclusively in the actual existence of a race which is endowed with thegift of cultural creativeness. There may be hundreds of excellent States onthis earth, and yet if the Aryan, who is the creator and custodian ofcivilization, should disappear, all culture that is on an adequate level withthe spiritual needs of the superior nations to-day would also disappear. We maygo still further and say that the fact that States have been created by humanbeings does not in the least exclude the possiblity that the human race maybecome extinct, because the superior intellectual faculties and powers ofadaptation would be lost when the racial bearer of these faculties and powersdisappeared.
If, for instance, the surface ofthe globe should be shaken to-day by some seismic convulsion and if a newHimalaya would emerge from the waves of the sea, this one catastrophe alonemight annihilate human civilization. No State could exist any longer. All orderwould be shattered. And all vestiges of cultural products which had beenevolved through thousands of years would disappear. Nothing would be left butone tremendous field of death and destruction submerged in floods of water andmud. If, however, just a few people would survive this terrible havoc, and ifthese people belonged to a definite race that had the innate powers to build upa civilization, when the commotion had passed, the earth would again bearwitness to the creative power of the human spirit, even though a span of athousand years might intervene. Only with the extermination of the last racethat possesses the gift of cultural creativeness, and indeed only if all theindividuals of that race had disappeared, would the earth definitely be turnedinto a desert. On the other hand, modern history furnishes examples to showthat statal institutions which owe their beginnings to members of a race whichlacks creative genius are not made of stuff that will endure. Just as manyvarieties of prehistoric animals had to give way to others and leave no tracebehind them, so man will also have to give way, if he loses that definitefaculty which enables him to find the weapons that are necessary for him tomaintain his own existence.
It is not the State as such thatbrings about a certain definite advance in cultural progress. The State canonly protect the race that is the cause of such progress. The State as such maywell exist without undergoing any change for hundreds of years, though thecultural faculties and the general life of the people, which is shaped by thesefaculties, may have suffered profound changes by reason of the fact that theState did not prevent a process of racial mixture from taking place. Thepresent State, for instance, may continue to exist in a mere mechanical form,but the poison of miscegenation permeating the national body brings about acultural decadence which manifests itself already in various symptoms that areof a detrimental character.
Thus the indispensableprerequisite for the existence of a superior quality of human beings is not theState but the race, which is alone capable of producing that higher humanquality.
This capacity is always there,though it will lie dormant unless external circumstances awaken it to action.Nations, or rather races, which are endowed with the faculty of culturalcreativeness possess this faculty in a latent form during periods when theexternal circumstances are unfavourable for the time being and therefore do notallow the faculty to express itself effectively. It is therefore outrageouslyunjust to speak of the pre-Christian Germans as barbarians who had nocivilization. They never have been such. But the severity of the climate thatprevailed in the northern regions which they inhabited imposed conditions oflife which hampered a free development of their creative faculties. If they hadcome to the fairer climate of the South, with no previous culture whatsoever,and if they acquired the necessary human material – that is to say, men of aninferior race – to serve them as working implements, the cultural facultydormant in them would have splendidly blossomed forth, as happened in the caseof the Greeks, for example. But this primordial creative faculty in culturalthings was not solely due to their northern climate. For the Laplanders or theEskimos would not have become creators of a culture if they were transplantedto the South. No, this wonderful creative faculty is a special gift bestowed onthe Aryan, whether it lies dormant in him or becomes active, according as theadverse conditions of nature prevent the active expression of that faculty orfavourable circumstances permit it.
From these facts the followingconclusions may be drawn:
The State is only a means to anend. Its end and its purpose is to preserve and promote a community of humanbeings who are physically as well as spiritually kindred. Above all, it mustpreserve the existence of the race, thereby providing the indispensablecondition for the free development of all the forces dormant in this race. Agreat part of these faculties will always have to be employed in the firstplace to maintain the physical existence of the race, and only a small portionwill be free to work in the field of intellectual progress. But, as a matter offact, the one is always the necessary counterpart of the other.
Those States which do not servethis purpose have no justification for their existence. They are monstrosities.The fact that they do exist is no more of a justification than the successfulraids carried out by a band of pirates can be considered a justification ofpiracy.
We National Socialists, who arefighting for a new Weltanschhauung, must never take our stand on thefamous ‘basis of facts’, and especially not on mistaken facts. If we did so, weshould cease to be the protagonists of a new and great idea and would becomeslaves in the service of the fallacy which is dominant to-day. We must make aclear-cut distinction between the vessel and its contents. The State is onlythe vessel and the race is what it contains. The vessel can have a meaning onlyif it preserves and safeguards the contents. Otherwise it is worthless.
Hence the supreme purpose of theethnical State is to guard and preserve those racial elements which, throughtheir work in the cultural field, create that beauty and dignity which arecharacteristic of a higher mankind. As Aryans, we can consider the State onlyas the living organism of a people, an organism which does not merely maintainthe existence of a people, but functions in such a way as to lead its people toa position of supreme liberty by the progressive development of theintellectual and cultural faculties.
What they want to impose upon usas a State to-day is in most cases nothing but a monstrosity, the product of aprofound human aberration which brings untold suffering in its train.
We National Socialists know thatin holding these views we take up a revolutionary stand in the world of to-dayand that we are branded as revolutionaries. But our views and our conduct willnot be determined by the approbation or disapprobation of our contemporaries,but only by our duty to follow a truth which we have acknowledged. In doingthis we have reason to believe that posterity will have a clearer insight, andwill not only understand the work we are doing to-day, but will also ratify itas the right work and will exalt it accordingly.
On these principles we NationalSocialists base our standards of value in appraising a State. This value willbe relative when viewed from the particular standpoint of the individualnation, but it will be absolute when considered from the standpoint of humanityas a whole. In other words, this means:
That the excellence of a State cannever be judged by the level of its culture or the degree of importance whichthe outside world attaches to its power, but that its excellence must be judgedby the degree to which its institutions serve the racial stock which belongs toit.
A State may be considered as amodel example if it adequately serves not only the vital needs of the racialstock it represents but if it actually assures by its own existence thepreservation of this same racial stock, no matter what general culturalsignificance this statal institution may have in the eyes of the rest of theworld. For it is not the task of the State to create human capabilities, butonly to assure free scope for the exercise of capabilities that already exist.On the other hand, a State may be called bad if, in spite of the existence of ahigh cultural level, it dooms to destruction the bearers of that culture bybreaking up their racial uniformity. For the practical effect of such a policywould be to destroy those conditions that are indispensable for the ulteriorexistence of that culture, which the State did not create but which is thefruit of the creative power inherent in the racial stock whose existence isassured by being united in the living organism of the State. Once again let meemphasize the fact that the State itself is not the substance but the form.Therefore, the cultural level is not the standard by which we can judge thevalue of the State in which that people lives. It is evident that a peoplewhich is endowed with high creative powers in the cultural sphere is of moreworth than a tribe of negroes. And yet the statal organization of the former,if judged from the standpoint of efficiency, may be worse than that of thenegroes. Not even the best of States and statal institutions can evolvefaculties from a people which they lack and which they never possessed, but abad State may gradually destroy the faculties which once existed. This it cando by allowing or favouring the suppression of those who are the bearers of aracial culture.
Therefore, the worth of a Statecan be determined only by asking how far it actually succeeds in promoting thewell-being of a definite race and not by the role which it plays in the worldat large. Its relative worth can be estimated readily and accurately; but it isdifficult to judge its absolute worth, because the latter is conditioned notonly by the State but also by the quality and cultural level of the people thatbelong to the individual State in question.
Therefore, when we speak of thehigh mission of the State we must not forget that the high mission belongs tothe people and that the business of the State is to use its organizing powersfor the purpose of furnishing the necessary conditions which allow this peoplefreely to unfold its creative faculties. And if we ask what kind of statalinstitution we Germans need, we must first have a clear notion as to the peoplewhich that State must embrace and what purpose it must serve.
Unfortunately the German nationalbeing is not based on a uniform racial type. The process of welding theoriginal elements together has not gone so far as to warrant us in saying thata new race has emerged. On the contrary, the poison which has invaded thenational body, especially since the Thirty Years’ War, has destroyed theuniform constitution not only of our blood but also of our national soul. Theopen frontiers of our native country, the association with non-German foreignelements in the territories that lie all along those frontiers, and especiallythe strong influx of foreign blood into the interior of the Reich itself, hasprevented any complete assimilation of those various elements, because theinflux has continued steadily. Out of this melting-pot no new race arose. Theheterogeneous elements continue to exist side by side. And the result is that,especially in times of crisis, when the herd usually flocks together, theGermans disperse in all directions. The fundamental racial elements are notonly different in different districts, but there are also various elements inthe single districts. Beside the Nordic type we find the East-European type,beside the Eastern there is the Dinaric, the Western type intermingling withboth, and hybrids among them all. That is a grave drawback for us. Through itthe Germans lack that strong herd instinct which arises from unity of blood andsaves nations from ruin in dangerous and critical times; because on suchoccasions small differences disappear, so that a united herd faces the enemy.What we understand by the word hyper-individualism arises from the fact thatour primordial racial elements have existed side by side without everconsolidating. During times of peace such a situation may offer someadvantages, but, taken all in all, it has prevented us from gaining a masteryin the world. If in its historical development the German people had possessedthe unity of herd instinct by which other peoples have so much benefited, thenthe German Reich would probably be mistress of the globe to-day. World historywould have taken another course and in this case no man can tell if what manyblinded pacifists hope to attain by petitioning, whining and crying, may nothave been reached in this way: namely, a peace which would not be based uponthe waving of olive branches and tearful misery-mongering of pacifist oldwomen, but a peace that would be guaranteed by the triumphant sword of a peopleendowed with the power to master the world and administer it in the service ofa higher civilization.
The fact that our people did nothave a national being based on a unity of blood has been the source of untoldmisery for us. To many petty German potentates it gave residential capitalcities, but the German people as a whole was deprived of its right torulership.
Even to-day our nation stillsuffers from this lack of inner unity; but what has been the cause of our pastand present misfortunes may turn out a blessing for us in the future. Though onthe one hand it may be a drawback that our racial elements were not weldedtogether, so that no homogeneous national body could develop, on the otherhand, it was fortunate that, since at least a part of our best blood was thuskept pure, its racial quality was not debased.
A complete assimilation of all ourracial elements would certainly have brought about a homogeneous nationalorganism; but, as has been proved in the case of every racial mixture, it wouldhave been less capable of creating a civilization than by keeping intact itsbest original elements. A benefit which results from the fact that there was noall-round assimilation is to be seen in that even now we have large groups ofGerman Nordic people within our national organization, and that their blood hasnot been mixed with the blood of other races. We must look upon this as ourmost valuable treasure for the sake of the future. During that dark period ofabsolute ignorance in regard to all racial laws, when each individual wasconsidered to be on a par with every other, there could be no clearappreciation of the difference between the various fundamental racialcharacteristics. We know to-day that a complete assimilation of all the variouselements which constitute the national being might have resulted in giving us alarger share of external power: but, on the other hand, the highest of humanaims would not have been attained, because the only kind of people which fatehas obviously chosen to bring about this perfection would have been lost insuch a general mixture of races which would constitute such a racialamalgamation.
But what has been prevented by afriendly Destiny, without any assistance on our part, must now be reconsideredand utilized in the light of our new knowledge.
He who talks of the German peopleas having a mission to fulfil on this earth must know that this cannot befulfilled except by the building up of a State whose highest purpose is topreserve and promote those nobler elements of our race and of the whole ofmankind which have remained unimpaired.
Thus for the first time a highinner purpose is accredited to the State. In face of the ridiculous phrase thatthe State should do no more than act as the guardian of public order andtranquillity, so that everybody can peacefully dupe everybody else, it is givena very high mission indeed to preserve and encourage the highest type ofhumanity which a beneficent Creator has bestowed on this earth. Out of a deadmechanism which claims to be an end in itself a living organism shall arisewhich has to serve one purpose exclusively: and that, indeed, a purpose whichbelongs to a higher order of ideas.
As a State the German Reich shallinclude all Germans. Its task is not only to gather in and foster the mostvaluable sections of our people but to lead them slowly and surely to adominant position in the world.
Thus a period of stagnation issuperseded by a period of effort. And here, as in every other sphere, theproverb holds good that to rest is to rust; and furthermore the proverb thatvictory will always be won by him who attacks. The higher the final goal whichwe strive to reach, and the less it be understood at the time by the broadmasses, the more magnificent will be its success. That is what the lesson ofhistory teaches. And the achievement will be all the more significant if theend is conceived in the right way and the fight carried through with unswervingpersistence. Many of the officials who direct the affairs of State nowadays mayfind it easier to work for the maintenance of the present order than to fightfor a new one. They will find it more comfortable to look upon the State as amechanism, whose purpose is its own preservation, and to say that ‘their livesbelong to the State,’ as if anything that grew from the inner life of thenation can logically serve anything but the national being, and as if man couldbe made for anything else than for his fellow beings. Naturally, it is easier,as I have said, to consider the authority of the State as nothing but theformal mechanism of an organization, rather than as the sovereign incarnationof a people’s instinct for self-preservation on this earth. For these weakminds the State and the authority of the State is nothing but an aim in itself,while for us it is an effective weapon in the service of the great and eternalstruggle for existence, a weapon which everyone must adopt, not because it is amere formal mechanism, but because it is the main expression of our common willto exist.
Therefore, in the fight for ournew idea, which conforms completely to the primal meaning of life, we shallfind only a small number of comrades in a social order which has becomedecrepit not only physically but mentally also. From these strata of our populationonly a few exceptional people will join our ranks, only those few old peoplewhose hearts have remained young and whose courage is still vigorous, but notthose who consider it their duty to maintain the state of affairs that exists.
Against us we have the innumerablearmy of all those who are lazy-minded and indifferent rather than evil, andthose whose self-interest leads them to uphold the present state of affairs. Onthe apparent hopelessness of our great struggle is based the magnitude of our taskand the possibilities of success. A battle-cry which from the very start willscare off all the petty spirits, or at least discourage them, will become thesignal for a rally of all those temperaments that are of the real fightingmetal. And it must be clearly recognized that if a highly energetic and activebody of men emerge from a nation and unite in the fight for one goal, therebyultimately rising above the inert masses of the people, this small percentagewill become masters of the whole. World history is made by minorities if thesenumerical minorities represent in themselves the will and energy and initiativeof the people as a whole.
What seems an obstacle to manypersons is really a preliminary condition of our victory. Just because our taskis so great and because so many difficulties have to be overcome, the highestprobability is that only the best kind of protagonists will join our ranks.This selection is the guarantee of our success. Nature generally takes certainmeasures to correct the effect which racial mixture produces in life. She isnot much in favour of the mongrel. The later products of cross-breeding have tosuffer bitterly, especially the third, fourth and fifth generations. Not onlyare they deprived of the higher qualities that belonged to the parents whoparticipated in the first mixture, but they also lack definite will-power andvigorous vital energies owing to the lack of harmony in the quality of theirblood. At all critical moments in which a person of pure racial blood makescorrect decisions, that is to say, decisions that are coherent and uniform, theperson of mixed blood will become confused and take measures that areincoherent. Hence we see that a person of mixed blood is not only relativelyinferior to a person of pure blood, but is also doomed to become extinct morerapidly. In innumerable cases wherein the pure race holds its ground themongrel breaks down. Therein we witness the corrective provision which Natureadopts. She restricts the possibilities of procreation, thus impeding thefertility of cross-breeds and bringing them to extinction.
For instance, if an individualmember of a race should mingle his blood with the member of a superior race thefirst result would be a lowering of the racial level, and furthermore thedescendants of this cross-breeding would be weaker than those of the peoplearound them who had maintained their blood unadulterated. Where no new bloodfrom the superior race enters the racial stream of the mongrels, and wherethose mongrels continue to cross-breed among themselves, the latter will eitherdie out because they have insufficient powers of resistance, which is Nature’swise provision, or in the course of many thousands of years they will form anew mongrel race in which the original elements will become so wholly mixedthrough this millennial crossing that traces of the original elements will beno longer recognizable. And thus a new people would be developed whichpossessed a certain resistance capacity of the herd type, but its intellectualvalue and its cultural significance would be essentially inferior to thosewhich the first cross-breeds possessed. But even in this last case the mongrelproduct would succumb in the mutual struggle for existence with a higher racialgroup that had maintained its blood unmixed. The herd solidarity which thismongrel race had developed through thousands of years will not be equal to thestruggle. And this is because it would lack elasticity and constructivecapacity to prevail over a race of homogeneous blood that was mentally andculturally superior.
Therewith we may lay down thefollowing principle as valid: every racial mixture leads, of necessity, sooneror later to the downfall of the mongrel product, provided the higher racialstrata of this cross-breed has not retained within itself some sort of racialhomogeneity. The danger to the mongrels ceases only when this higher stratum,which has maintained certain standards of homogeneous breeding, ceases to betrue to its pedigree and intermingles with the mongrels.
This principle is the source of aslow but constant regeneration whereby all the poison which has invaded theracial body is gradually eliminated so long as there still remains afundamental stock of pure racial elements which resists further crossbreeding.
Such a process may set inautomatically among those people where a strong racial instinct has remained.Among such people we may count those elements which, for some particular causesuch as coercion, have been thrown out of the normal way of reproduction alongstrict racial lines. As soon as this compulsion ceases, that part of the racewhich has remained intact will tend to marry with its own kind and thus impedefurther intermingling. Then the mongrels recede quite naturally into thebackground unless their numbers had increased so much as to be able towithstand all serious resistance from those elements which had preserved thepurity of their race.
When men have lost their naturalinstincts and ignore the obligations imposed on them by Nature, then there isno hope that Nature will correct the loss that has been caused, untilrecognition of the lost instincts has been restored. Then the task of bringingback what has been lost will have to be accomplished. But there is serious dangerthat those who have become blind once in this respect will continue more andmore to break down racial barriers and finally lose the last remnants of whatis best in them. What then remains is nothing but a uniform mish-mash, whichseems to be the dream of our fine Utopians. But that mish-mash would soonbanish all ideals from the world. Certainly a great herd could thus be formed.One can breed a herd of animals; but from a mixture of this kind men such ashave created and founded civilizations would not be produced. The mission ofhumanity might then be considered at an end.
Those who do not wish that theearth should fall into such a condition must realize that it is the task of theGerman State in particular to see to it that the process of bastardization isbrought to a stop.
Our contemporary generation ofweaklings will naturally decry such a policy and whine and complain about it asan encroachment on the most sacred of human rights. But there is only one rightthat is sacrosanct and this right is at the same time a most sacred duty. Thisright and obligation are: that the purity of the racial blood should beguarded, so that the best types of human beings may be preserved and that thuswe should render possible a more noble development of humanity itself.
A folk-State should in the firstplace raise matrimony from the level of being a constant scandal to the race.The State should consecrate it as an institution which is called upon toproduce creatures made in the likeness of the Lord and not create monsters thatare a mixture of man and ape. The protest which is put forward in the name ofhumanity does not fit the mouth of a generation that makes it possible for themost depraved degenerates to propagate themselves, thereby imposing unspeakablesuffering on their own products and their contemporaries, while on the otherhand contraceptives are permitted and sold in every drug store and even bystreet hawkers, so that babies should not be born even among the healthiest ofour people. In this present State of ours, whose function it is to be theguardian of peace and good order, our national bourgeoisie look upon it as acrime to make procreation impossible for syphilitics and those who suffer fromtuberculosis or other hereditary diseases, also cripples and imbeciles. But thepractical prevention of procreation among millions of our very best people isnot considered as an evil, nor does it offend against the noble morality ofthis social class but rather encourages their short-sightedness and mentallethargy. For otherwise they would at least stir their brains to find an answerto the question of how to create conditions for the feeding and maintaining ofthose future beings who will be the healthy representatives of our nation andmust also provide the conditions on which the generation that is to follow themwill have to support itself and live.
How devoid of ideals and howignoble is the whole contemporary system! The fact that the churches join incommitting this sin against the image of God, even though they continue toemphasize the dignity of that image, is quite in keeping with their presentactivities. They talk about the Spirit, but they allow man, as the embodimentof the Spirit, to degenerate to the proletarian level. Then they look on withamazement when they realize how small is the influence of the Christian Faithin their own country and how depraved and ungodly is this riff-raff which isphysically degenerate and therefore morally degenerate also. To balance thisstate of affairs they try to convert the Hottentots and the Zulus and theKaffirs and to bestow on them the blessings of the Church. While our Europeanpeople, God be praised and thanked, are left to become the victims of moraldepravity, the pious missionary goes out to Central Africa and establishesmissionary stations for negroes. Finally, sound and healthy – though primitiveand backward – people will be transformed, under the name of our ‘highercivilization’, into a motley of lazy and brutalized mongrels.
It would better accord with noblehuman aspirations if our two Christian denominations would cease to bother thenegroes with their preaching, which the negroes do not want and do notunderstand. It would be better if they left this work alone, and if, in itsstead, they tried to teach people in Europe, kindly and seriously, that it ismuch more pleasing to God if a couple that is not of healthy stock were to showloving kindness to some poor orphan and become a father and mother to him,rather than give life to a sickly child that will be a cause of suffering andunhappiness to all.
In this field the People’s Statewill have to repair the damage that arises from the fact that the problem is atpresent neglected by all the various parties concerned. It will be the task ofthe People’s State to make the race the centre of the life of the community. Itmust make sure that the purity of the racial strain will be preserved. It mustproclaim the truth that the child is the most valuable possession a people canhave. It must see to it that only those who are healthy shall beget children;that there is only one infamy, namely, for parents that are ill or showhereditary defects to bring children into the world and that in such cases itis a high honour to refrain from doing so. But, on the other hand, it must beconsidered as reprehensible conduct to refrain from giving healthy children tothe nation. In this matter the State must assert itself as the trustee of amillennial future, in face of which the egotistic desires of the individualcount for nothing and will have to give way before the ruling of the State. Inorder to fulfil this duty in a practical manner the State will have to availitself of modern medical discoveries. It must proclaim as unfit for procreationall those who are inflicted with some visible hereditary disease or are thecarriers of it; and practical measures must be adopted to have such peoplerendered sterile. On the other hand, provision must be made for the normallyfertile woman so that she will not be restricted in child-bearing through thefinancial and economic system operating in a political regime that looks uponthe blessing of having children as a curse to their parents. The State willhave to abolish the cowardly and even criminal indifference with which theproblem of social amenities for large families is treated, and it will have tobe the supreme protector of this greatest blessing that a people can boast of.Its attention and care must be directed towards the child rather than theadult.
Those who are physically andmentally unhealthy and unfit must not perpetuate their own suffering in thebodies of their children. From the educational point of view there is here a hugetask for the People’s State to accomplish. But in a future era this work willappear greater and more significant than the victorious wars of our presentbourgeois epoch. Through educational means the State must teach individualsthat illness is not a disgrace but an unfortunate accident which has to bepitied, yet that it is a crime and a disgrace to make this affliction all theworse by passing on disease and defects to innocent creatures out of mereegotism.
And the State must also teach thepeople that it is an expression of a really noble nature and that it is ahumanitarian act worthy of admiration if a person who innocently suffers fromhereditary disease refrains from having a child of his own but gives his loveand affection to some unknown child who, through its health, promises to becomea robust member of a healthy community. In accomplishing such an educationaltask the State integrates its function by this activity in the moral sphere. Itmust act on this principle without paying any attention to the question ofwhether its conduct will be understood or misconstrued, blamed or praised.
If for a period of only 600 yearsthose individuals would be sterilized who are physically degenerate or mentallydiseased, humanity would not only be delivered from an immense misfortune butalso restored to a state of general health such as we at present can hardlyimagine. If the fecundity of the healthy portion of the nation should be made apractical matter in a conscientious and methodical way, we should have at leastthe beginnings of a race from which all those germs would be eliminated whichare to-day the cause of our moral and physical decadence. If a people and aState take this course to develop that nucleus of the nation which is mostvaluable from the racial standpoint and thus increase its fecundity, the peopleas a whole will subsequently enjoy that most precious of gifts which consistsin a racial quality fashioned on truly noble lines.
To achieve this the State shouldfirst of all not leave the colonization of newly acquired territory to ahaphazard policy but should have it carried out under the guidance of definiteprinciples. Specially competent committees ought to issue certificates toindividuals entitling them to engage in colonization work, and thesecertificates should guarantee the racial purity of the individuals in question.In this way frontier colonies could gradually be founded whose inhabitantswould be of the purest racial stock, and hence would possess the best qualitiesof the race. Such colonies would be a valuable asset to the whole nation. Theirdevelopment would be a source of joy and confidence and pride to each citizenof the nation, because they would contain the pure germ which would ultimatelybring about a great development of the nation and indeed of mankind itself.
The Weltanschhauung whichbases the State on the racial idea must finally succeed in bringing about anobler era, in which men will no longer pay exclusive attention to breeding andrearing pedigree dogs and horses and cats, but will endeavour to improve thebreed of the human race itself. That will be an era of silence and renunciationfor one class of people, while the others will give their gifts and make theirsacrifices joyfully.
That such a mentality may bepossible cannot be denied in a world where hundreds and thousands accept theprinciple of celibacy from their own choice, without being obliged or pledgedto do so by anything except an ecclesiastical precept. Why should it not bepossible to induce people to make this sacrifice if, instead of such a precept,they were simply told that they ought to put an end to this truly original sinof racial corruption which is steadily being passed on from one generation toanother. And, further, they ought to be brought to realize that it is theirbounden duty to give to the Almighty Creator beings such as He himself made toHis own image.
Naturally, our wretched army ofcontemporary philistines will not understand these things. They will ridiculethem or shrug their round shoulders and groan out their everlasting excuses:"Of course it is a fine thing, but the pity is that it cannot be carriedout." And we reply: "With you indeed it cannot be done, for yourworld is incapable of such an idea. You know only one anxiety and that is foryour own personal existence. You have one God, and that is your money. We donot turn to you, however, for help, but to the great army of those who are toopoor to consider their personal existence as the highest good on earth. They donot place their trust in money but in other gods, into whose hands they confidetheir lives. Above all we turn to the vast army of our German youth. They arecoming to maturity in a great epoch, and they will fight against the evilswhich were due to the laziness and indifference of their fathers." Eitherthe German youth will one day create a new State founded on the racial idea orthey will be the last witnesses of the complete breakdown and death of thebourgeois world.
For if a generation suffers fromdefects which it recognizes and even admits and is nevertheless quite pleasedwith itself, as the bourgeois world is to-day, resorting to the cheap excusethat nothing can be done to remedy the situation, then such a generation isdoomed to disaster. A marked characteristic of our bourgeois world is that theyno longer can deny the evil conditions that exist. They have to admit thatthere is much which is foul and wrong; but they are not able to make up theirminds to fight against that evil, which would mean putting forth the energy tomobilize the forces of 60 or 70 million people and thus oppose this menace.They do just the opposite. When such an effort is made elsewhere they onlyindulge in silly comment and try from a safe distance to show that such anenterprise is theoretically impossible and doomed to failure. No arguments aretoo stupid to be employed in the service of their own pettifogging opinions andtheir knavish moral attitude. If, for instance, a whole continent wages waragainst alcoholic intoxication, so as to free a whole people from thisdevastating vice, our bourgeois European does not know better than to looksideways stupidly, shake the head in doubt and ridicule the movement with asuperior sneer – a state of mind which is effective in a society that is soridiculous. But when all these stupidities miss their aim and in that part ofthe world this sublime and intangible attitude is treated effectively andsuccess attends the movement, then such success is called into question or itsimportance minimized. Even moral principles are used in this slanderouscampaign against a movement which aims at suppressing a great source ofimmorality.
No. We must not permit ourselvesto be deceived by any illusions on this point. Our contemporary bourgeois worldhas become useless for any such noble human task because it has lost all highquality and is evil, not so much – as I think – because evil is wished butrather because these people are too indolent to rise up against it. That is whythose political societies which call themselves ‘bourgeois parties’ are nothingbut associations to promote the interests of certain professional groups andclasses. Their highest aim is to defend their own egoistic interests as bestthey can. It is obvious that such a guild, consisting of bourgeois politicians,may be considered fit for anything rather than a struggle, especially when theadversaries are not cautious shopkeepers but the proletarian masses, goaded onto extremities and determined not to hesitate before deeds of violence.
If we consider it the first dutyof the State to serve and promote the general welfare of the people, bypreserving and encouraging the development of the best racial elements, thelogical consequence is that this task cannot be limited to measures concerningthe birth of the infant members of the race and nation but that the State willalso have to adopt educational means for making each citizen a worthy factor inthe further propagation of the racial stock.
Just as, in general, the racialquality is the preliminary condition for the mental efficiency of any givenhuman material, the training of the individual will first of all have to bedirected towards the development of sound bodily health. For the general ruleis that a strong and healthy mind is found only in a strong and healthy body.The fact that men of genius are sometimes not robust in health and stature, oreven of a sickly constitution, is no proof against the principle I haveenunciated. These cases are only exceptions which, as everywhere else, provethe rule. But when the bulk of a nation is composed of physical degenerates itis rare for a great spirit to arise from such a miserable motley. And in anycase his activities would never meet with great success. A degenerate mob willeither be incapable of understanding him at all or their will-power is sofeeble that they cannot follow the soaring of such an eagle.
The State that is grounded on theracial principle and is alive to the significance of this truth will first ofall have to base its educational work not on the mere imparting of knowledgebut rather on physical training and development of healthy bodies. Thecultivation of the intellectual facilities comes only in the second place. Andhere again it is character which has to be developed first of all, strength ofwill and decision. And the educational system ought to foster the spirit ofreadiness to accept responsibilities gladly. Formal instruction in the sciencesmust be considered last in importance. Accordingly the State which is groundedon the racial idea must start with the principle that a person whose formaleducation in the sciences is relatively small but who is physically sound androbust, of a steadfast and honest character, ready and able to make decisionsand endowed with strength of will, is a more useful member of the nationalcommunity than a weakling who is scholarly and refined. A nation composed oflearned men who are physical weaklings, hesitant about decisions of the will,and timid pacifists, is not capable of assuring even its own existence on thisearth. In the bitter struggle which decides the destiny of man it is very rarethat an individual has succumbed because he lacked learning. Those who fail arethey who try to ignore these consequences and are too faint-hearted aboutputting them into effect. There must be a certain balance between mind andbody. An ill-kept body is not made a more beautiful sight by the indwelling ofa radiant spirit. We should not be acting justly if we were to bestow thehighest intellectual training on those who are physically deformed andcrippled, who lack decision and are weak-willed and cowardly. What has made theGreek ideal of beauty immortal is the wonderful union of a splendid physicalbeauty with nobility of mind and spirit.
Moltke’s saying, that in the longrun fortune favours only the efficient, is certainly valid for the relationshipbetween body and spirit. A mind which is sound will generally maintain itsdwelling in a body that is sound.
Accordingly, in the People’s Statephysical training is not a matter for the individual alone. Nor is it a dutywhich first devolves on the parents and only secondly or thirdly a publicinterest; but it is necessary for the preservation of the people, who arerepresented and protected by the State. As regards purely formal education theState even now interferes with the individual’s right of self-determination andinsists upon the right of the community by submitting the child to anobligatory system of training, without paying attention to the approval ordisapproval of the parents. In a similar way and to a higher degree the newPeople’s State will one day make its authority prevail over the ignorance andincomprehension of individuals in problems appertaining to the safety of thenation. It must organize its educational work in such a way that the bodies ofthe young will be systematically trained from infancy onwards, so as to betempered and hardened for the demands to be made on them in later years. Aboveall, the State must see to it that a generation of stay-at-homes is notdeveloped.
The work of education and hygienehas to begin with the young mother. The painstaking efforts carried on forseveral decades have succeeded in abolishing septic infection at childbirth andreducing puerperal fever to a relatively small number of cases. And so it oughtto be possible by means of instructing sisters and mothers in an opportune way,to institute a system of training the child from early infancy onwards so thatthis may serve as an excellent basis for future development.
The People’s State ought to allowmuch more time for physical training in the school. It is nonsense to burdenyoung brains with a load of material of which, as experience shows, they retainonly a small part, and mostly not the essentials, but only the secondary anduseless portion; because the young mind is incapable of sifting the right kindof learning out of all the stuff that is pumped into it. To-day, even in thecurriculum of the high schools, only two short hours in the week are reservedfor gymnastics; and worse still, it is left to the pupils to decide whether ornot they want to take part. This shows a grave disproportion between thisbranch of education and purely intellectual instruction. Not a single dayshould be allowed to pass in which the young pupil does not have one hour ofphysical training in the morning and one in the evening; and every kind ofsport and gymnastics should be included. There is one kind of sport which shouldbe specially encouraged, although many people who call themselves völkischconsider it brutal and vulgar, and that is boxing. It is incredible how manyfalse notions prevail among the ‘cultivated’ classes. The fact that the youngman learns how to fence and then spends his time in duels is considered quitenatural and respectable. But boxing – that is brutal. Why? There is no othersport which equals this in developing the militant spirit, none that demandssuch a power of rapid decision or which gives the body the flexibility of goodsteel. It is no more vulgar when two young people settle their differences withtheir fists than with sharp-pointed pieces of steel. One who is attacked anddefends himself with his fists surely does not act less manly than one who runsoff and yells for the assistance of a policeman. But, above all, a healthyyouth has to learn to endure hard knocks. This principle may appear savage toour contemporary champions who fight only with the weapons of the intellect.But it is not the purpose of the People’s State to educate a colony of æstheticpacifists and physical degenerates. This State does not consider that the humanideal is to be found in the honourable philistine or the maidenly spinster, butin a dareful personification of manly force and in women capable of bringingmen into the world.
Generally speaking, the functionof sport is not only to make the individual strong, alert and daring, but alsoto harden the body and train it to endure an adverse environment.
If our superior class had notreceived such a distinguished education, and if, on the contrary, they hadlearned boxing, it would never have been possible for bullies and deserters andother such canaille to carry through a German revolution. For the success of thisrevolution was not due to the courageous, energetic and audacious activities ofits authors but to the lamentable cowardice and irresolution of those who ruledthe German State at that time and were responsible for it. But our educatedleaders had received only an ‘intellectual’ training and thus found themselvesdefenceless when their adversaries used iron bars instead of intellectualweapons. All this could happen only because our superior scholastic system didnot train men to be real men but merely to be civil servants, engineers,technicians, chemists, litterateurs, jurists and, finally, professors; so thatintellectualism should not die out.
Our leadership in the purelyintellectual sphere has always been brilliant, but as regards will-power inpractical affairs our leadership has been beneath criticism.
Of course education cannot make acourageous man out of one who is temperamentally a coward. But a man whonaturally possesses a certain degree of courage will not be able to developthat quality if his defective education has made him inferior to others fromthe very start as regards physical strength and prowess. The army offers thebest example of the fact that the knowledge of one’s physical ability developsa man’s courage and militant spirit. Outstanding heroes are not the rule in thearmy, but the average represents men of high courage. The excellent schoolingwhich the German soldiers received before the War imbued the members of thewhole gigantic organism with a degree of confidence in their own superioritysuch as even our opponents never thought possible. All the immortal examples ofdauntless courage and daring which the German armies gave during the latesummer and autumn of 1914, as they advanced from triumph to triumph, were theresult of that education which had been pursued systematically. During thoselong years of peace before the last War men who were almost physical weaklingswere made capable of incredible deeds, and thus a self-confidence was developedwhich did not fail even in the most terrible battles.
It is our German people, whichbroke down and were delivered over to be kicked by the rest of the world, thathad need of the power that comes by suggestion from self-confidence. But thisconfidence in one’s self must be instilled into our children from their veryearly years. The whole system of education and training must be directedtowards fostering in the child the conviction that he is unquestionably a matchfor any- and everybody. The individual has to regain his own physical strengthand prowess in order to believe in the invincibility of the nation to which hebelongs. What has formerly led the German armies to victory was the sum totalof the confidence which each individual had in himself, and which all of themhad in those who held the positions of command. What will restore the nationalstrength of the German people is the conviction that they will be able toreconquer their liberty. But this conviction can only be the final product ofan equal feeling in the millions of individuals. And here again we must have noillusions.
The collapse of our people wasoverwhelming, and the efforts to put an end to so much misery must also beoverwhelming. It would be a bitter and grave error to believe that our peoplecould be made strong again simply by means of our present bourgeois training ingood order and obedience. That will not suffice if we are to break up thepresent order of things, which now sanctions the acknowledgment of our defeatand cast the broken chains of our slavery in the face of our opponents. Only bya superabundance of national energy and a passionate thirst for liberty can werecover what has been lost.
Also the manner of clothing theyoung should be such as harmonizes with this purpose. It is really lamentableto see how our young people have fallen victims to a fashion mania whichperverts the meaning of the old adage that clothes make the man.
Especially in regard to youngpeople clothes should take their place in the service of education. The boy whowalks about in summer-time wearing long baggy trousers and clad up to the neckis hampered even by his clothes in feeling any inclination towards strenuousphysical exercise. Ambition and, to speak quite frankly, even vanity must beappealed to. I do not mean such vanity as leads people to want to wear fineclothes, which not everybody can afford, but rather the vanity which inclines aperson towards developing a fine bodily physique. And this is something whicheverybody can help to do.
This will come in useful also forlater years. The young girl must become acquainted with her sweetheart. If thebeauty of the body were not completely forced into the background to-daythrough our stupid manner of dressing, it would not be possible for thousandsof our girls to be led astray by Jewish mongrels, with their repulsive crookedwaddle. It is also in the interests of the nation that those who have abeautiful physique should be brought into the foreground, so that they mightencourage the development of a beautiful bodily form among the people ingeneral.
Military training is excludedamong us to-day, and therewith the only institution which in peace-times atleast partly made up for the lack of physical training in our education.Therefore what I have suggested is all the more necessary in our time. Thesuccess of our old military training not only showed itself in the education ofthe individual but also in the influence which it exercised over the mutualrelationship between the sexes. The young girl preferred the soldier to one whowas not a soldier. The People’s State must not confine its control of physicaltraining to the official school period, but it must demand that, after leavingschool and while the adolescent body is still developing, the boy continues thistraining. For on such proper physical development success in after-life largelydepends. It is stupid to think that the right of the State to supervise theeducation of its young citizens suddenly comes to an end the moment they leaveschool and recommences only with military service. This right is a duty, and assuch it must continue uninterruptedly. The present State, which does notinterest itself in developing healthy men, has criminally neglected this duty.It leaves our contemporary youth to be corrupted on the streets and in thebrothels, instead of keeping hold of the reins and continuing the physicaltraining of these youths up to the time when they are grown into healthy youngmen and women.
For the present it is a matter ofindifference what form the State chooses for carrying on this training. Theessential matter is that it should be developed and that the most suitable waysof doing so should be investigated. The People’s State will have to considerthe physical training of the youth after the school period just as much apublic duty as their intellectual training; and this training will have to becarried out through public institutions. Its general lines can be a preparationfor subsequent service in the army. And then it will no longer be the task ofthe army to teach the young recruit the most elementary drill regulations. Infact the army will no longer have to deal with recruits in the present sense ofthe word, but it will rather have to transform into a soldier the youth whosebodily prowess has been already fully trained.
In the People’s State the armywill no longer be obliged to teach boys how to walk and stand erect, but itwill be the final and supreme school of patriotic education. In the army theyoung recruit will learn the art of bearing arms, but at the same time he willbe equipped for his other duties in later life. And the supreme aim of militaryeducation must always be to achieve that which was attributed to the old armyas its highest merit: namely, that through his military schooling the boy mustbe transformed into a man, that he must not only learn to obey but also acquirethe fundamentals that will enable him one day to command. He must learn toremain silent not only when he is rightly rebuked but also when he is wronglyrebuked.
Furthermore, on theself-consciousness of his own strength and on the basis of that esprit decorps which inspires him and his comrades, he must become convinced that hebelongs to a people who are invincible.
After he has completed his militarytraining two certificates shall be handed to the soldier. The one will be hisdiploma as a citizen of the State, a juridical document which will enable himto take part in public affairs. The second will be an attestation of hisphysical health, which guarantees his fitness for marriage.
The People’s State will have todirect the education of girls just as that of boys and according to the samefundamental principles. Here again special importance must be given to physicaltraining, and only after that must the importance of spiritual and mentaltraining be taken into account. In the education of the girl the final goalalways to be kept in mind is that she is one day to be a mother.
It is only in the second placethat the People’s State must busy itself with the training of character, usingall the means adapted to that purpose.
Of course the essential traits ofthe individual character are already there fundamentally before any educationtakes place. A person who is fundamentally egoistic will always remainfundamentally egoistic, and the idealist will always remain fundamentally anidealist. Besides those, however, who already possess a definite stamp ofcharacter there are millions of people with characters that are indefinite andvague. The born delinquent will always remain a delinquent, but numerous peoplewho show only a certain tendency to commit criminal acts may become usefulmembers of the community if rightly trained; whereas, on the other hand, weakand unstable characters may easily become evil elements if the system ofeducation has been bad.
During the War it was oftenlamented that our people could be so little reticent. This failing made it verydifficult to keep even highly important secrets from the knowledge of theenemy. But let us ask this question: What did the German educational system doin pre-War times to teach the Germans to be discreet? Did it not very oftenhappen in schooldays that the little tell-tale was preferred to his companionswho kept their mouths shut? Is it not true that then, as well as now,complaining about others was considered praiseworthy ‘candour’, while silentdiscretion was taken as obstinacy? Has any attempt ever been made to teach thatdiscretion is a precious and manly virtue? No, for such matters are trifles inthe eyes of our educators. But these trifles cost our State innumerablemillions in legal expenses; for 90 per cent of all the processes for defamationand such like charges arise only from a lack of discretion. Remarks that aremade without any sense of responsibility are thoughtlessly repeated from mouthto mouth; and our economic welfare is continually damaged because importantmethods of production are thus disclosed. Secret preparations for our nationaldefence are rendered illusory because our people have never learned the duty ofsilence. They repeat everything they happen to hear. In times of war suchtalkative habits may even cause the loss of battles and therefore maycontribute essentially to the unsuccessful outcome of a campaign. Here, as inother matters, we may rest assured that adults cannot do what they have notlearnt to do in youth. A teacher must not try to discover the wild tricks ofthe boys by encouraging the evil practice of tale-bearing. Young people form asort of State among themselves and face adults with a certain solidarity. Thatis quite natural. The ties which unite the ten-year boys to one another arestronger and more natural than their relationship to adults. A boy who tells onhis comrades commits an act of treason and shows a bent of character which is,to speak bluntly, similar to that of a man who commits high treason. Such a boymust not be classed as ‘good’, ‘reliable’, and so on, but rather as one withundesirable traits of character. It may be rather convenient for the teacher tomake use of such unworthy tendencies in order to help his own work, but by suchan attitude the germ of a moral habit is sown in young hearts and may one dayshow fatal consequences. It has happened more often than once that a younginformer developed into a big scoundrel.
This is only one example amongmany. The deliberate training of fine and noble traits of character in ourschools to-day is almost negative. In the future much more emphasis will haveto be laid on this side of our educational work. Loyalty, self-sacrifice anddiscretion are virtues which a great nation must possess. And the teaching anddevelopment of these in the school is a more important matter than many othersthings now included in the curriculum. To make the children give up habits ofcomplaining and whining and howling when they are hurt, etc., also belongs tothis part of their training. If the educational system fails to teach the childat an early age to endure pain and injury without complaining we cannot besurprised if at a later age, when the boy has grown to be the man and is, forexample, in the trenches, the postal service is used for nothing else than tosend home letters of weeping and complaint. If our youths, during their yearsin the primary schools, had had their minds crammed with a little lessknowledge, and if instead they had been better taught how to be masters ofthemselves, it would have served us well during the years 1914–1918.
In its educational system thePeople’s State will have to attach the highest importance to the development ofcharacter, hand-in-hand with physical training. Many more defects which ournational organism shows at present could be at least ameliorated, if notcompletely eliminated, by education of the right kind.
Extreme importance should beattached to the training of will-power and the habit of making firm decisions,also the habit of being always ready to accept responsibilities.
In the training of our old armythe principle was in vogue that any order is always better than no order.Applied to our youth this principle ought to take the form that any answer isbetter than no answer. The fear of replying, because one fears to be wrong,ought to be considered more humiliating than giving the wrong reply. On thissimple and primitive basis our youth should be trained to have the courage toact.
It has been often lamented that inNovember and December 1918 all the authorities lost their heads and that, fromthe monarch down to the last divisional commander, nobody had sufficient mettleto make a decision on his own responsibility. That terrible fact constitutes agrave rebuke to our educational system; because what was then revealed on acolossal scale at that moment of catastrophe was only what happens on a smallerscale everywhere among us. It is the lack of will-power, and not the lack ofarms, which renders us incapable of offering any serious resistance to-day.This defect is found everywhere among our people and prevents decisive actionwherever risks have to be taken, as if any great action can be taken withoutalso taking the risk. Quite unsuspectingly, a German General found a formulafor this lamentable lack of the will-to-act when he said: "I act only whenI can count on a 51 per cent probability of success." In that ‘51 per centprobability’ we find the very root of the German collapse. The man who demandsfrom Fate a guarantee of his success deliberately denies the significance of anheroic act. For this significance consists in the very fact that, in thedefinite knowledge that the situation in question is fraught with mortaldanger, an action is undertaken which may lead to success. A patient sufferingfrom cancer and who knows that his death is certain if he does not undergo anoperation, needs no 51 per cent probability of a cure before facing theoperation. And if the operation promises only half of one per cent probabilityof success a man of courage will risk it and would not whine if it turned outunsuccessful.
All in all, the cowardly lack of will-powerand the incapacity for making decisions are chiefly results of the erroneouseducation given us in our youth. The disastrous effects of this are nowwidespread among us. The crowning examples of that tragic chain of consequencesare shown in the lack of civil courage which our leading statesmen display.
The cowardice which leads nowadaysto the shirking of every kind of responsibility springs from the same roots.Here again it is the fault of the education given our young people. Thisdrawback permeates all sections of public life and finds its immortalconsummation in the institutions of government that function under theparliamentary regime.
Already in the school,unfortunately, more value is placed on ‘confession and full repentance’ and ‘contriterenouncement’, on the part of little sinners, than on a simple and frankavowal. But this latter seems to-day, in the eyes of many an educator, tosavour of a spirit of utter incorrigibility and depravation. And, though it mayseem incredible, many a boy is told that the gallows tree is waiting for himbecause he has shown certain traits which might be of inestimable value in thenation as a whole.
Just as the People’s State mustone day give its attention to training the will-power and capacity for decisionamong the youth, so too it must inculcate in the hearts of the young generationfrom early childhood onwards a readiness to accept responsibilities, and thecourage of open and frank avowal. If it recognizes the full significance ofthis necessity, finally – after a century of educative work – it will succeedin building up a nation which will no longer be subject to those defeats thathave contributed so disastrously to bring about our present overthrow.
The formal imparting of knowledge,which constitutes the chief work of our educational system to-day, will betaken over by the People’s State with only few modifications. Thesemodifications must be made in three branches.
First of all, the brains of theyoung people must not generally be burdened with subjects of which ninety-fiveper cent are useless to them and are therefore forgotten again. The curriculumof the primary and secondary schools presents an odd mixture at the presenttime. In many branches of study the subject matter to be learned has become soenormous that only a very small fraction of it can be remembered later on, andindeed only a very small fraction of this whole mass of knowledge can be used.On the other hand, what is learned is insufficient for anybody who wishes to specializein any certain branch for the purpose of earning his daily bread. Take, forexample, the average civil servant who has passed through the Gymnasium or HighSchool, and ask him at the age of thirty or forty how much he has retained ofthe knowledge that was crammed into him with so much pains.
How much is retained from all thatwas stuffed into his brain? He will certainly answer: "Well, if a mass ofstuff was then taught, it was not for the sole purpose of supplying the studentwith a great stock of knowledge from which he could draw in later years, but itserved to develop the understanding, the memory, and above all it helped tostrengthen the thinking powers of the brain." That is partly true. And yetit is somewhat dangerous to submerge a young brain in a flood of impressionswhich it can hardly master and the single elements of which it cannot discernor appreciate at their just value. It is mostly the essential part of thisknowledge, and not the accidental, that is forgotten and sacrificed. Thus theprincipal purpose of this copious instruction is frustrated, for that purposecannot be to make the brain capable of learning by simply offering it anenormous and varied amount of subjects for acquisition, but rather to furnishthe individual with that stock of knowledge which he will need in later lifeand which he can use for the good of the community. This aim, however, isrendered illusory if, because of the superabundance of subjects that have beencrammed into his head in childhood, a person is able to remember nothing, or atleast not the essential portion, of all this in later life. There is no reasonwhy millions of people should learn two or three languages during the schoolyears, when only a very small fraction will have the opportunity to use theselanguages in later life and when most of them will therefore forget thoselanguages completely. To take an instance: Out of 100,000 students who learnFrench there are probably not 2,000 who will be in a position to make use ofthis accomplishment in later life, while 98,000 will never have a chance toutilize in practice what they have learned in youth. They have spent thousandsof hours on a subject which will afterwards be without any value or importanceto them. The argument that these matters form part of the general process ofeducating the mind is invalid. It would be sound if all these people were ableto use this learning in after life. But, as the situation stands, 98,000 aretortured to no purpose and waste their valuable time, only for the sake of the2,000 to whom the language will be of any use.
In the case of that language whichI have chosen as an example it cannot be said that the learning of it educatesthe student in logical thinking or sharpens his mental acumen, as the learningof Latin, for instance, might be said to do. It would therefore be much betterto teach young students only the general outline, or, better, the innerstructure of such a language: that is to say, to allow them to discern thecharacteristic features of the language, or perhaps to make them acquaintedwith the rudiments of its grammar, its pronunciation, its syntax, style, etc.That would be sufficient for average students, because it would provide aclearer view of the whole and could be more easily remembered. And it would bemore practical than the present-day attempt to cram into their heads a detailedknowledge of the whole language, which they can never master and which theywill readily forget. If this method were adopted, then we should avoid the dangerthat, out of the superabundance of matter taught, only some fragments willremain in the memory; for the youth would then have to learn what is worthwhile, and the selection between the useful and the useless would thus havebeen made beforehand.
As regards the majority ofstudents the knowledge and understanding of the rudiments of a language wouldbe quite sufficient for the rest of their lives. And those who really do needthis language subsequently would thus have a foundation on which to start, shouldthey choose to make a more thorough study of it.
By adopting such a curriculum thenecessary amount of time would be gained for physical exercises as well as fora more intense training in the various educational fields that have alreadybeen mentioned.
A reform of particular importanceis that which ought to take place in the present methods of teaching history.Scarcely any other people are made to study as much of history as the Germans,and scarcely any other people make such a bad use of their historicalknowledge. If politics means history in the making, then our way of teachinghistory stands condemned by the way we have conducted our politics. But therewould be no point in bewailing the lamentable results of our political conductunless one is now determined to give our people a better political education.In 99 out of 100 cases the results of our present teaching of history aredeplorable. Usually only a few dates, years of birth and names, remain in thememory, while a knowledge of the main and clearly defined lines of historicaldevelopment is completely lacking. The essential features which are of realsignificance are not taught. It is left to the more or less bright intelligenceof the individual to discover the inner motivating urge amid the mass of datesand chronological succession of events.
You may object as strongly as youlike to this unpleasant statement. But read with attention the speeches whichour parliamentarians make during one session alone on political problems and onquestions of foreign policy in particular. Remember that those gentlemen are,or claim to be, the elite of the German nation and that at least a great numberof them have sat on the benches of our secondary schools and that many of themhave passed through our universities. Then you will realize how defective thehistorical education of these people has been. If these gentlemen had neverstudied history at all but had possessed a sound instinct for public affairs,things would have gone better, and the nation would have benefited greatlythereby.
The subject matter of ourhistorical teaching must be curtailed. The chief value of that teaching is tomake the principal lines of historical development understood. The more ourhistorical teaching is limited to this task, the more we may hope that it willturn out subsequently to be of advantage to the individual and, through theindividual, to the community as a whole. For history must not be studied merelywith a view to knowing what happened in the past but as a guide for the future,and to teach us what policy would be the best to follow for the preservation ofour own people. That is the real end; and the teaching of history is only ameans to attain this end. But here again the means has superseded the end in ourcontemporary education. The goal is completely forgotten. Do not reply that aprofound study of history demands a detailed knowledge of all these datesbecause otherwise we could not fix the great lines of development. That taskbelongs to the professional historians. But the average man is not a professorof history. For him history has only one mission and that is to provide himwith such an amount of historical knowledge as is necessary in order to enablehim to form an independent opinion on the political affairs of his own country.The man who wants to become a professor of history can devote himself to allthe details later on. Naturally he will have to occupy himself even with thesmallest details. Of course our present teaching of history is not adequate toall this. Its scope is too vast for the average student and too limited for thestudent who wishes to be an historical expert.
Finally, it is the business of thePeople’s State to arrange for the writing of a world history in which the raceproblem will occupy a dominant position.
To sum up: The People’s State mustreconstruct our system of general instruction in such a way that it willembrace only what is essential. Beyond this it will have to make provision fora more advanced teaching in the various subjects for those who want tospecialize in them. It will suffice for the average individual to be acquaintedwith the fundamentals of the various subjects to serve as the basis of what maybe called an all-round education. He ought to study exhaustively and in detailonly that subject in which he intends to work during the rest of his life. Ageneral instruction in all subjects should be obligatory, and specializationshould be left to the choice of the individual.
In this way the scholastic programmewould be shortened, and thus several school hours would be gained which couldbe utilized for physical training and character training, in will-power, thecapacity for making practical judgments, decisions, etc.
The little account taken by our schooltraining to-day, especially in the secondary schools, of the callings that haveto be followed in after life is demonstrated by the fact that men who aredestined for the same calling in life are educated in three different kinds ofschools. What is of decisive importance is general education only and not thespecial teaching. When special knowledge is needed it cannot be given in thecurriculum of our secondary schools as they stand to-day.
Therefore the People’s State willone day have to abolish such half-measures.
The second modification in thecurriculum which the People’s State will have to make is the following:
It is a characteristic of ourmaterialistic epoch that our scientific education shows a growing emphasis on whatis real and practical: such subjects, for instance, as applied mathematics,physics, chemistry, etc. Of course they are necessary in an age that isdominated by industrial technology and chemistry, and where everyday life showsat least the external manifestations of these. But it is a perilous thing tobase the general culture of a nation on the knowledge of these subjects. On thecontrary, that general culture ought always to be directed towards ideals. Itought to be founded on the humanist disciplines and should aim at giving onlythe ground work of further specialized instruction in the various practicalsciences. Otherwise we should sacrifice those forces that are more importantfor the preservation of the nation than any technical knowledge. In thehistorical department the study of ancient history should not be omitted. Romanhistory, along general lines, is and will remain the best teacher, not only forour own time but also for the future. And the ideal of Hellenic culture shouldbe preserved for us in all its marvellous beauty. The differences between thevarious peoples should not prevent us from recognizing the community of racewhich unites them on a higher plane. The conflict of our times is one that isbeing waged around great objectives. A civilization is fighting for itsexistence. It is a civilization that is the product of thousands of years ofhistorical development, and the Greek as well as the German forms part of it.
A clear-cut division must be madebetween general culture and the special branches. To-day the latter threatenmore and more to devote themselves exclusively to the service of Mammon. Tocounterbalance this tendency, general culture should be preserved, at least inits ideal forms. The principle should be repeatedly emphasized, that industrialand technical progress, trade and commerce, can flourish only so long as a folkcommunity exists whose general system of thought is inspired by ideals, sincethat is the preliminary condition for a flourishing development of the enterprisesI have spoken of. That condition is not created by a spirit of materialistegotism but by a spirit of self-denial and the joy of giving one’s self in theservice of others.
The system of education whichprevails to-day sees its principal object in pumping into young people thatknowledge which will help them to make their way in life. This principle isexpressed in the following terms: "The young man must one day become auseful member of human society." By that phrase they mean the ability togain an honest daily livelihood. The superficial training in the duties of goodcitizenship, which he acquires merely as an accidental thing, has very weakfoundations. For in itself the State represents only a form, and therefore itis difficult to train people to look upon this form as the ideal which theywill have to serve and towards which they must feel responsible. A form can betoo easily broken. But, as we have seen, the idea which people have of theState to-day does not represent anything clearly defined. Therefore, there isnothing but the usual stereotyped ‘patriotic’ training. In the old Germany thegreatest emphasis was placed on the divine right of the small and even thesmallest potentates. The way in which this divine right was formulated andpresented was never very clever and often very stupid. Because of the largenumbers of those small potentates, it was impossible to give adequatebiographical accounts of the really great personalities that shed their lustreon the history of the German people. The result was that the broad massesreceived a very inadequate knowledge of German history. Here, too, the greatlines of development were missing.
It is evident that in such a wayno real national enthusiasm could be aroused. Our educational system provedincapable of selecting from the general mass of our historical personages thenames of a few personalities which the German people could be proud to lookupon as their own. Thus the whole nation might have been united by the ties ofa common knowledge of this common heritage. The really important figures inGerman history were not presented to the present generation. The attention ofthe whole nation was not concentrated on them for the purpose of awakening acommon national spirit. From the various subjects that were taught, those whohad charge of our training seemed incapable of selecting what redounded most tothe national honour and lifting that above the common objective level, in orderto inflame the national pride in the light of such brilliant examples. At thattime such a course would have been looked upon as rank chauvinism, which didnot then have a very pleasant savour. Pettifogging dynastic patriotism was moreacceptable and more easily tolerated than the glowing fire of a supreme nationalpride. The former could be always pressed into service, whereas the lattermight one day become a dominating force. Monarchist patriotism terminated inAssociations of Veterans, whereas passionate national patriotism might haveopened a road which would be difficult to determine. This national passion islike a highly tempered thoroughbred who is discriminate about the sort of riderhe will tolerate in the saddle. No wonder that most people preferred to shirksuch a danger. Nobody seemed to think it possible that one day a war might comewhich would put the mettle of this kind of patriotism to the test, in artillerybombardment and waves of attacks with poison gas. But when it did come our lackof this patriotic passion was avenged in a terrible way. None were veryenthusiastic about dying for their imperial and royal sovereigns; while on theother hand the ‘Nation’ was not recognized by the greater number of thesoldiers.
Since the revolution broke out inGermany and the monarchist patriotism was therefore extinguished, the purposeof teaching history was nothing more than to add to the stock of objectiveknowledge. The present State has no use for patriotic enthusiasm; but it willnever obtain what it really desires. For if dynastic patriotism failed toproduce a supreme power of resistance at a time when the principle ofnationalism dominated, it will be still less possible to arouse republicanenthusiasm. There can be no doubt that the German people would not have stoodon the field of battle for four and a half years to fight under the battleslogan ‘For the Republic,’ and least of all those who created this grandinstitution.
In reality this Republic has beenallowed to exist undisturbed only by grace of its readiness and its promise toall and sundry, to pay tribute and reparations to the stranger and to put itssignature to any kind of territorial renunciation. The rest of the world findsit sympathetic, just as a weakling is always more pleasing to those who want tobend him to their own uses than is a man who is made of harder metal. But thefact that the enemy likes this form of government is the worst kind ofcondemnation. They love the German Republic and tolerate its existence becauseno better instrument could be found which would help them to keep our people inslavery. It is to this fact alone that this magnanimous institution owes itssurvival. And that is why it can renounce any real system of national educationand can feel satisfied when the heroes of the Reich banner shout their hurrahs,but in reality these same heroes would scamper away like rabbits if called uponto defend that banner with their blood.
The People’s State will have tofight for its existence. It will not gain or secure this existence by signingdocuments like that of the Dawes Plan. But for its existence and defence itwill need precisely those things which our present system believes can berepudiated. The more worthy its form and its inner national being. the greaterwill be the envy and opposition of its adversaries. The best defence will notbe in the arms it possesses but in its citizens. Bastions of fortresses willnot save it, but the living wall of its men and women, filled with an ardentlove for their country and a passionate spirit of national patriotism.
Therefore the third point whichwill have to be considered in relation to our educational system is thefollowing:
The People’s State must realizethat the sciences may also be made a means of promoting a spirit of pride inthe nation. Not only the history of the world but the history of civilizationas a whole must be taught in the light of this principle. An inventor mustappear great not only as an inventor but also, and even more so, as a member ofthe nation. The admiration aroused by the contemplation of a great achievementmust be transformed into a feeling of pride and satisfaction that a man ofone’s own race has been chosen to accomplish it. But out of the abundance ofgreat names in German history the greatest will have to be selected and presentedto our young generation in such a way as to become solid pillars of strength tosupport the national spirit.
The subject matter ought to besystematically organized from the standpoint of this principle. And theteaching should be so orientated that the boy or girl, after leaving school,will not be a semi-pacifist, a democrat or of something else of that kind, buta whole-hearted German. So that this national feeling be sincere from the verybeginning, and not a mere pretence, the following fundamental and inflexibleprinciple should be impressed on the young brain while it is yet malleable: Theman who loves his nation can prove the sincerity of this sentiment only bybeing ready to make sacrifices for the nation’s welfare. There is no such thingas a national sentiment which is directed towards personal interests. And thereis no such thing as a nationalism that embraces only certain classes. Hurrahingproves nothing and does not confer the right to call oneself national if behindthat shout there is no sincere preoccupation for the conservation of thenation’s well-being. One can be proud of one’s people only if there is no classleft of which one need to be ashamed. When one half of a nation is sunk inmisery and worn out by hard distress, or even depraved or degenerate, thatnation presents such an unattractive picture that nobody can feel proud tobelong to it. It is only when a nation is sound in all its members, physicallyand morally, that the joy of belonging to it can properly be intensified to thesupreme feeling which we call national pride. But this pride, in its highestform, can be felt only by those who know the greatness of their nation.
The spirit of nationalism and afeeling for social justice must be fused into one sentiment in the hearts ofthe youth. Then a day will come when a nation of citizens will arise which willbe welded together through a common love and a common pride that shall beinvincible and indestructible for ever.
The dread of chauvinism, which isa symptom of our time, is a sign of its impotence. Since our epoch not onlylacks everything in the nature of exuberant energy but even finds such amanifestation disagreeable, fate will never elect it for the accomplishment ofany great deeds. For the greatest changes that have taken place on this earthwould have been inconceivable if they had not been inspired by ardent and evenhysterical passions, but only by the bourgeois virtues of peacefulness andorder.
One thing is certain: our world isfacing a great revolution. The only question is whether the outcome will bepropitious for the Aryan portion of mankind or whether the everlasting Jew willprofit by it.
By educating the young generationalong the right lines, the People’s State will have to see to it that ageneration of mankind is formed which will be adequate to this supreme combatthat will decide the destinies of the world.
That nation will conquer whichwill be the first to take this road.
The whole organization ofeducation and training which the People’s State is to build up must take as itscrowning task the work of instilling into the hearts and brains of the youthentrusted to it the racial instinct and understanding of the racial idea. Noboy or girl must leave school without having attained a clear insight into themeaning of racial purity and the importance of maintaining the racial bloodunadulterated. Thus the first indispensable condition for the preservation ofour race will have been established and thus the future cultural progress ofour people will be assured.
For in the last analysis allphysical and mental training would be in vain unless it served an entity whichis ready and determined to carry on its own existence and maintain its owncharacteristic qualities.
If it were otherwise, something wouldresult which we Germans have cause to regret already, without perhaps havinghitherto recognized the extent of the tragic calamity. We should be doomed toremain also in the future only manure for civilization. And that not in thebanal sense of the contemporary bourgeois mind, which sees in a lost fellowmember of our people only a lost citizen, but in a sense which we should havepainfully to recognize: namely, that our racial blood would be destined todisappear. By continually mixing with other races we might lift them from theirformer lower level of civilization to a higher grade; but we ourselves shoulddescend for ever from the heights we had reached.
Finally, from the racialstandpoint this training also must find its culmination in the militaryservice. The term of military service is to be a final stage of the normaltraining which the average German receives.
While the People’s State attachesthe greatest importance to physical and mental training, it has also toconsider, and no less importantly, the task of selecting men for the service ofthe State itself. This important matter is passed over lightly at the presenttime. Generally the children of parents who are for the time being in highersituations are in their turn considered worthy of a higher education. Heretalent plays a subordinate part. But talent can be estimated only relatively.Though in general culture he may be inferior to the city child, a peasant boymay be more talented than the son of a family that has occupied high positionsthrough many generations. But the superior culture of the city child has initself nothing to do with a greater or lesser degree of talent; for thisculture has its roots in the more copious mass of impressions which arise fromthe more varied education and the surroundings among which this child lives. Ifthe intelligent son of peasant parents were educated from childhood in similarsurroundings his intellectual accomplishments would be quite otherwise. In ourday there is only one sphere where the family in which a person has been bornmeans less than his innate gifts. That is the sphere of art. Here, where aperson cannot just ‘learn,’ but must have innate gifts that later on mayundergo a more or less happy development (in the sense of a wise development ofwhat is already there), money and parental property are of no account. This isa good proof that genius is not necessarily connected with the higher socialstrata or with wealth. Not rarely the greatest artists come from poor families.And many a boy from the country village has eventually become a celebratedmaster.
It does not say much for themental acumen of our time that advantage is not taken of this truth for thesake of our whole intellectual life. The opinion is advanced that this principle,though undoubtedly valid in the field of art, has not the same validity inregard to what are called the applied sciences. It is true that a man can betrained to a certain amount of mechanical dexterity, just as a poodle can betaught incredible tricks by a clever master. But such training does not bringthe animal to use his intelligence in order to carry out those tricks. And thesame holds good in regard to man. It is possible to teach men, irrespective oftalent or no talent, to go through certain scientific exercises, but in suchcases the results are quite as inanimate and mechanical as in the case of theanimal. It would even be possible to force a person of mediocre intelligence,by means of a severe course of intellectual drilling, to acquire more than theaverage amount of knowledge; but that knowledge would remain sterile. Theresult would be a man who might be a walking dictionary of knowledge but whowill fail miserably on every critical occasion in life and at every juncturewhere vital decisions have to be taken. Such people need to be drilledspecially for every new and even most insignificant task and will never becapable of contributing in the least to the general progress of mankind.Knowledge that is merely drilled into people can at best qualify them to fillgovernment positions under our present regime.
It goes without saying that, amongthe sum total of individuals who make up a nation, gifted people are always tobe found in every sphere of life. It is also quite natural that the value ofknowledge will be all the greater the more vitally the dead mass of learning isanimated by the innate talent of the individual who possesses it. Creative workin this field can be done only through the marriage of knowledge and talent.
One example will suffice to showhow much our contemporary world is at fault in this matter. From time to timeour illustrated papers publish, for the edification of the German philistine,the news that in some quarter or other of the globe, and for the first time inthat locality, a Negro has become a lawyer, a teacher, a pastor, even a grandopera tenor or something else of that kind. While the bourgeois blockheadstares with amazed admiration at the notice that tells him how marvellous arethe achievements of our modern educational technique, the more cunning Jew seesin this fact a new proof to be utilized for the theory with which he wants toinfect the public, namely that all men are equal. It does not dawn on the murkybourgeois mind that the fact which is published for him is a sin against reasonitself, that it is an act of criminal insanity to train a being who is only ananthropoid by birth until the pretence can be made that he has been turned intoa lawyer; while, on the other hand, millions who belong to the most civilizedraces have to remain in positions which are unworthy of their cultural level.The bourgeois mind does not realize that it is a sin against the will of theeternal Creator to allow hundreds of thousands of highly gifted people to remainfloundering in the swamp of proletarian misery while Hottentots and Zulus aredrilled to fill positions in the intellectual professions. For here we have theproduct only of a drilling technique, just as in the case of the performingdog. If the same amount of care and effort were applied among intelligent raceseach individual would become a thousand times more capable in such matters.
This state of affairs would becomeintolerable if a day should arrive when it no longer refers to exceptionalcases. But the situation is already intolerable where talent and natural giftsare not taken as decisive factors in qualifying for the right to a highereducation. It is indeed intolerable to think that year after year hundreds ofthousands of young people without a single vestige of talent are deemed worthyof a higher education, while other hundreds of thousands who possess highnatural gifts have to go without any sort of higher schooling at all. Thepractical loss thus caused to the nation is incalculable. If the number ofimportant discoveries which have been made in America has grown considerably inrecent years one of the reasons is that the number of gifted persons belongingto the lowest social classes who were given a higher education in that countryis proportionately much larger than in Europe.
A stock of knowledge packed intothe brain will not suffice for the making of discoveries. What counts here isonly that knowledge which is illuminated by natural talent. But with us at thepresent time no value is placed on such gifts. Only good school reports count.
Here is another educative workthat is waiting for the People’s State to do. It will not be its task to assurea dominant influence to a certain social class already existing, but it will beits duty to attract the most competent brains in the total mass of the nationand promote them to place and honour. It is not merely the duty of the State togive to the average child a certain definite education in the primary school,but it is also its duty to open the road to talent in the proper direction. Andabove all, it must open the doors of the higher schools under the State totalent of every sort, no matter in what social class it may appear. This is animperative necessity; for thus alone will it be possible to develop a talentedbody of public leaders from the class which represents learning that in itselfis only a dead mass.
There is still another reason whythe State should provide for this situation. Our intellectual class,particularly in Germany, is so shut up in itself and fossilized that it lacksliving contact with the classes beneath it. Two evil consequences result fromthis: First, the intellectual class neither understands nor sympathizes withthe broad masses. It has been so long cut off from all connection with themthat it cannot now have the necessary psychological ties that would enable itto understand them. It has become estranged from the people. Secondly, theintellectual class lacks the necessary will-power; for this faculty is alwaysweaker in cultivated circles, which live in seclusion, than among the primitivemasses of the people. God knows we Germans have never been lacking in abundantscientific culture, but we have always had a considerable lack of will-powerand the capacity for making decisions. For example, the more ‘intellectual’ ourstatesmen have been the more lacking they have been, for the most part, inpractical achievement. Our political preparation and our technical equipmentfor the world war were defective, certainly not because the brains governingthe nation were too little educated, but because the men who directed ourpublic affairs were over-educated, filled to over-flowing with knowledge andintelligence, yet without any sound instinct and simply without energy, or anyspirit of daring. It was our nation’s tragedy to have to fight for itsexistence under a Chancellor who was a dillydallying philosopher. If instead ofa Bethmann von Hollweg we had had a rough man of the people as our leader theheroic blood of the common grenadier would not have been shed in vain. Theexaggeratedly intellectual material out of which our leaders were made provedto be the best ally of the scoundrels who carried out the November revolution.These intellectuals safeguarded the national wealth in a miserly fashion,instead of launching it forth and risking it, and thus they set the conditionson which the others won success.
Here the Catholic Church presentsan instructive example. Clerical celibacy forces the Church to recruit its priestsnot from their own ranks but progressively from the masses of the people. Yetthere are not many who recognize the significance of celibacy in this relation.But therein lies the cause of the inexhaustible vigour which characterizes thatancient institution. For by thus unceasingly recruiting the ecclesiasticaldignitaries from the lower classes of the people, the Church is enabled notonly to maintain the contact of instinctive understanding with the masses ofthe population but also to assure itself of always being able to draw upon thatfund of energy which is present in this form only among the popular masses.Hence the surprising youthfulness of that gigantic organism, its mentalflexibility and its iron will-power.
It will be the task of the Peoples’State so to organize and administer its educational system that the existingintellectual class will be constantly furnished with a supply of fresh bloodfrom beneath. From the bulk of the nation the State must sift out with carefulscrutiny those persons who are endowed with natural talents and see that theyare employed in the service of the community. For neither the State itself northe various departments of State exist to furnish revenues for members of aspecial class, but to fulfil the tasks allotted to them. This will be possible,however, only if the State trains individuals specially for these offices. Suchindividuals must have the necessary fundamental capabilities and will-power.The principle does not hold true only in regard to the civil service but alsoin regard to all those who are to take part in the intellectual and moralleadership of the people, no matter in what sphere they may be employed. Thegreatness of a people is partly dependent on the condition that it must succeedin training the best brains for those branches of the public service for whichthey show a special natural aptitude and in placing them in the offices wherethey can do their best work for the good of the community. If two nations ofequal strength and quality engage in a mutual conflict that nation will comeout victorious which has entrusted its intellectual and moral leadership to itsbest talents and that nation will go under whose government represents only acommon food trough for privileged groups or classes and where the inner talentsof its individual members are not availed of.
Of course such a reform seemsimpossible in the world as it is to-day. The objection will at once be raised,that it is too much to expect from the favourite son of a highly-placed civilservant, for instance, that he shall work with his hands simply becausesomebody else whose parents belong to the working-class seems more capable fora job in the civil service. That argument may be valid as long as manual workis looked upon in the same way as it is looked upon to-day. Hence the Peoples’State will have to take up an attitude towards the appreciation of manuallabour which will be fundamentally different from that which now exists. Ifnecessary, it will have to organize a persistent system of teaching which willaim at abolishing the present-day stupid habit of looking down on physicallabour as an occupation to be ashamed of.
The individual will have to bevalued, not by the class of work he does but by the way in which he does it andby its usefulness to the community. This statement may sound monstrous in anepoch when the most brainless columnist on a newspaper staff is more esteemedthan the most expert mechanic, merely because the former pushes a pen. But, asI have said, this false valuation does not correspond to the nature of things.It has been artificially introduced, and there was a time when it did not existat all. The present unnatural state of affairs is one of those general morbidphenomena that have arisen from our materialistic epoch. Fundamentally everykind of work has a double value; the one material, the other ideal. Thematerial value depends on the practical importance of the work to the life ofthe community. The greater the number of the population who benefit from thework, directly or indirectly, the higher will be its material value. Thisevaluation is expressed in the material recompense which the individualreceives for his labour. In contradistinction to this purely material valuethere is the ideal value. Here the work performed is not judged by its materialimportance but by the degree to which it answers a necessity. Certainly thematerial utility of an invention may be greater than that of the servicerendered by an everyday workman; but it is also certain that the communityneeds each of those small daily services just as much as the greater services.From the material point of view a distinction can be made in the evaluation ofdifferent kinds of work according to their utility to the community, and thisdistinction is expressed by the differentiation in the scale of recompense; buton the ideal or abstract plans all workmen become equal the moment each strivesto do his best in his own field, no matter what that field may be. It is onthis that a man’s value must be estimated, and not on the amount of recompensereceived.
In a reasonably directed Statecare must be taken that each individual is given the kind of work whichcorresponds to his capabilities. In other words, people will be trained for thepositions indicated by their natural endowments; but these endowments orfaculties are innate and cannot be acquired by any amount of training, being agift from Nature and not merited by men. Therefore, the way in which men aregenerally esteemed by their fellow-citizens must not be according to the kindof work they do, because that has been more or less assigned to the individual.Seeing that the kind of work in which the individual is employed is to beaccounted to his inborn gifts and the resultant training which he has receivedfrom the community, he will have to be judged by the way in which he performsthis work entrusted to him by the community. For the work which the individualperforms is not the purpose of his existence, but only a means. His realpurpose in life is to better himself and raise himself to a higher level as ahuman being; but this he can only do in and through the community whosecultural life he shares. And this community must always exist on thefoundations on which the State is based. He ought to contribute to theconservation of those foundations. Nature determines the form of thiscontribution. It is the duty of the individual to return to the community,zealously and honestly, what the community has given him. He who does thisdeserves the highest respect and esteem. Material remuneration may be given tohim whose work has a corresponding utility for the community; but the idealrecompense must lie in the esteem to which everybody has a claim who serves hispeople with whatever powers Nature has bestowed upon him and which have beendeveloped by the training he has received from the national community. Then itwill no longer be dishonourable to be an honest craftsman; but it will be acause of disgrace to be an inefficient State official, wasting God’s day andfilching daily bread from an honest public. Then it will be looked upon asquite natural that positions should not be given to persons who of their verynature are incapable of filling them.
Furthermore, this personalefficiency will be the sole criterion of the right to take part on an equaljuridical footing in general civil affairs.
The present epoch is working outits own ruin. It introduces universal suffrage, chatters about equal rights butcan find no foundation for this equality. It considers the material wage as theexpression of a man’s value and thus destroys the basis of the noblest kind ofequality that can exist. For equality cannot and does not depend on the work aman does, but only on the manner in which each one does the particular workallotted to him. Thus alone will mere natural chance be set aside indetermining the work of a man and thus only does the individual become theartificer of his own social worth.
At the present time, when wholegroups of people estimate each other’s value only by the size of the salarieswhich they respectively receive, there will be no understanding of all this.But that is no reason why we should cease to champion those ideas. Quite theopposite: in an epoch which is inwardly diseased and decaying anyone who wouldheal it must have the courage first to lay bare the real roots of the disease.And the National Socialist Movement must take that duty on its shoulders. Itwill have to lift its voice above the heads of the small bourgeoisie and rallytogether and co-ordinate all those popular forces which are ready to become theprotagonists of a new Weltanschhauung.
Of course the objection will bemade that in general it is difficult to differentiate between the material andideal values of work and that the lower prestige which is attached to physicallabour is due to the fact that smaller wages are paid for that kind of work. Itwill be said that the lower wage is in its turn the reason why the manualworker has less chance to participate in the culture of the nation; so that theideal side of human culture is less open to him because it has nothing to dowith his daily activities. It may be added that the reluctance to do physicalwork is justified by the fact that, on account of the small income, thecultural level of manual labourers must naturally be low, and that this in turnis a justification for the lower estimation in which manual labour is generallyheld.
There is quite a good deal oftruth in all this. But that is the very reason why we ought to see that in thefuture there should not be such a wide difference in the scale of remuneration.Don’t say that under such conditions poorer work would be done. It would be thesaddest symptom of decadence if finer intellectual work could be obtained onlythrough the stimulus of higher payment. If that point of view had ruled theworld up to now humanity would never have acquired its greatest scientific andcultural heritage. For all the greatest inventions, the greatest discoveries,the most profoundly revolutionary scientific work, and the most magnificentmonuments of human culture, were never given to the world under the impulse orcompulsion of money. Quite the contrary: not rarely was their origin associatedwith a renunciation of the worldly pleasures that wealth can purchase.
It may be that money has becomethe one power that governs life to-day. Yet a time will come when men willagain bow to higher gods. Much that we have to-day owes its existence to thedesire for money and property; but there is very little among all this whichwould leave the world poorer by its lack.
It is also one of the aims beforeour movement to hold out the prospect of a time when the individual will begiven what he needs for the purposes of his life and it will be a time inwhich, on the other hand, the principle will be upheld that man does not livefor material enjoyment alone. This principle will find expression in a wiserscale of wages and salaries which will enable everyone, including the humblestworkman who fulfils his duties conscientiously, to live an honourable anddecent life both as a man and as a citizen. Let it not be said that this ismerely a visionary ideal, that this world would never tolerate it in practiceand that of itself it is impossible to attain.
Even we are not so simple as tobelieve that there will ever be an age in which there will be no drawbacks. Butthat does not release us from the obligation to fight for the removal of thedefects which we have recognized, to overcome the shortcomings and to strivetowards the ideal. In any case the hard reality of the facts to be faced willalways place only too many limits to our aspirations. But that is precisely whyman must strive again and again to serve the ultimate aim and no failures mustinduce him to renounce his intentions, just as we cannot spurn the sway ofjustice because mistakes creep into the administration of the law, and just aswe cannot despise medical science because, in spite of it, there will always bediseases.
Man should take care not to havetoo low an estimate of the power of an ideal. If there are some who may feeldisheartened over the present conditions, and if they happen to have served assoldiers, I would remind them of the time when their heroism was the mostconvincing example of the power inherent in ideal motives. It was notpreoccupation about their daily bread that led men to sacrifice their lives,but the love of their country, the faith which they had in its greatness, andan all round feeling for the honour of the nation. Only after the German peoplehad become estranged from these ideals, to follow the material promises offeredby the Revolution, only after they threw away their arms to take up therucksack, only then – instead of entering an earthly paradise – did they sinkinto the purgatory of universal contempt and at the same time universal want.
That is why we must face thecalculators of the materialist Republic with faith in an idealist Reich.
CHAPTERIII
CITIZENS AND SUBJECTS OF THE STATE
The institution that is nowerroneously called the State generally classifies people only into two groups:citizens and aliens. Citizens are all those who possess full civic rights,either by reason of their birth or by an act of naturalization. Aliens arethose who enjoy the same rights in some other State. Between these twocategories there are certain beings who resemble a sort of meteoric phenomena.They are people who have no citizenship in any State and consequently no civic rightsanywhere.
In most cases nowadays a personacquires civic rights by being born within the frontiers of a State. The raceor nationality to which he may belong plays no role whatsoever. The child of aNegro who once lived in one of the German protectorates and now takes up hisresidence in Germany automatically becomes a ‘German Citizen’ in the eyes ofthe world. In the same way the child of any Jew, Pole, African or Asian mayautomatically become a German Citizen.
Besides naturalization that isacquired through the fact of having been born within the confines of a Statethere exists another kind of naturalization which can be acquired later. Thisprocess is subject to various preliminary requirements. For example onecondition is that, if possible, the applicant must not be a burglar or a commonstreet thug. It is required of him that his political attitude is not such asto give cause for uneasiness; in other words he must be a harmless simpleton inpolitics. It is required that he shall not be a burden to the State of which hewishes to become a citizen. In this realistic epoch of ours this last conditionnaturally only means that he must not be a financial burden. If the affairs ofthe candidate are such that it appears likely he will turn out to be a goodtaxpayer, that is a very important consideration and will help him to obtaincivic rights all the more rapidly.
The question of race plays no partat all.
The whole process of acquiringcivic rights is not very different from that of being admitted to membership ofan automobile club, for instance. A person files his application. It isexamined. It is sanctioned. And one day the man receives a card which informshim that he has become a citizen. The information is given in an amusing way.An applicant who has hitherto been a Zulu or Kaffir is told: "By thesepresents you are now become a German Citizen."
The President of the State canperform this piece of magic. What God Himself could not do is achieved by someTheophrastus Paracelsus 16) of a civil servant through a mere twirlof the hand. Nothing but a stroke of the pen, and a Mongolian slave isforthwith turned into a real German. Not only is no question asked regardingthe race to which the new citizen belongs; even the matter of his physical healthis not inquired into. His flesh may be corrupted with syphilis; but he willstill be welcome in the State as it exists to-day so long as he may not becomea financial burden or a political danger.
In this way, year after year,those organisms which we call States take up poisonous matter which they canhardly ever overcome.
Another point of distinctionbetween a citizen and an alien is that the former is admitted to all publicoffices, that he may possibly have to do military service and that in return heis permitted to take a passive or active part at public elections. Those arehis chief privileges. For in regard to personal rights and personal liberty thealien enjoys the same amount of protection as the citizen, and frequently evenmore. Anyhow that is how it happens in our present German Republic.
I realize fully that nobody likesto hear these things. But it would be difficult to find anything more illogicalor more insane than our contemporary laws in regard to State citizenship.
At present there exists one Statewhich manifests at least some modest attempts that show a better appreciationof how things ought to be done in this matter. It is not, however, in our modelGerman Republic but in the U.S.A. that efforts are made to conform at leastpartly to the counsels of commonsense. By refusing immigrants to enter there ifthey are in a bad state of health, and by excluding certain races from theright to become naturalized as citizens, they have begun to introduceprinciples similar to those on which we wish to ground the People’s State.
The People’s State will classifyits population in three groups: Citizens, subjects of the State, and aliens.
The principle is that birth withinthe confines of the State gives only the status of a subject. It does not carrywith it the right to fill any position under the State or to participate inpolitical life, such as taking an active or passive part in elections. Anotherprinciple is that the race and nationality of every subject of the State willhave to be proved. A subject is at any time free to cease being a subject andto become a citizen of that country to which he belongs in virtue of hisnationality. The only difference between an alien and a subject of the State isthat the former is a citizen of another country.
The young boy or girl who is ofGerman nationality and is a subject of the German State is bound to completethe period of school education which is obligatory for every German. Thereby hesubmits to the system of training which will make him conscious of his race anda member of the folk-community. Then he has to fulfil all those requirementslaid down by the State in regard to physical training after he has left school;and finally he enters the army. The training in the army is of a general kind.It must be given to each individual German and will render him competent tofulfil the physical and mental requirements of military service. The rights ofcitizenship shall be conferred on every young man whose health and character havebeen certified as good, after having completed his period of military service.This act of inauguration in citizenship shall be a solemn ceremony. And thediploma conferring the rights of citizenship will be preserved by the young manas the most precious testimonial of his whole life. It entitles him to exerciseall the rights of a citizen and to enjoy all the privileges attached thereto.For the State must draw a sharp line of distinction between those who, asmembers of the nation, are the foundation and the support of its existence andgreatness, and those who are domiciled in the State simply as earners of theirlivelihood there.
On the occasion of conferring adiploma of citizenship the new citizen must take a solemn oath of loyalty tothe national community and the State. This diploma must be a bond which unitestogether all the various classes and sections of the nation. It shall be agreater honour to be a citizen of this Reich, even as a street-sweeper, than tobe the King of a foreign State.
The citizen has privileges whichare not accorded to the alien. He is the master in the Reich. But this highhonour has also its obligations. Those who show themselves without personalhonour or character, or common criminals, or traitors to the fatherland, can atany time be deprived of the rights of citizenship. Therewith they become merelysubjects of the State.
The German girl is a subject ofthe State but will become a citizen when she marries. At the same time thosewomen who earn their livelihood independently have the right to acquirecitizenship if they are German subjects.
CHAPTER IV
PERSONALITY AND THE IDEAL OF THE PEOPLE’S STATE
If the principal duty of theNational Socialist People’s State be to educate and promote the existence ofthose who are the material out of which the State is formed, it will not besufficient to promote those racial elements as such, educate them and finallytrain them for practical life, but the State must also adapt its ownorganization to meet the demands of this task.
It would be absurd to appraise aman’s worth by the race to which he belongs and at the same time to make waragainst the Marxist principle, that all men are equal, without being determinedto pursue our own principle to its ultimate consequences. If we admit thesignificance of blood, that is to say, if we recognize the race as thefundamental element on which all life is based, we shall have to apply to theindividual the logical consequences of this principle. In general I mustestimate the worth of nations differently, on the basis of the different racesfrom which they spring, and I must also differentiate in estimating the worthof the individual within his own race. The principle, that one people is notthe same as another, applies also to the individual members of a nationalcommunity. No one brain, for instance, is equal to another; because theconstituent elements belonging to the same blood vary in a thousand subtledetails, though they are fundamentally of the same quality.
The first consequence of this factis comparatively simple. It demands that those elements within thefolk-community which show the best racial qualities ought to be encouraged morethan the others and especially they should be encouraged to increase andmultiply.
This task is comparatively simplebecause it can be recognized and carried out almost mechanically. It is muchmore difficult to select from among a whole multitude of people all those whoactually possess the highest intellectual and spiritual characteristics andassign them to that sphere of influence which not only corresponds to theiroutstanding talents but in which their activities will above all things be ofbenefit to the nation. This selection according to capacity and efficiencycannot be effected in a mechanical way. It is a work which can be accomplishedonly through the permanent struggle of everyday life itself.
A Weltanschhauung whichrepudiates the democratic principle of the rule of the masses and aims atgiving this world to the best people – that is, to the highest quality ofmankind – must also apply that same aristocratic postulate to the individualswithin the folk-community. It must take care that the positions of leadershipand highest influence are given to the best men. Hence it is not based on theidea of the majority, but on that of personality.
Anyone who believes that thePeople’s National Socialist State should distinguish itself from the otherStates only mechanically, as it were, through the better construction of itseconomic life – thanks to a better equilibrium between poverty and riches, orto the extension to broader masses of the power to determine the economicprocess, or to a fairer wage, or to the elimination of vast differences in thescale of salaries – anyone who thinks this understands only the superficialfeatures of our movement and has not the least idea of what we mean when wespeak of our Weltanschhauung. All these features just mentioned couldnot in the least guarantee us a lasting existence and certainly would be nowarranty of greatness. A nation that could content itself with external reformswould not have the slightest chance of success in the general struggle for lifeamong the nations of the world. A movement that would confine its mission tosuch adjustments, which are certainly right and equitable, would effect nofar-reaching or profound reform in the existing order. The whole effect of suchmeasures would be limited to externals. They would not furnish the nation withthat moral armament which alone will enable it effectively to overcome theweaknesses from which we are suffering to-day.
In order to elucidate this pointof view it may be worth while to glance once again at the real origins andcauses of the cultural evolution of mankind.
The first step which visiblybrought mankind away from the animal world was that which led to the firstinvention. The invention itself owes its origin to the ruses and stratagemswhich man employed to assist him in the struggle with other creatures for hisexistence and often to provide him with the only means he could adopt toachieve success in the struggle. Those first very crude inventions cannot beattributed to the individual; for the subsequent observer, that is to say themodern observer, recognizes them only as collective phenomena. Certain tricksand skilful tactics which can be observed in use among the animals strike theeye of the observer as established facts which may be seen everywhere; and manis no longer in a position to discover or explain their primary cause and so hecontents himself with calling such phenomena ‘instinctive.’
In our case this term has nomeaning. Because everyone who believes in the higher evolution of livingorganisms must admit that every manifestation of the vital urge and struggle tolive must have had a definite beginning in time and that one subject alone musthave manifested it for the first time. It was then repeated again and again;and the practice of it spread over a widening area, until finally it passedinto the subconscience of every member of the species, where it manifesteditself as ‘instinct.’
This is more easily understood andmore easy to believe in the case of man. His first skilled tactics in thestruggle with the rest of the animals undoubtedly originated in his managementof creatures which possessed special capabilities.
There can be no doubt thatpersonality was then the sole factor in all decisions and achievements, whichwere afterwards taken over by the whole of humanity as a matter of course. Anexact exemplification of this may be found in those fundamental militaryprinciples which have now become the basis of all strategy in war. Originallythey sprang from the brain of a single individual and in the course of manyyears, maybe even thousands of years, they were accepted all round as a matterof course and this gained universal validity.
Man completed his first discoveryby making a second. Among other things he learned how to master other livingbeings and make them serve him in his struggle for existence. And thus beganthe real inventive activity of mankind, as it is now visible before our eyes.Those material inventions, beginning with the use of stones as weapons, whichled to the domestication of animals, the production of fire by artificial means,down to the marvellous inventions of our own days, show clearly that anindividual was the originator in each case. The nearer we come to our own timeand the more important and revolutionary the inventions become, the moreclearly do we recognize the truth of that statement. All the materialinventions which we see around us have been produced by the creative powers andcapabilities of individuals. And all these inventions help man to raise himselfhigher and higher above the animal world and to separate himself from thatworld in an absolutely definite way. Hence they serve to elevate the humanspecies and continually to promote its progress. And what the most primitiveartifice once did for man in his struggle for existence, as he went huntingthrough the primeval forest, that same sort of assistance is rendered himto-day in the form of marvellous scientific inventions which help him in thepresent day struggle for life and to forge weapons for future struggles. Intheir final consequences all human thought and invention help man in hislife-struggle on this planet, even though the so-called practical utility of aninvention, a discovery or a profound scientific theory, may not be evident atfirst sight. Everything contributes to raise man higher and higher above thelevel of all the other creatures that surround him, thereby strengthening andconsolidating his position; so that he develops more and more in everydirection as the ruling being on this earth.
Hence all inventions are theresult of the creative faculty of the individual. And all such individuals,whether they have willed it or not, are the benefactors of mankind, both greatand small. Through their work millions and indeed billions of human beings havebeen provided with means and resources which facilitate their struggle forexistence.
Thus at the origin of the materialcivilization which flourishes to-day we always see individual persons. Theysupplement one another and one of them bases his work on that of the other. Thesame is true in regard to the practical application of those inventions anddiscoveries. For all the various methods of production are in their turninventions also and consequently dependent on the creative faculty of theindividual. Even the purely theoretical work, which cannot be measured by adefinite rule and is preliminary to all subsequent technical discoveries, isexclusively the product of the individual brain. The broad masses do notinvent, nor does the majority organize or think; but always and in every case theindividual man, the person.
Accordingly a human community iswell organized only when it facilitates to the highest possible degreeindividual creative forces and utilizes their work for the benefit of the community.The most valuable factor of an invention, whether it be in the world ofmaterial realities or in the world of abstract ideas, is the personality of theinventor himself. The first and supreme duty of an organized folk community isto place the inventor in a position where he can be of the greatest benefit toall. Indeed the very purpose of the organization is to put this principle intopractice. Only by so doing can it ward off the curse of mechanization andremain a living thing. In itself it must personify the effort to place men ofbrains above the multitude and to make the latter obey the former.
Therefore not only does theorganization possess no right to prevent men of brains from rising above themultitude but, on the contrary, it must use its organizing powers to enable andpromote that ascension as far as it possibly can. It must start out from theprinciple that the blessings of mankind never came from the masses but from thecreative brains of individuals, who are therefore the real benefactors ofhumanity. It is in the interest of all to assure men of creative brains adecisive influence and facilitate their work. This common interest is surelynot served by allowing the multitude to rule, for they are not capable ofthinking nor are they efficient and in no case whatsoever can they be said tobe gifted. Only those should rule who have the natural temperament and gifts ofleadership.
Such men of brains are selectedmainly, as I have already said, through the hard struggle for existence itself.In this struggle there are many who break down and collapse and thereby showthat they are not called by Destiny to fill the highest positions; and onlyvery few are left who can be classed among the elect. In the realm of thoughtand of artistic creation, and even in the economic field, this same process ofselection takes place, although – especially in the economic field – itsoperation is heavily handicapped. This same principle of selection rules in theadministration of the State and in that department of power which personifiesthe organized military defence of the nation. The idea of personality ruleseverywhere, the authority of the individual over his subordinates and theresponsibility of the individual towards the persons who are placed over him.It is only in political life that this very natural principle has beencompletely excluded. Though all human civilization has resulted exclusivelyfrom the creative activity of the individual, the principle that it is the masswhich counts – through the decision of the majority – makes its appearance onlyin the administration of the national community especially in the highergrades; and from there downwards the poison gradually filters into all branchesof national life, thus causing a veritable decomposition. The destructiveworkings of Judaism in different parts of the national body can be ascribedfundamentally to the persistent Jewish efforts at undermining the importance ofpersonality among the nations that are their hosts and, in place of personality,substituting the domination of the masses. The constructive principle of Aryanhumanity is thus displaced by the destructive principle of the Jews, Theybecome the ‘ferment of decomposition’ among nations and races and, in a broadsense, the wreckers of human civilization.
Marxism represents the moststriking phase of the Jewish endeavour to eliminate the dominant significanceof personality in every sphere of human life and replace it by the numericalpower of the masses. In politics the parliamentary form of government is theexpression of this effort. We can observe the fatal effects of it everywhere,from the smallest parish council upwards to the highest governing circles ofthe nation. In the field of economics we see the trade union movement, whichdoes not serve the real interests of the employees but the destructive aims ofinternational Jewry. Just to the same degree in which the principle ofpersonality is excluded from the economic life of the nation, and the influenceand activities of the masses substituted in its stead, national economy, whichshould be for the service and benefit of the community as a whole, willgradually deteriorate in its creative capacity. The shop committees which,instead of caring for the interests of the employees, strive to influence theprocess of production, serve the same destructive purpose. They damage thegeneral productive system and consequently injure the individual engaged inindustry. For in the long run it is impossible to satisfy popular demandsmerely by high-sounding theoretical phrases. These can be satisfied only bysupplying goods to meet the individual needs of daily life and by so doingcreate the conviction that, through the productive collaboration of itsmembers, the folk community serves the interests of the individual.
Even if, on the basis of itsmass-theory, Marxism should prove itself capable of taking over and developingthe present economic system, that would not signify anything. The question asto whether the Marxist doctrine be right or wrong cannot be decided by any testwhich would show that it can administer for the future what already existsto-day, but only by asking whether it has the creative power to build upaccording to its own principles a civilization which would be a counterpart ofwhat already exists. Even if Marxism were a thousandfold capable of taking overthe economic life as we now have it and maintaining it in operation underMarxist direction, such an achievement would prove nothing; because, on thebasis of its own principles, Marxism would never be able to create somethingwhich could supplant what exists to-day.
And Marxism itself has furnishedthe proof that it cannot do this. Not only has it been unable anywhere tocreate a cultural or economic system of its own; but it was not even able todevelop, according to its own principles, the civilization and economic systemit found ready at hand. It has had to make compromises, by way of a return tothe principle of personality, just as it cannot dispense with that principle inits own organization.
The racial Weltanschhauungis fundamentally distinguished from the Marxist by reason of the fact that theformer recognizes the significance of race and therefore also personal worthand has made these the pillars of its structure. These are the most importantfactors of its Weltanschhauung.
If the National Socialist Movementshould fail to understand the fundamental importance of this essentialprinciple, if it should merely varnish the external appearance of the presentState and adopt the majority principle, it would really do nothing more thancompete with Marxism on its own ground. For that reason it would not have theright to call itself a Weltanschhauung. If the social programme of themovement consisted in eliminating personality and putting the multitude in itsplace, then National Socialism would be corrupted with the poison of Marxism,just as our national-bourgeois parties are.
The People’s State must assure thewelfare of its citizens by recognizing the importance of personal values underall circumstances and by preparing the way for the maximum of productiveefficiency in all the various branches of economic life, thus securing to theindividual the highest possible share in the general output.
Hence the People’s State mustmercilessly expurgate from all the leading circles in the government of thecountry the parliamentarian principle, according to which decisive powerthrough the majority vote is invested in the multitude. Personal responsibilitymust be substituted in its stead.
From this the following conclusionresults:
The best constitution and the bestform of government is that which makes it quite natural for the best brains toreach a position of dominant importance and influence in the community.
Just as in the field of economicsmen of outstanding ability cannot be designated from above but must comeforward in virtue of their own efforts, and just as there is an unceasingeducative process that leads from the smallest shop to the largest undertaking,and just as life itself is the school in which those lessons are taught, so inthe political field it is not possible to ‘discover’ political talent all in amoment. Genius of an extraordinary stamp is not to be judged by normalstandards whereby we judge other men.
In its organization the State mustbe established on the principle of personality, starting from the smallest celland ascending up to the supreme government of the country.
There are no decisions made by themajority vote, but only by responsible persons. And the word ‘council’ is oncemore restored to its original meaning. Every man in a position ofresponsibility will have councillors at his side, but the decision is made bythat individual person alone.
The principle which made theformer Prussian Army an admirable instrument of the German nation will have tobecome the basis of our statal constitution, that is to say, full authorityover his subordinates must be invested in each leader and he must beresponsible to those above him.
Even then we shall not be able todo without those corporations which at present we call parliaments. But theywill be real councils, in the sense that they will have to give advice. Theresponsibility can and must be borne by one individual, who alone will bevested with authority and the right to command.
Parliaments as such are necessarybecause they alone furnish the opportunity for leaders to rise gradually whowill be entrusted subsequently with positions of special responsibility.
The following is an outline of thepicture which the organization will present:
From the municipal administrationup to the government of the Reich, the People’s State will not have any body ofrepresentatives which makes its decisions through the majority vote. It willhave only advisory bodies to assist the chosen leader for the time being and hewill distribute among them the various duties they are to perform. In certainfields they may, if necessary, have to assume full responsibility, such as theleader or president of each corporation possesses on a larger scale.
In principle the People’s Statemust forbid the custom of taking advice on certain political problems –economics, for instance – from persons who are entirely incompetent becausethey lack special training and practical experience in such matters.Consequently the State must divide its representative bodies into a politicalchamber and a corporative chamber that represents the respective trades andprofessions.
To assure an effectiveco-operation between those two bodies, a selected body will be placed overthem. This will be a special senate.
No vote will be taken in thechambers or senate. They are to be organizations for work and not votingmachines. The individual members will have consultive votes but no right ofdecision will be attached thereto. The right of decision belongs exclusively tothe president, who must be entirely responsible for the matter underdiscussion.
This principle of combiningabsolute authority with absolute responsibility will gradually cause a selectedgroup of leaders to emerge; which is not even thinkable in our present epoch ofirresponsible parliamentarianism.
The political construction of thenation will thereby be brought into harmony with those laws to which the nationalready owes its greatness in the economic and cultural spheres.
Regarding the possibility ofputting these principles into practice, I should like to call attention to thefact that the principle of parliamentarian democracy, whereby decisions areenacted through the majority vote, has not always ruled the world. On thecontrary, we find it prevalent only during short periods of history, and thosehave always been periods of decline in nations and States.
One must not believe, however,that such a radical change could be effected by measures of a purelytheoretical character, operating from above downwards; for the change I havebeen describing could not be limited to transforming the constitution of aState but would have to include the various fields of legislation and civicexistence as a whole. Such a revolution can be brought about only by means of amovement which is itself organized under the inspiration of these principlesand thus bears the germ of the future State in its own organism.
Therefore it is well for theNational Socialist Movement to make itself completely familiar with thoseprinciples to-day and actually to put them into practice within its ownorganization, so that not only will it be in a position to serve as a guide forthe future State but will have its own organization such that it cansubsequently be placed at the disposal of the State itself.
CHAPTER V
The People’s State, which I have triedto sketch in general outline, will not become a reality in virtue of the simplefact that we know the indispensable conditions of its existence. It does notsuffice to know what aspect such a State would present. The problem of itsfoundation is far more important. The parties which exist at present and whichdraw their profits from the State as it now is cannot be expected to bringabout a radical change in the regime or to change their attitude on their owninitiative. This is rendered all the more impossible because the forces whichnow have the direction of affairs in their hands are Jews here and Jews thereand Jews everywhere. The trend of development which we are now experiencingwould, if allowed to go on unhampered, lead to the realization of thePan-Jewish prophecy that the Jews will one day devour the other nations andbecome lords of the earth.
In contrast to the millions of‘bourgeois’ and ‘proletarian’ Germans, who are stumbling to their ruin, mostlythrough timidity, indolence and stupidity, the Jew pursues his way persistentlyand keeps his eye always fixed on his future goal. Any party that is led by himcan fight for no other interests than his, and his interests certainly havenothing in common with those of the Aryan nations.
If we would transform our idealpicture of the People’s State into a reality we shall have to keep independentof the forces that now control public life and seek for new forces that will beready and capable of taking up the fight for such an ideal. For a fight it willhave to be, since the first objective will not be to build up the idea of thePeople’s State but rather to wipe out the Jewish State which is now inexistence. As so often happens in the course of history, the main difficulty isnot to establish a new order of things but to clear the ground for itsestablishment. Prejudices and egotistic interests join together in forming acommon front against the new idea and in trying by every means to prevent itstriumph, because it is disagreeable to them or threatens their existence.
That is why the protagonist of thenew idea is unfortunately, in spite of his {254}desire for constructive work,compelled to wage a destructive battle first, in order to abolish the existingstate of affairs.
A doctrine whose principles areradically new and of essential importance must adopt the sharp probe ofcriticism as its weapon, though this may show itself disagreeable to theindividual followers.
It is evidence of a verysuperficial insight into historical developments if the so-called folkistsemphasize again and again that they will adopt the use of negative criticismunder no circumstances but will engage only in constructive work. That isnothing but puerile chatter and is typical of the whole lot of folkists. It is anotherproof that the history of our own times has made no impression on these minds.Marxism too has had its aims to pursue and it also recognizes constructivework, though by this it understands only the establishment of despotic rule inthe hands of international Jewish finance. Nevertheless for seventy years itsprincipal work still remains in the field of criticism. And what disruptive anddestructive criticism it has been! Criticism repeated again and again, untilthe corrosive acid ate into the old State so thoroughly that it finallycrumbled to pieces. Only then did the so-called ‘constructive’ critical work ofMarxism begin. And that was natural, right and logical. An existing order ofthings is not abolished by merely proclaiming and insisting on a new one. Itmust not be hoped that those who are the partisans of the existing order andhave their interests bound up with it will be converted and won over to the newmovement simply by being shown that something new is necessary. On thecontrary, what may easily happen is that two different situations will existside by side and that a Weltanschhauung is transformed into a party,above which level it will not be able to raise itself afterwards. For a Weltanschhauungis intolerant and cannot permit another to exist side by side with it. Itimperiously demands its own recognition as unique and exclusive and a completetransformation in accordance with its views throughout all the branches ofpublic life. It can never allow the previous state of affairs to continue inexistence by its side.
And the same holds true ofreligions.
Christianity was not content witherecting an altar of its own. It had first to destroy the pagan altars. It wasonly in virtue of this passionate intolerance that an apodictic faith couldgrow up. And intolerance is an indispensable condition for the growth of such afaith.
It may be objected here that inthese phenomena which we find throughout the history of the world we have torecognize mostly a specifically Jewish mode of thought and that such fanaticismand intolerance are typical symptoms of Jewish mentality. That may be athousandfold true; and it is a fact deeply to be regretted. The appearance ofintolerance and fanaticism in the history of mankind may be deeply regrettable,and it may be looked upon as foreign to human nature, but the fact does notchange conditions as they exist to-day. The men who wish to liberate our Germannation from the conditions in which it now exists cannot cudgel their brainswith thinking how excellent it would be if this or that had never arisen. Theymust strive to find ways and means of abolishing what actually exists. Aphilosophy of life which is inspired by an infernal spirit of intolerance canonly be set aside by a doctrine that is advanced in an equally ardent spiritand fought for with as determined a will and which is itself a new idea, pureand absolutely true.
Each one of us to-day may regretthe fact that the advent of Christianity was the first occasion on whichspiritual terror was introduced into the much freer ancient world, but the factcannot be denied that ever since then the world is pervaded and dominated bythis kind of coercion and that violence is broken only by violence and terrorby terror. Only then can a new regime be created by means of constructive work.Political parties are prone to enter compromises; but a Weltanschhauungnever does this. A political party is inclined to adjust its teachings with aview to meeting those of its opponents, but a Weltanschhauung proclaimsits own infallibility.
In the beginning, politicalparties have also and nearly always the intention of {255}securing an exclusiveand despotic domination for themselves. They always show a slight tendency tobecome Weltanschhauungen. But the limited nature of their programme isin itself enough to rob them of that heroic spirit which a Weltanschhauungdemands. The spirit of conciliation which animates their will attracts thosepetty and chicken-hearted people who are not fit to be protagonists in anycrusade. That is the reason why they mostly become struck in their miserablepettiness very early on the march. They give up fighting for their ideologyand, by way of what they call ‘positive collaboration,’ they try as quickly aspossible to wedge themselves into some tiny place at the trough of the existentregime and to stick there as long as possible. Their whole effort ends at that.And if they should get shouldered away from the common manger by a competitionof more brutal manners then their only idea is to force themselves in again, byforce or chicanery, among the herd of all the others who have similarappetites, in order to get back into the front row, and finally – even at theexpense of their most sacred convictions – participate anew in that belovedspot where they find their fodder. They are the jackals of politics.
But a general Weltanschhauungwill never share its place with something else. Therefore it can never agree tocollaborate in any order of things that it condemns. On the contrary it feelsobliged to employ every means in fighting against the old order and the wholeworld of ideas belonging to that order and prepare the way for its destruction.
These purely destructive tactics,the danger of which is so readily perceived by the enemy that he forms a unitedfront against them for his common defence, and also the constructive tactics,which must be aggressive in order to carry the new world of ideas to success –both these phases of the struggle call for a body of resolute fighters. Any newphilosophy of life will bring its ideas to victory only if the most courageousand active elements of its epoch and its people are enrolled under itsstandards and grouped firmly together in a powerful fighting organization. Toachieve this purpose it is absolutely necessary to select from the generalsystem of doctrine a certain number of ideas which will appeal to suchindividuals and which, once they are expressed in a precise and clear-cut form,will serve as articles of faith for a new association of men. While theprogramme of the ordinary political party is nothing but the recipe for cookingup favourable results out of the next general elections, the programme of a Weltanschhauungrepresents a declaration of war against an existing order of things, againstpresent conditions, in short, against the established Weltanschhauung.
It is not necessary, however, thatevery individual fighter for such a new doctrine need have a full grasp of theultimate ideas and plans of those who are the leaders of the movement. It isonly necessary that each should have a clear notion of the fundamental ideasand that he should thoroughly assimilate a few of the most fundamentalprinciples, so that he will be convinced of the necessity of carrying the movementand its doctrines to success. The individual soldier is not initiated in theknowledge of high strategical plans. But he is trained to submit to a rigiddiscipline, to be passionately convinced of the justice and inner worth of hiscause and that he must devote himself to it without reserve. So, too, theindividual follower of a movement must be made acquainted with its far-reachingpurpose, how it is inspired by a powerful will and has a great future beforeit.
Supposing that each soldier in anarmy were a general, and had the training and capacity for generalship, thatarmy would not be an efficient fighting instrument. Similarly a politicalmovement would not be very efficient in fighting for a Weltanschhauungif it were made up exclusively of intellectuals. No, we need the simple soldieralso. Without him no discipline can be established.
By its very nature, anorganization can exist only if leaders of high intellectual ability are servedby a large mass of men who are emotionally devoted to the cause. To maintaindiscipline in a company of two hundred men who are equally intelligent andcapable would turn out more difficult in the long run than in a company of onehundred and ninety less gifted men and ten who have had a higher education.
{256}The Social-Democrats haveprofited very much by recognizing this truth. They took the broad masses of ourpeople who had just completed military service and learned to submit todiscipline, and they subjected this mass of men to the discipline of theSocial-Democratic organization, which was no less rigid than the disciplinethrough which the young men had passed in their military training. TheSocial-Democratic organization consisted of an army divided into officers andmen. The German worker who had passed through his military service became theprivate soldier in that army, and the Jewish intellectual was the officer. TheGerman trade union functionaries may be compared to the non-commissionedofficers. The fact, which was always looked upon with indifference by ourmiddle-classes, that only the so-called uneducated classes joined Marxism wasthe very ground on which this party achieved its success. For while thebourgeois parties, because they mostly consisted of intellectuals, were only afeckless band of undisciplined individuals, out of much less intelligent humanmaterial the Marxist leaders formed an army of party combatants who obey theirJewish masters just as blindly as they formerly obeyed their German officers.The German middle-classes, who never; bothered their heads about psychologicalproblems because they felt themselves superior to such matters, did not thinkit necessary to reflect on the profound significance of this fact and thesecret danger involved in it. Indeed they believed. that a political movementwhich draws its followers exclusively from intellectual circles must, for thatvery reason, be of greater importance and have better grounds. for its chancesof success, and even a greater probability of taking over the government of thecountry than a party made up of the ignorant masses. They completely failed torealize the fact that the strength of a political party never consists in theintelligence and independent spirit of the rank-and-file of its members butrather in the spirit of willing obedience with which they follow theirintellectual leaders. What is of decisive importance is the leadership itself.When two bodies of troops are arrayed in mutual combat victory will not fall tothat side in which every soldier has an expert knowledge of the rules ofstrategy, but rather to that side which has the best leaders and at the sametime the best disciplined, most blindly obedient and best drilled troops.
That is a fundamental piece ofknowledge which we must always bear in mind when we examine the possibility oftransforming a Weltanschhauung into a practical reality.
If we agree that in order to carrya Weltanschhauung into practical effect it must be incorporated in afighting movement, then the logical consequence is that the programme of such amovement must take account of the human material at its disposal. Just as theultimate aims and fundamental principles must be absolutely definite andunmistakable, so the propagandist programme must be well drawn up and must beinspired by a keen sense of its psychological appeals to the minds of thosewithout whose help the noblest ideas will be doomed to remain in the eternal,realm of ideas.
If the idea of the People’s State,which is at present an obscure wish, is one day to attain a clear and definitesuccess, from its vague and vast mass of thought it will have to put forwardcertain definite principles which of their very nature and content arecalculated to attract a broad mass of adherents; in other words, such a groupof people as can guarantee that these principles will be fought for. That groupof people are the German workers.
That is why the programme of thenew movement was condensed into a few fundamental postulates, twenty-five inall. They are meant first of all to give the ordinary man a rough sketch ofwhat the movement is aiming at. They are, so to say, a profession of faithwhich on the one hand is meant to win adherents to the movement and, on theother, they are meant to unite such adherents together in a covenant to which allhave subscribed.
In these matters we must neverlose sight of the following: What we call the programme of the movement isabsolutely right as far as its ultimate aims are concerned, but as regards themanner in which that programme is formulated {257}certain psychologica1considerations had to be taken into account. Hence, in the course of time, theopinion may well arise that certain principles should be expressed differentlyand might be better formulated. But any attempt at a different formulation hasa fatal effect in most cases. For something that ought to be fixed andunshakable thereby becomes the subject of discussion. As soon as one pointalone is removed from the sphere of dogmatic certainty, the discussion will notsimply result in a new and better formulation which will have greaterconsistency but may easily lead to endless debates and general confusion. Insuch cases the question must always be carefully considered as to whether a newand more adequate formulation is to be preferred, though it may cause acontroversy within the movement, or whether it may not be better to retain theold formula which, though probably not the best, represents an organismenclosed in itself, solid and internally homogeneous. All experience shows thatthe second of these alternatives is preferable. For since in these changes oneis dealing only with external forms such corrections will always appeardesirable and possible. But in the last analysis the generality of people thinksuperficially and therefore the great danger is that in what is merely anexternal formulation of the programme people will see an essential aim of themovement. In that way the will and the combative force at the service of theideas are weakened and the energies that ought to be directed towards the outerworld are dissipated in programmatic discussions within the ranks of themovement.
For a doctrine that is actuallyright in its main features it is less dangerous to retain a formulation whichmay no longer be quite adequate instead of trying to improve it and therebyallowing a fundamental principle of the movement, which had hitherto beenconsidered as solid as granite, to become the subject of a general discussionwhich may have unfortunate consequences. This is particularly to be avoided aslong as a movement is still fighting for victory. For would it be possible toinspire people with blind faith in the truth of a doctrine if doubt anduncertainty are encouraged by continual alterations in its externalformulation?
The essentials of a teaching mustnever be looked for in its external formulas, but always in its inner meaning.And this meaning is unchangeable. And in its interest one can only wish that amovement should exclude everything that tends towards disintegration anduncertainty in order to preserve the unified force that is necessary for itstriumph.
Here again the Catholic Church hasa lesson to teach us. Though sometimes, and often quite unnecessarily, itsdogmatic system is in conflict with the exact sciences and with scientificdiscoveries, it is not disposed to sacrifice a syllable of its teachings. Ithas rightly recognized that its powers of resistance would be weakened byintroducing greater or less doctrinal adaptations to meet the temporary conclusionsof science, which in reality are always vacillating. And thus it holds fast toits fixed and established dogmas which alone can give to the whole system thecharacter of a faith. And that is the reason why it stands firmer to-day thanever before. We may prophesy that, as a fixed pole amid fleeting phenomena, itwill continue to attract increasing numbers of people who will be blindlyattached to it the more rapid the rhythm of changing phenomena around it.
Therefore whoever really andseriously desires that the idea of the People’s State should triumph mustrealize that this triumph can be assured only through a militant movement andthat this movement must ground its strength only on the granite firmness of animpregnable and firmly coherent programme. In regard to its formulas it mustnever make concessions to the spirit of the time but must maintain the formthat has once and for all been decided upon as the right one; in any case untilvictory has crowned its efforts. Before this goal has been reached any attemptto open a discussion on the opportuneness of this or that point in theprogramme might tend to disintegrate the solidity and fighting strength of themovement, according to the measures in which its followers might take part insuch an internal dispute. Some ‘improvements’ introduced to-day might besubjected to a critical examination to-morrow, in order to substitute it withsomething better {258}the day after. Once the barrier has been taken down theroad is opened and we know only the beginning, but we do not know to whatshoreless sea it may lead.
This important principle had to beacknowledged in practice by the members of the National Socialist Movement atits very beginning. In its programme of twenty-five points the NationalSocialist German Labour Party has been furnished with a basis that must remainunshakable. The members of the movement, both present and future, must neverfeel themselves called upon to undertake a critical revision of these leadingpostulates, but rather feel themselves obliged to put them into practice asthey stand. Otherwise the next generation would, in its turn and with equalright, expend its energy in such purely formal work within the party, insteadof winning new adherents to the movement and thus adding to its power. For themajority of our followers the essence of the movement will consist not so muchin the letter of our theses but in the meaning that we attribute to them.
The new movement owes its name tothese considerations, and later on its programme was drawn up in conformitywith them. They are the basis of our propaganda. In order to carry the idea ofthe People’s State to victory, a popular party had to be founded, a party thatdid not consist of intellectual leaders only but also of manual labourers. Anyattempt to carry these theories into effect without the aid of a militantorganization would be doomed to failure to-day, as it has failed in the pastand must fail in the future. That is why the movement is not only justified butit is also obliged to consider itself as the champion and representative ofthese ideas. Just as the fundamental principles of the National SocialistMovement are based on the folk idea, folk ideas are National Socialist. IfNational Socialism would triumph it will have to hold firm to this factunreservedly, and here again it has not only the right but also the duty toemphasize most rigidly that any attempt to represent the folk idea outside ofthe National Socialist German Labour Party is futile and in most cases fraudulent.
If the reproach should be launchedagainst our movement that it has ‘monopolized’ the folk idea, there is only oneanswer to give.
Not only have we monopolized thefolk idea but, to all practical intents and purposes, we have created it.
For what hitherto existed underthis name was not in the least capable of influencing the destiny of ourpeople, since all those ideas lacked a political and coherent formulation. Inmost cases they are nothing but isolated and incoherent notions which are moreor less right. Quite frequently these were in open contradiction to one anotherand in no case was there any internal cohesion among them. And even if thisinternal cohesion existed it would have been much too weak to form the basis ofany movement.
Only the National SocialistMovement proved capable of fulfilling this task.
All kinds of associations andgroups, big as well as little, now claim the title völkisch. This is one resultof the work which National Socialism has done. Without this work, not one ofall these parties would have thought of adopting the word völkisch at all. Thatexpression would have meant nothing to them and especially their directorswould never have had anything to do with such an idea. Not until the work ofthe German National Socialist Labour Party had given this idea a pregnantmeaning did it appear in the mouths of all kinds of people. Our party aboveall, by the success of its propaganda, has shown the force of the folk idea; somuch so that the others, in an effort to gain proselytes, find themselvesforced to copy our example, at least in words.
Just as heretofore they exploitedeverything to serve their petty electoral purposes, to-day they use the wordvölkisch only as an external and hollow-sounding phrase for the purpose ofcounteracting the force of the impression which the National Socialist Partymakes on the members of those other parties. Only the desire to maintain theirexistence and the fear that our movement may prevail, because it is based on a Weltanschhauungthat is of universal importance, and because they feel that the exclusivecharacter of our movement betokens danger for them – only for these reasons dothey use words which they repudiated eight {259}years ago, derided seven yearsago, branded as stupid six years ago, combated five years ago, hated four yearsago, and finally, two years ago, annexed and incorporated them in their presentpolitical vocabulary, employing them as war slogans in their struggle.
And so it is necessary even nownot to cease calling attention to the fact that not one of those parties hasthe slightest idea of what the German nation needs. The most striking proof ofthis is represented by the superficial way in which they use the word völkisch.
Not less dangerous are those whorun about as semi-folkists formulating fantastic schemes which are mostly basedon nothing else than a fixed idea which in itself might be right but which,because it is an isolated notion, is of no use whatsoever for the formation ofa great homogeneous fighting association and could by no means serve as thebasis of its organization. Those people who concoct a programme which consistspartly of their own ideas and partly of ideas taken from others, about whichthey have read somewhere, are often more dangerous than the outspoken enemiesof the völkisch idea. At best they are sterile theorists but more frequentlythey are mischievous agitators of the public mind. They believe that they canmask their intellectual vanity, the futility of their efforts, and their lackof stability, by sporting flowing beards and indulging in ancient Germangestures.
In face of all those futileattempts, it is therefore worth while to recall the time when the new NationalSocialist Movement began its fight.
CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST PERIOD OF OUR STRUGGLE
The echoes of our first greatmeeting, in the banquet hall of the Hofbräuhaus on February 24th, 1920, had notyet died away when we began preparations for our next meeting. Up to that timewe had to consider carefully the venture of holding a small meeting every monthor at most every fortnight in a city like Munich; but now it was decided thatwe should hold a mass meeting every week. I need not say that we anxiouslyasked ourselves on each occasion again and again: Will the people come and willthey listen? Personally I was firmly convinced that if once they came theywould remain and listen.
During that period the hall of theHofbrau Haus in Munich acquired for us, National Socialists, a sort of mysticsignificance. Every week there was a meeting, almost always in that hall, andeach time the hall was better filled than on the former occasion, and ourpublic more attentive.
Starting with the theme,‘Responsibility for the War,’ which nobody at that time cared about, and passingon to the discussion of the peace treaties, we dealt with almost everythingthat served to stimulate the minds of our audience and make them interested inour ideas. We drew attention to the peace treaties. What the new movementprophesied again and again before those great masses of people has beenfulfilled almost in every detail. To-day it is easy to talk and write aboutthese things. But in those days a public mass meeting which was attended not bythe small bourgeoisie but by proletarians who had been aroused by agitators, tocriticize the Peace Treaty of Versailles meant an attack on the Republic and anevidence of reaction, if not of monarchist tendencies. The moment one utteredthe first criticism of the Versailles Treaty one could expect an immediatereply, which became almost stereotyped: ‘And Brest-Litowsk?’ ‘Brest-Litowsk!’And then the crowd would murmur and the murmur would gradually swell into aroar, until the speaker would have to give up his attempt to persuade them. Itwould be like knocking one’s head against a wall, so desperate were thesepeople. They would not listen nor understand that Versailles was a scandal anda disgrace and that the dictate signified an act of highway robbery against ourpeople. The disruptive work done by the Marxists and the poisonous propagandaof the external enemy had robbed these people of their reason. And one had noright to complain. For the guilt on this side was enormous. What had the Germanbourgeoisie done to call a halt to this terrible campaign of disintegration, tooppose it and open a way to a recognition of the truth by giving a better andmore thorough explanation of the situation than that of the Marxists? Nothing,nothing. At that time I never saw those who are now the great apostles of the people.Perhaps they spoke to select groups, at tea parties of their own littlecoteries; but there where they should have been, where the wolves were at work,they never risked their appearance, unless it gave them the opportunity ofyelling in concert with the wolves.
As for myself, I then saw clearlythat for the small group which first composed our movement the question of warguilt had to be cleared up, and cleared up in the light of historical truth. Apreliminary condition for the future success of our movement was that it shouldbring knowledge of the meaning of the peace treaties to the minds of thepopular masses. In the opinion of the masses, the peace treaties then signifieda democratic success. Therefore, it was necessary to take the opposite side anddig ourselves into the minds of the people as the enemies of the peacetreaties; so that later on, when the naked truth of this despicable swindlewould be disclosed in all its hideousness, the people would recall the positionwhich we then took and would give us their confidence.
Already at that time I took up mystand on those important fundamental questions where public opinion had gonewrong as a whole. I opposed these wrong notions without regard either forpopularity or for hatred, and I was ready to face the fight. The NationalSocialist German Labour Party ought not to be the beadle but rather the masterof public opinion. It must not serve the masses but rather dominate them.
In the case of every movement,especially during its struggling stages, there is naturally a temptation toconform to the tactics of an opponent and use the same battle-cries, when histactics have succeeded in leading the people to crazy conclusions or to adoptmistaken attitudes towards the questions at issue. This temptation isparticularly strong when motives can be found, though they are entirelyillusory, that seem to point towards the same ends which the young movement isaiming at. Human poltroonery will then all the more readily adopt thosearguments which give it a semblance of justification, ‘from its own point ofview,’ in participating in the criminal policy which the adversary isfollowing.
On several occasions I haveexperienced such cases, in which the greatest energy had to be employed toprevent the ship of our movement from being drawn into a general current whichhad been started artificially, and indeed from sailing with it. The lastoccasion was when our German Press, the Hecuba of the existence of the Germannation, succeeded in bringing the question of South Tyrol into a position ofimportance which was seriously damaging to the interests of the German people.Without considering what interests they were serving, several so-called‘national’ men, parties and leagues, joined in the general cry, simply for fearof public opinion which had been excited by the Jews, and foolishly contributedto help in the struggle against a system which we Germans ought, particularlyin those days, to consider as the one ray of light in this distracted world.While the international World-Jew is slowly but surely strangling us, ourso-called patriots vociferate against a man and his system which have had thecourage to liberate themselves from the shackles of Jewish Freemasonry at leastin one quarter of the globe and to set the forces of national resistanceagainst the international world-poison. But weak characters were tempted to settheir sails according to the direction of the wind and capitulate before theshout of public opinion. For it was veritably a capitulation. They are so muchin the habit of lying and so morally base that men may not admit this even tothemselves, but the truth remains that only cowardice and fear of the publicfeeling aroused by the Jews induced certain people to join in the hue and cry. Allthe other reasons put forward were only miserable excuses of paltry culpritswho were conscious of their own crime.
There it was necessary to graspthe rudder with an iron hand and turn the movement about, so as to save it froma course that would have led it on the rocks. Certainly to attempt such achange of course was not a popular manoeuvre at that time, because all theleading forces of public opinion had been active and a great flame of publicfeeling illuminated only one direction. Such a decision almost always bringsdisfavour on those who dare to take it. In the course of history not a few menhave been stoned for an act for which posterity has afterwards thanked them onits knees.
But a movement must count on posterityand not on the plaudits of the movement. It may well be that at such momentscertain individuals have to endure hours of anguish; but they should not forgetthat the moment of liberation will come and that a movement which purposes toreshape the world must serve the future and not the passing hour.
On this point it may be assertedthat the greatest and most enduring successes in history are mostly those whichwere least understood at the beginning, because they were in strong contrast topublic opinion and the views and wishes of the time.
We had experience of this when wemade our own first public appearance. In all truth it can be said that we didnot court public favour but made an onslaught on the follies of our people. Inthose days the following happened almost always: I presented myself before anassembly of men who believed the opposite of what I wished to say and whowanted the opposite of what I believed in. Then I had to spend a couple ofhours in persuading two or three thousand people to give up the opinions theyhad first held, in destroying the foundations of their views with one blowafter another and finally in leading them over to take their stand on thegrounds of our own convictions and our Weltanschhauung.
I learned something that wasimportant at that time, namely, to snatch from the hands of the enemy theweapons which he was using in his reply. I soon noticed that our adversaries,especially in the persons of those who led the discussion against us, werefurnished with a definite repertoire of arguments out of which they took pointsagainst our claims which were being constantly repeated. The uniform characterof this mode of procedure pointed to a systematic and unified training. And sowe were able to recognize the incredible way in which the enemy’s propagandistshad been disciplined, and I am proud to-day that I discovered a means not onlyof making this propaganda ineffective but of beating the artificers of it attheir own work. Two years later I was master of that art.
In every speech which I made itwas important to get a clear idea beforehand of the probable form and matter ofthe counter-arguments we had to expect in the discussion, so that in the courseof my own speech these could be dealt with and refuted. To this end it wasnecessary to mention all the possible objections and show their inconsistency;it was all the easier to win over an honest listener by expunging from hismemory the arguments which had been impressed upon it, so that we anticipatedour replies. What he had learned was refuted without having been mentioned byhim and that made him all the more attentive to what I had to say.
That was the reason why, after myfirst lecture on the ‘Peace Treaty of Versailles,’ which I delivered to thetroops while I was still a political instructor in my regiment, I made analteration in the title and subject and henceforth spoke on ‘The Treaties ofBrest-Litowsk and Versailles.’ For after the discussion which followed my firstlecture I quickly ascertained that in reality people knew nothing about theTreaty of Brest-Litowsk and that able party propaganda had succeeded inpresenting that Treaty as one of the most scandalous acts of violence in thehistory of the world.
As a result of the persistencywith which this falsehood was repeated again and again before the masses of thepeople, millions of Germans saw in the Treaty of Versailles a just castigationfor the crime we had committed at Brest-Litowsk. Thus they considered allopposition to Versailles as unjust and in many cases there was an honest moraldislike to such a proceeding. And this was also the reason why the shamelessand monstrous word ‘Reparations’ came into common use in Germany. Thishypocritical falsehood appeared to millions of our exasperated fellowcountrymen as the fulfilment of a higher justice. It is a terrible thought, butthe fact was so. The best proof of this was the propaganda which I initiatedagainst Versailles by explaining the Treaty of Brest-Litowsk. I compared thetwo treaties with one another, point by point, and showed how in truth the onetreaty was immensely humane, in contradistinction to the inhuman barbarity ofthe other. The effect was very striking. Then I spoke on this theme before anassembly of two thousand persons, during which I often saw three thousand sixhundred hostile eyes fixed on me. And three hours later I had in front of me aswaying mass of righteous indignation and fury. A great lie had been uprootedfrom the hearts and brains of a crowd composed of thousands of individuals anda truth had been implanted in its place.
The two lectures – that ‘On theCauses of the World War’ and ‘On the Peace Treaties of Brest-Litowsk andVersailles’ respectively – I then considered as the most important of all.Therefore I repeated them dozens of times, always giving them a new intonation;until at least on those points a definitely clear and unanimous opinion reignedamong those from whom our movement recruited its first members.
Furthermore, these gatheringsbrought me the advantage that I slowly became a platform orator at massmeetings, and gave me practice in the pathos and gesture required in largehalls that held thousands of people.
Outside of the small circles whichI have mentioned, at that time I found no party engaged in explaining things tothe people in this way. Not one of these parties was then active which talkto-day as if it was they who had brought about the change in public opinion. Ifa political leader, calling himself a nationalist, pronounced a discoursesomewhere or other on this theme it was only before circles which for the mostpart were already of his own conviction and among whom the most that was donewas to confirm them in their opinions. But that was not what was needed then.What was needed was to win over through propaganda and explanation those whoseopinions and mental attitudes held them bound to the enemy’s camp.
The one-page circular was alsoadopted by us to help in this propaganda. While still a soldier I had written acircular in which I contrasted the Treaty of Brest-Litowsk with that ofVersailles. That circular was printed and distributed in large numbers. Lateron I used it for the party, and also with good success. Our first meetings weredistinguished by the fact that there were tables covered with leaflets, papers,and pamphlets of every kind. But we relied principally on the spoken word. And,in fact, this is the only means capable of producing really great revolutions,which can be explained on general psychological grounds.
In the first volume I have alreadystated that all the formidable events which have changed the aspect of theworld were carried through, not by the written but by the spoken word. On thatpoint there was a long discussion in a certain section of the Press during thecourse of which our shrewd bourgeois people strongly opposed my thesis. But thereason for this attitude confounded the sceptics. The bourgeois intellectualsprotested against my attitude simply because they themselves did not have theforce or ability to influence the masses through the spoken word; for theyalways relied exclusively on the help of writers and did not enter the arenathemselves as orators for the purpose of arousing the people. The developmentof events necessarily led to that condition of affairs which is characteristicof the bourgeoisie to-day, namely, the loss of the psychological instinct toact upon and influence the masses.
An orator receives continuousguidance from the people before whom he speaks. This helps him to correct thedirection of his speech; for he can always gauge, by the faces of his hearers,how far they follow and understand him, and whether his words are producing thedesired effect. But the writer does not know his reader at all. Therefore, fromthe outset he does not address himself to a definite human group of personswhich he has before his eyes but must write in a general way. Hence, up to acertain extent he must fail in psychological finesse and flexibility.Therefore, in general it may be said that a brilliant orator writes better thana brilliant writer can speak, unless the latter has continual practice inpublic speaking. One must also remember that of itself the multitude ismentally inert, that it remains attached to its old habits and that it is notnaturally prone to read something which does not conform with its ownpre-established beliefs when such writing does not contain what the multitudehopes to find there. Therefore, some piece of writing which has a particulartendency is for the most part read only by those who are in sympathy with it.Only a leaflet or a placard, on account of its brevity, can hope to arouse amomentary interest in those whose opinions differ from it. The picture, in allits forms, including the film, has better prospects. Here there is less need ofelaborating the appeal to the intelligence. It is sufficient if one be carefulto have quite short texts, because many people are more ready to accept apictorial presentation than to read a long written description. In a muchshorter time, at one stroke I might say, people will understand a pictorialpresentation of something which it would take them a long and laborious effortof reading to understand.
The most important consideration,however, is that one never knows into what hands a piece of written materialcomes and yet the form in which its subject is presented must remain the same.In general the effect is greater when the form of treatment corresponds to themental level of the reader and suits his nature. Therefore, a book which ismeant for the broad masses of the people must try from the very start to gainits effects through a style and level of ideas which would be quite differentfrom a book intended to be read by the higher intellectual classes.
Only through his capacity foradaptability does the force of the written word approach that of oral speech.The orator may deal with the same subject as a book deals with; but if he hasthe genius of a great and popular orator he will scarcely ever repeat the same argumentor the same material in the same form on two consecutive occasions. He willalways follow the lead of the great mass in such a way that from the livingemotion of his hearers the apt word which he needs will be suggested to him andin its turn this will go straight to the hearts of his hearers. Should he makeeven a slight mistake he has the living correction before him. As I havealready said, he can read the play of expression on the faces of his hearers,first to see if they understand what he says, secondly to see if they take inthe whole of his argument, and, thirdly, in how far they are convinced of thejustice of what has been placed before them. Should he observe, first, that hishearers do not understand him he will make his explanation so elementary andclear that they will be able to grasp it, even to the last individual.Secondly, if he feels that they are not capable of following him he will makeone idea follow another carefully and slowly until the most slow-witted hearerno longer lags behind. Thirdly, as soon as he has the feeling that they do notseem convinced that he is right in the way he has put things to them he willrepeat his argument over and over again, always giving fresh illustrations, andhe himself will state their unspoken objection. He will repeat theseobjections, dissecting them and refuting them, until the last group of theopposition show him by their behaviour and play of expression that they havecapitulated before his exposition of the case.
Not infrequently it is a case ofovercoming ingrained prejudices which are mostly unconscious and are supportedby sentiment rather than reason. It is a thousand times more difficult toovercome this barrier of instinctive aversion, emotional hatred and preventivedissent than to correct opinions which are founded on defective or erroneousknowledge. False ideas and ignorance may be set aside by means of instruction,but emotional resistance never can. Nothing but an appeal to these hiddenforces will be effective here. And that appeal can be made by scarcely anywriter. Only the orator can hope to make it.
A very striking proof of this isfound in the fact that, though we had a bourgeois Press which in many cases waswell written and produced and had a circulation of millions among the people,it could not prevent the broad masses from becoming the implacable enemies ofthe bourgeois class. The deluge of papers and books published by theintellectual circles year after year passed over the millions of the lowersocial strata like water over glazed leather. This proves that one of twothings must be true: either that the matter offered in the bourgeois Press wasworthless or that it is impossible to reach the hearts of the broad masses bymeans of the written word alone. Of course, the latter would be specially truewhere the written material shows such little psychological insight as hashitherto been the case.
It is useless to object here, ascertain big Berlin papers of German-National tendencies have attempted to do,that this statement is refuted by the fact that the Marxists have exercisedtheir greatest influence through their writings, and especially through theirprincipal book, published by Karl Marx. Seldom has a more superficial argumentbeen based on a false assumption. What gave Marxism its amazing influence overthe broad masses was not that formal printed work which sets forth the Jewishsystem of ideas, but the tremendous oral propaganda carried on for years amongthe masses. Out of one hundred thousand German workers scarcely one hundredknow of Marx’s book. It has been studied much more in intellectual circles andespecially by the Jews than by the genuine followers of the movement who comefrom the lower classes. That work was not written for the masses, but exclusivelyfor the intellectual leaders of the Jewish machine for conquering the world.The engine was heated with quite different stuff: namely, the journalisticPress. What differentiates the bourgeois Press from the Marxist Press is thatthe latter is written by agitators, whereas the bourgeois Press would like tocarry on agitation by means of professional writers. The Social-Democratsub-editor, who almost always came directly from the meeting to the editorialoffices of his paper, felt his job on his finger-tips. But the bourgeois writerwho left his desk to appear before the masses already felt ill when he smelledthe very odour of the crowd and found that what he had written was useless tohim.
What won over millions ofworkpeople to the Marxist cause was not the ex cathedra style of the Marxistwriters but the formidable propagandist work done by tens of thousands ofindefatigable agitators, commencing with the leading fiery agitator down to thesmallest official in the syndicate, the trusted delegate and the platformorator. Furthermore, there were the hundreds of thousands of meetings wherethese orators, standing on tables in smoky taverns, hammered their ideas intothe heads of the masses, thus acquiring an admirable psychological knowledge ofthe human material they had to deal with. And in this way they were enabled toselect the best weapons for their assault on the citadel of public opinion. Inaddition to all this there were the gigantic mass-demonstrations withprocessions in which a hundred thousand men took part. All this was calculatedto impress on the petty-hearted individual the proud conviction that, though asmall worm, he was at the same time a cell of the great dragon before whosedevastating breath the hated bourgeois world would one day be consumed in fireand flame, and the dictatorship of the proletariat would celebrate itsconclusive victory.
This kind of propaganda influencedmen in such a way as to give them a taste for reading the Social DemocraticPress and prepare their minds for its teaching. That Press, in its turn, was avehicle of the spoken word rather than of the written word. Whereas in thebourgeois camp professors and learned writers, theorists and authors of allkinds, made attempts at talking, in the Marxist camp real speakers often madeattempts at writing. And it was precisely the Jew who was most prominent here.In general and because of his shrewd dialectical skill and his knack oftwisting the truth to suit his own purposes, he was an effective writer but inreality his métier was that of a revolutionary orator rather than a writer.
For this reason the journalisticbourgeois world, setting aside the fact that here also the Jew held the whiphand and that therefore this press did not really interest itself in theinstructtion of the broad masses, was not able to exercise even the leastinfluence over the opinions held by the great masses of our people.
It is difficult to removeemotional prejudices, psychological bias, feelings, etc., and to put others intheir place. Success depends here on imponderable conditions and influences.Only the orator who is gifted with the most sensitive insight can estimate allthis. Even the time of day at which the speech is delivered has a decisiveinfluence on its results. The same speech, made by the same orator and on thesame theme, will have very different results according as it is delivered atten o’clock in the forenoon, at three in the afternoon, or in the evening. WhenI first engaged in public speaking I arranged for meetings to take place in theforenoon and I remember particularly a demonstration that we held in the MunichKindl Keller ‘Against the Oppression of German Districts.’ That was the biggesthall then in Munich and the audacity of our undertaking was great. In order tomake the hour of the meeting attractive for all the members of our movement andthe other people who might come, I fixed it for ten o’clock on a Sundaymorning. The result was depressing. But it was very instructive. The hall wasfilled. The impression was profound, but the general feeling was cold as ice.Nobody got warmed up, and I myself, as the speaker of the occasion, feltprofoundly unhappy at the thought that I could not establish the slightestcontact with my audience. I do not think I spoke worse than before, but theeffect seemed absolutely negative. I left the hall very discontented, but alsofeeling that I had gained a new experience. Later on I tried the same kind ofexperiment, but always with the same results.
That was nothing to be wonderedat. If one goes to a theatre to see a matinée performance and then attends anevening performance of the same play one is astounded at the difference in theimpressions created. A sensitive person recognizes for himself the fact thatthese two states of mind caused by the matinee and the evening performancerespectively are quite different in themselves. The same is true of cinemaproductions. This latter point is important; for one may say of the theatrethat perhaps in the afternoon the actor does not make the same effort as in theevening. But surely it cannot be said that the cinema is different in theafternoon from what it is at nine o’clock in the evening. No, here the timeexercises a distinct influence, just as a room exercises a distinct influenceon a person. There are rooms which leave one cold, for reasons which aredifficult to explain. There are rooms which refuse steadfastly to allow anyfavourable atmosphere to be created in them. Moreover, certain memories andtraditions which are present as pictures in the human mind may have adetermining influence on the impression produced. Thus, a representation ofParsifal at Bayreuth will have an effect quite different from that which thesame opera produces in any other part of the world. The mysterious charm of theHouse on the ‘Festival Heights’ in the old city of The Margrave cannot beequalled or substituted anywhere else.
In all these cases one deals withthe problem of influencing the freedom of the human will. And that is trueespecially of meetings where there are men whose wills are opposed to thespeaker and who must be brought around to a new way of thinking. In the morningand during the day it seems that the power of the human will rebels with itsstrongest energy against any attempt to impose upon it the will or opinion ofanother. On the other hand, in the evening it easily succumbs to the dominationof a stronger will. Because really in such assemblies there is a contestbetween two opposite forces. The superior oratorical art of a man who has thecompelling character of an apostle will succeed better in bringing around to anew way of thinking those who have naturally been subjected to a weakening oftheir forces of resistance rather than in converting those who are in full possessionof their volitional and intellectual energies.
The mysterious artificial dimnessof the Catholic churches also serves this purpose, the burning candles, theincense, the thurible, etc.
In this struggle between theorator and the opponent whom he must convert to his cause this marvelloussensibility towards the psychological influences of propaganda can hardly everbe availed of by an author. Generally speaking, the effect of the writer’s workhelps rather to conserve, reinforce and deepen the foundations of a mentalityalready existing. All really great historical revolutions were not produced bythe written word. At most, they were accompanied by it.
It is out of the question to thinkthat the French Revolution could have been carried into effect byphilosophizing theories if they had not found an army of agitators led bydemagogues of the grand style. These demagogues inflamed popular passion thathad been already aroused, until that volcanic eruption finally broke out andconvulsed the whole of Europe. And the same happened in the case of thegigantic Bolshevik revolution which recently took place in Russia. It was notdue to the writers on Lenin’s side but to the oratorical activities of thosewho preached the doctrine of hatred and that of the innumerable small and greatorators who took part in the agitation.
The masses of illiterate Russianswere not fired to Communist revolutionary enthusiasm by reading the theories ofKarl Marx but by the promises of paradise made to the people by thousands ofagitators in the service of an idea.
It was always so, and it willalways be so.
It is just typical of ourpig-headed intellectuals, who live apart from the practical world, to think thata writer must of necessity be superior to an orator in intelligence. This pointof view was once exquisitely illustrated by a critique, published in a certainNational paper which I have already mentioned, where it was stated that one isoften disillusioned by reading the speech of an acknowledged great orator inprint. That reminded me of another article which came into my hands during theWar. It dealt with the speeches of Lloyd George, who was then Minister ofMunitions, and examined them in a painstaking way under the microscope ofcriticism. The writer made the brilliant statement that these speeches showedinferior intelligence and learning and that, moreover, they were banal andcommonplace productions. I myself procured some of these speeches, published inpamphlet form, and had to laugh at the fact that a normal German quill-driverdid not in the least understand these psychological masterpieces in the art ofinfluencing the masses. This man criticized these speeches exclusivelyaccording to the impression they made on his own blasé mind, whereas the greatBritish Demagogue had produced an immense effect on his audience through them,and in the widest sense on the whole of the British populace. Looked at fromthis point of view, that Englishman’s speeches were most wonderfulachievements, precisely because they showed an astounding knowledge of the soulof the broad masses of the people. For that reason their effect was reallypenetrating. Compare with them the futile stammerings of a Bethmann-Hollweg. Onthe surface his speeches were undoubtedly more intellectual, but they justproved this man’s inability to speak to the people, which he really could notdo. Nevertheless, to the average stupid brain of the German writer, who is, ofcourse, endowed with a lot of scientific learning, it came quite natural tojudge the speeches of the English Minister – which were made for the purpose ofinfluencing the masses – by the impression which they made on his own mind,fossilized in its abstract learning. And it was more natural for him to comparethem in the light of that impression with the brilliant but futile talk of theGerman statesman, which of course appealed to the writer’s mind much morefavourably. That the genius of Lloyd George was not only equal but athousandfold superior to that of a Bethmann-Hollweg is proved by the fact thathe found for his speeches that form and expression which opened the hearts ofhis people to him and made these people carry out his will absolutely. Theprimitive quality itself of those speeches, the originality of his expressions,his choice of clear and simple illustration, are examples which prove thesuperior political capacity of this Englishman. For one must never judge thespeech of a statesman to his people by the impression which it leaves on themind of a university professor but by the effect it produces on the people. Andthis is the sole criterion of the orator’s genius.
The astonishing development of ourmovement, which was created from nothing a few years ago and is to-day singledout for persecution by all the internal and external enemies of our nation,must be attributed to the constant recognition and practical application ofthose principles.
Written matter also played animportant part in our movement; but at the stage of which I am writing itserved to give an equal and uniform education to the directors of the movement,in the upper as well as in the lower grades, rather than to convert the massesof our adversaries. It was only in very rare cases that a convinced and devotedSocial Democrat or Communist was induced to acquire an understanding of our Weltanschhauungor to study a criticism of his own by procuring and reading one of ourpamphlets or even one of our books. Even a newspaper is rarely read if it doesnot bear the stamp of a party affiliation. Moreover, the reading of newspapershelps little; because the general picture given by a single number of anewspaper is so confused and produces such a fragmentary impression that itreally does not influence the occasional reader. And where a man has to counthis pennies it cannot be assumed that, exclusively for the purpose of beingobjectively informed, he will become a regular reader or subscriber to a paperwhich opposes his views. Only one who has already joined a movement willregularly read the party organ of that movement, and especially for the purposeof keeping himself informed of what is happening in the movement.
It is quite different with the‘spoken’ leaflet. Especially if it be distributed gratis it will be taken up byone person or another, all the more willingly if its display title refers to aquestion about which everybody is talking at the moment. Perhaps the reader,after having read through such a leaflet more or less thoughtfully, will havenew viewpoints and mental attitudes and may give his attention to a newmovement. But with these, even in the best of cases, only a small impulse willbe given, but no definite conviction will be created; because the leaflet cando nothing more than draw attention to something and can become effective onlyby bringing the reader subsequently into a situation where he is morefundamentally informed and instructed. Such instruction must always be given atthe mass assembly.
Mass assemblies are also necessaryfor the reason that, in attending them, the individual who felt himselfformerly only on the point of joining the new movement, now begins to feelisolated and in fear of being left alone as he acquires for the first time thepicture of a great community which has a strengthening and encouraging effecton most people. Brigaded in a company or battalion, surrounded by hiscompanions, he will march with a lighter heart to the attack than if he had tomarch alone. In the crowd he feels himself in some way thus sheltered, thoughin reality there are a thousand arguments against such a feeling.
Mass demonstrations on the grandscale not only reinforce the will of the individual but they draw him stillcloser to the movement and help to create an esprit de corps. The manwho appears first as the representative of a new doctrine in his place ofbusiness or in his factory is bound to feel himself embarrassed and has need ofthat reinforcement which comes from the consciousness that he is a member of agreat community. And only a mass demonstration can impress upon him thegreatness of this community. If, on leaving the shop or mammoth factory, inwhich he feels very small indeed, he should enter a vast assembly for the firsttime and see around him thousands and thousands of men who hold the sameopinions; if, while still seeking his way, he is gripped by the force ofmass-suggestion which comes from the excitement and enthusiasm of three or fourthousand other men in whose midst he finds himself; if the manifest success andthe concensus of thousands confirm the truth and justice of the new teachingand for the first time raise doubt in his mind as to the truth of the opinionsheld by himself up to now – then he submits himself to the fascination of whatwe call mass-suggestion. The will, the yearning and indeed the strength ofthousands of people are in each individual. A man who enters such a meeting indoubt and hesitation leaves it inwardly fortified; he has become a member of acommunity.
The National Socialist Movementshould never forget this, and it should never allow itself to be influenced bythese bourgeois duffers who think they know everything but who have foolishlygambled away a great State, together with their own existence and the supremacyof their own class. They are overflowing with ability; they can do everything,and they know everything. But there is one thing they have not known how to do,and that is how to save the German people from falling into the arms ofMarxism. In that they have shown themselves most pitiably and miserablyimpotent. So that the present opinion they have of themselves is only equal totheir conceit. Their pride and stupidity are fruits of the same tree.
If these people try to disparagethe importance of the spoken word to-day, they do it only because they realize– God be praised and thanked – how futile all their own speechifying has been.
CHAPTERVII
THE CONFLICT WITH THE RED FORCES
In 1919–20 and also in 1921 Iattended some of the bourgeois meetings. Invariably I had the same feelingtowards these as towards the compulsory dose of castor oil in my boyhood days.It just had to be taken because it was good for one: but it certainly tastedunpleasant. If it were possible to tie ropes round the German people andforcibly drag them to these bourgeois meetings, keeping them there behindbarred doors and allowing nobody to escape until the meeting closed, then thisprocedure might prove successful in the course of a few hundred years. For myown part, I must frankly admit that, under such circumstances, I could not findlife worth living; and indeed I should no longer wish to be a German. But,thank God, all this is impossible. And so it is not surprising that the saneand unspoilt masses shun these ‘bourgeois mass meetings’ as the devil shunsholy water.
I came to know the prophets of thebourgeois Weltanschhauung, and I was not surprised at what I learned, asI knew that they attached little importance to the spoken word. At that time Iattended meetings of the Democrats, the German Nationalists, the GermanPeople’s Party and the Bavarian People’s Party (the Centre Party of Bavaria).What struck me at once was the homogeneous uniformity of the audiences. Nearlyalways they were made up exclusively of party members. The whole affair wasmore like a yawning card party than an assembly of people who had just passedthrough a great revolution. The speakers did all they could to maintain thistranquil atmosphere. They declaimed, or rather read out, their speeches in thestyle of an intellectual newspaper article or a learned treatise, avoiding allstriking expressions. Here and there a feeble professorial joke would beintroduced, whereupon the people sitting at the speaker’s table felt themselvesobliged to laugh – not loudly but encouragingly and with well-bred reserve.
And there were always those peopleat the speaker’s table. I once attended a meeting in the Wagner Hall in Munich.It was a demonstration to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig.17)The speech was delivered or rather read out by a venerable old professor fromone or other of the universities. The committee sat on the platform: onemonocle on the right, another monocle on the left, and in the centre agentleman with no monocle. All three of them were punctiliously attired inmorning coats, and I had the impression of being present before a judge’s benchjust as the death sentence was about to be pronounced or at a christening orsome more solemn religious ceremony. The so-called speech, which in printedform may have read quite well, had a disastrous effect. After three quarters ofan hour the audience fell into a sort of hypnotic trance, which was interruptedonly when some man or woman left the hall, or by the clatter which the waitressesmade, or by the increasing yawns of slumbering individuals. I had posted myselfbehind three workmen who were present either out of curiosity or because theywere sent there by their parties. From time to time they glanced at one anotherwith an ill-concealed grin, nudged one another with the elbow, and thensilently left the hall. One could see that they had no intention whatsoever ofinterrupting the proceedings, nor indeed was it necessary to interrupt them. Atlong last the celebration showed signs of drawing to a close. After theprofessor, whose voice had meanwhile become more and more inaudible, finallyended his speech, the gentleman without the monocle delivered a rousingperoration to the assembled ‘German sisters and brothers.’ On behalf of theaudience and himself he expressed gratitude for the magnificent lecture whichthey had just heard from Professor X and emphasized how deeply the Professor’swords had moved them all. If a general discussion on the lecture were to takeplace it would be tantamount to profanity, and he thought he was voicing theopinion of all present in suggesting that such a discussion should not be held.Therefore, he would ask the assembly to rise from their seats and join insinging the patriotic song, Wir sind ein einig Volk von Brüdern. Theproceedings finally closed with the anthem, Deutschland über Alles.
And then they all sang. Itappeared to me that when the second verse was reached the voices were fewer andthat only when the refrain came on they swelled loudly. When we reached thethird verse my belief was confirmed that a good many of those present were notvery familiar with the text.
But what has all this to do withthe matter when such a song is sung wholeheartedly and fervidly by an assemblyof German nationals?
After this the meeting broke upand everyone hurried to get outside, one to his glass of beer, one to a cafe,and others simply into the fresh air.
Out into the fresh air! That wasalso my feeling. And was this the way to honour an heroic struggle in whichhundreds of thousands of Prussians and Germans had fought? To the devil with itall!
That sort of thing might findfavour with the Government, it being merely a ‘peaceful’ meeting. The Ministerresponsible for law and order need not fear that enthusiasm might suddenly getthe better of public decorum and induce these people to pour out of the roomand, instead of dispersing to beer halls and cafes, march in rows of fourthrough the town singing Deutschland hoch in Ehren and causing some unpleasantnessto a police force in need of rest.
No. That type of citizen is of nouse to anyone.
On the other hand the NationalSocialist meetings were by no means ‘peaceable’ affairs. Two distinct Weltanschhauungenraged in bitter opposition to one another, and these meetings did not closewith the mechanical rendering of a dull patriotic song but rather with apassionate outbreak of popular national feeling.
It was imperative from the startto introduce rigid discipline into our meetings and establish the authority ofthe chairman absolutely. Our purpose was not to pour out a mixture of soft-soapbourgeois talk; what we had to say was meant to arouse the opponents at ourmeetings! How often did they not turn up in masses with a few individualagitators among them and, judging by the expression on all their faces, readyto finish us off there and then.
Yes, how often did they not turnup in huge numbers, those supporters of the Red Flag, all previously instructedto smash up everything once and for all and put an end to these meetings. Moreoften than not everything hung on a mere thread, and only the chairman’sruthless determination and the rough handling by our ushers baffled ouradversaries’ intentions. And indeed they had every reason for being irritated.
The fact that we had chosen red asthe colour for our posters sufficed to attract them to our meetings. Theordinary bourgeoisie were very shocked to see that, we had also chosen thesymbolic red of Bolshevism and they regarded this as something ambiguouslysignificant. The suspicion was whispered in German Nationalist circles that wealso were merely another variety of Marxism, perhaps even Marxists suitablydisguised, or better still, Socialists. The actual difference between Socialismand Marxism still remains a mystery to these people up to this day. The chargeof Marxism was conclusively proved when it was discovered that at our meetingswe deliberately substituted the words ‘Fellow-countrymen and Women’ for ‘Ladiesand Gentlemen’ and addressed each other as ‘Party Comrade’. We used to roarwith laughter at these silly faint-hearted bourgeoisie and their efforts topuzzle out our origin, our intentions and our aims.
We chose red for our posters afterparticular and careful deliberation, our intention being to irritate the Left,so as to arouse their attention and tempt them to come to our meetings – ifonly in order to break them up – so that in this way we got a chance of talkingto the people.
In those years’ it was indeed a delightfulexperience to follow the constantly changing tactics of our perplexed andhelpless adversaries. First of all they appealed to their followers to ignoreus and keep away from our meetings. Generally speaking this appeal was heeded.But, as time went on, more and more of their followers gradually found theirway to us and accepted our teaching. Then the leaders became nervous anduneasy. They clung to their belief that such a development should not beignored for ever, and that terror must be applied in order to put an end to it.
Appeals were then made to the‘class-conscious proletariat’ to attend our meetings in masses and strike withthe clenched hand of the proletarian at the representatives of a ‘monarchistand reactionary agitation’.
Our meetings suddenly becamepacked with work-people fully three-quarters of an hour before the proceedingswere scheduled to begin. These gatherings resembled a powder cask ready toexplode at any moment; and the fuse was conveniently at hand. But matters alwaysturned out differently. People came as enemies and left, not perhaps preparedto join us, yet in a reflective mood and disposed critically to examine thecorrectness of their own doctrine. Gradually as time went on my three-hourlectures resulted in supporters and opponents becoming united in one singleenthusiastic group of people. Every signal for the breaking-up of the meetingfailed. The result was that the opposition leaders became frightened and onceagain looked for help to those quarters that had formerly discountenanced thesetactics and, with some show of right, had been of the opinion that on principlethe workers should be forbidden to attend our meetings.
Then they did not come any more,or only in small numbers. But after a short time the whole game started allover again. The instructions to keep away from us were ignored; the comradescame in steadily increasing numbers, until finally the advocates of the radicaltactics won the day. We were to be broken up.
Yet when, after two, three and eveneight meetings, it was realized that to break up these gatherings was easiersaid than done and that every meeting resulted in a decisive weakening of thered fighting forces, then suddenly the other password was introduced:‘Proletarians, comrades and comradesses, avoid meetings of the NationalSocialist agitators’.
The same eternally alternatingtactics were also to be observed in the Red Press. Soon they tried to silenceus but discovered the uselessness of such an attempt. After that they swung roundto the opposite tactics. Daily ‘reference’ was made to us solely for thepurpose of absolutely ridiculing us in the eyes of the working-classes. After atime these gentlemen must have felt that no harm was being done to us, butthat, on the contrary, we were reaping an advantage in that people were askingthemselves why so much space was being devoted to a subject which was supposedto be so ludicrous. People became curious. Suddenly there was a change oftactics and for a time we were treated as veritable criminals against mankind.One article followed the other, in which our criminal intentions were explainedand new proofs brought forward to support what was said. Scandalous tales, allof them fabricated from start to finish, were published in order to help topoison the public mind. But in a short time even these attacks also provedfutile; and in fact they assisted materially because they attracted publicattention to us.
In those days I took up thestandpoint that it was immaterial whether they laughed at us or reviled us,whether they depicted us as fools or criminals; the important point was thatthey took notice of us and that in the eyes of the working-classes we came tobe regarded as the only force capable of putting up a fight. I said to myselfthat the followers of the Jewish Press would come to know all about us and ourreal aims.
One reason why they never got sofar as breaking up our meetings was undoubtedly the incredible cowardicedisplayed by the leaders of the opposition. On every critical occasion theyleft the dirty work to the smaller fry whilst they waited outside the halls forthe results of the break up.
We were exceptionally wellinformed in regard to our opponents’ intentions, not only because we allowedseveral of our party colleagues to remain members of the Red organizations forreasons of expediency, but also because the Red wire-pullers, fortunately forus, were afflicted with a degree of talkativeness that is still unfortunatelyvery prevalent among Germans. They could not keep their own counsel, and moreoften than not they started cackling before the proverbial egg was laid. Hence,time and again our precautions were such that Red agitators had no inkling ofhow near they were to being thrown out of the meetings.
This state of affairs compelled usto take the work of safeguarding our meetings into our own hands. No reliancecould be placed on official protection. On the contrary; experience showed thatsuch protection always favoured only the disturbers. The only real outcome ofpolice intervention would be that the meeting would be dissolved, that is tosay, closed. And that is precisely what our opponents granted.
Generally speaking, this led thepolice to adopt a procedure which, to say the least, was a most infamous sampleof official malpractice. The moment they received information of a threat thatthe one or other meeting was to be broken up, instead of arresting the would-bedisturbers, they promptly advised the innocent parties that the meeting wasforbidden. This step the police proclaimed as a ‘precautionary measure in theinterests of law and order’.
The political work and activitiesof decent people could therefore always be hindered by desperate ruffians whohad the means at their disposal. In the name of peace and order State authoritybowed down to these ruffians and demanded that others should not provoke them.When National Socialism desired to hold meetings in certain parts and thelabour unions declared that their members would resist, then it was not theseblackmailers that were arrested and gaoled. No. Our meetings were forbidden bythe police. Yes, this organ of the law had the unspeakable impudence to adviseus in writing to this effect in innumerable instances. To avoid sucheventualities, it was necessary to see to it that every attempt to disturb ameeting was nipped in the bud. Another feature to be taken into account in thisrespect is that all meetings which rely on police protection must necessarilybring discredit to their promoters in the eyes of the general public. Meetingsthat are only possible with the protective assistance of a strong force ofpolice convert nobody; because in order to win over the lower strata of thepeople there must be a visible show of strength on one’s own side. In the sameway that a man of courage will win a woman’s affection more easily than acoward, so a heroic movement will be more successful in winning over the heartsof a people than a weak movement which relies on police support for its veryexistence.
It is for this latter reason inparticular that our young movement was to be charged with the responsibility ofassuring its own existence, defending itself; and conducting its own work ofsmashing the Red opposition.
The work of organizing theprotective measures for our meetings was based on the following:
(1) An energetic andpsychologically judicious way of conducting the meeting.
(2) An organized squad of troopsto maintain order.
In those days we and no one elsewere masters of the situation at our meetings and on no occasion did we fail toemphasize this. Our opponents fully realized that any provocation would be theoccasion of throwing them out of the hall at once, whatever the odds againstus. At meetings, particularly outside Munich, we had in those days from five toeight hundred opponents against fifteen to sixteen National Socialists; yet webrooked no interference, for we were ready to be killed rather than capitulate.More than once a handful of party colleagues offered a heroic resistance to a ragingand violent mob of Reds. Those fifteen or twenty men would certainly have beenoverwhelmed in the end had not the opponents known that three or four times asmany of themselves would first get their skulls cracked. Arid that risk theywere not willing to run. We had done our best to study Marxist and bourgeoismethods of conducting meetings, and we had certainly learnt something.
The Marxists had always exerciseda most rigid discipline so that the question of breaking up their meetingscould never have originated in bourgeois quarters. This gave the Reds all themore reason for acting on this plan. In time they not only became past-mastersin this art but in certain large districts of the Reich they went so far as todeclare that non-Marxist meetings were nothing less than a cause of’provocation against the proletariat. This was particularly the case when thewire-pullers suspected that a meeting might call attention to their owntransgressions and thus expose their own treachery and chicanery. Therefore themoment such a meeting was announced to be held a howl of rage went up from theRed Press. These detractors of the law nearly always turned first to theauthorities and requested in imperative and threatening language that this‘provocation of the proletariat’ be stopped forthwith in the ‘interests of lawand order’. Their language was chosen according to the importance of theofficial blockhead they were dealing with and thus success was assured. If bychance the official happened to be a true German – and not a mere figurehead –and he declined the impudent request, then the time-honoured appeal to stop‘provocation of the proletariat’ was issued together with instructions toattend such and such a meeting on a certain date in full strength for thepurpose of ‘putting a stop to the disgraceful machinations of the bourgeoisieby means of the proletarian fist’.
The pitiful and frightened mannerin which these bourgeois meetings are conducted must be seen in order to bebelieved. Very frequently these threats were sufficient to call off such ameeting at once. The feeling of fear was so marked that the meeting, instead ofcommencing at eight o’clock, very seldom was opened before a quarter to nine ornine o’clock. The Chairman thereupon did his best, by showering compliments onthe ‘gentleman of the opposition’ to prove how he and all others present werepleased (a palpable lie) to welcome a visit from men who as yet were not insympathy with them for the reason that only by mutual discussion (immediatelyagreed to) could they be brought closer together in mutual understanding. Apartfrom this the Chairman also assured them that the meeting had no intentionwhatsoever of interfering with the professed convictions of anybody. Indeed no.Everyone had the right to form and hold his own political views, but othersshould be allowed to do likewise. He therefore requested that the speaker beallowed to deliver his speech without interruption – the speech in any case notbeing a long affair. People abroad, he continued, would thus not come to regardthis meeting as another shameful example of the bitter fraternal strife that israging in Germany. And so on and so forth
The brothers of the Left hadlittle if any appreciation for that sort of talk; the speaker had hardlycommenced when he was shouted down. One gathered the impression at times thatthese speakers were graceful for being peremptorily cut short in theirmartyr-like discourse. These bourgeois toreadors left the arena in the midst ofa vast uproar, that is to say, provided that they were not thrown down thestairs with cracked skulls, which was very often the case.
Therefore, our methods oforganization at National Socialist meetings were something quite strange to theMarxists. They came to our meetings in the belief that the little game whichthey had so often played could as a matter of course be also repeated on us."To-day we shall finish them off." How often did they bawl this outto each other on entering the meeting hall, only to be thrown out withlightning speed before they had time to repeat it.
In the first place our method ofconducting a meeting was entirely different. We did not beg and pray to beallowed to speak, and we did not straightway give everybody the right to holdendless discussions. We curtly gave everyone to understand that we were mastersof the meeting and that we would do as it pleased us and that everyone whodared to interrupt would be unceremoniously thrown out. We stated clearly ourrefusal to accept responsibility for anyone treated in this manner. If timepermitted and if it suited us, a discussion would be allowed to take place. Ourparty colleague would now make his speech.... That kind of talk was sufficientin itself to astonish the Marxists.
Secondly, we had at our disposal awell-trained and organized body of men for maintaining order at our meetings.On the other hand the bourgeois parties protected their meetings with a body ofmen better classified as ushers who by virtue of their age thought they wereentitled to-authority and respect. But as Marxism has little or no respect forthese things, the question of suitable self-protection at these bourgeoismeetings was, so to speak, in practice non-existent.
When our political meetings firststarted I made it a special point to organize a suitable defensive squad – asquad composed chiefly of young men. Some of them were comrades who had seenactive service with me; others were young party members who, right from thestart, had been trained and brought up to realize that only terror is capableof smashing terror – that only courageous and determined people had made asuccess of things in this world and that, finally, we were fighting for an ideaso lofty that it was worth the last drop of our blood. These young men had beenbrought up to realize that where force replaced common sense in the solution ofa problem, the best means of defence was attack and that the reputation of ourhall-guard squads should stamp us as a political fighting force and not as adebating society.
And it was extraordinary howeagerly these boys of the War generation responded to this order. They hadindeed good reason for being bitterly disappointed and indignant at themiserable milksop methods employed by the bourgeoise.
Thus it became clear to everyonethat the Revolution had only been possible thanks to the dastardly methods of abourgeois government. At that time there was certainly no lack of man-power tosuppress the revolution, but unfortunately there was an entire lack of directivebrain power. How often did the eyes of my young men light up with enthusiasmwhen I explained to them the vital functions connected with their task andassured them time and again that all earthly wisdom is useless unless it besupported by a measure of strength, that the gentle goddess of Peace can onlywalk in company with the god of War, and that every great act of peace must beprotected and assisted by force. In this way the idea of military service cameto them in a far more realistic form – not in the fossilized sense of the soulsof decrepit officials serving the dead authority of a dead State, but in theliving realization of the duty of each man to sacrifice his life at all timesso that his country might live.
How those young men did their job!
Like a swarm of hornets theytackled disturbers at our meetings, regardless of superiority of numbers,however great, indifferent to wounds and bloodshed, inspired with the greatidea of blazing a trail for the sacred mission of our movement.
As early as the summer of 1920 theorganization of squads of men as hall guards for maintaining order at ourmeetings was gradually assuming definite shape. By the spring of 1921 this bodyof men were sectioned off into squads of one hundred, which in turn were sub-dividedinto smaller groups.
The urgency for this was apparent,as meanwhile the number of our meetings had steadily increased. We stillfrequently met in the Munich Hofbräuhaus but more frequently in the large meetinghalls throughout the city itself. In the autumn and winter of 1920–1921 ourmeetings in the Bürgerbräu and Munich Kindlbräu had assumed vast proportionsand it was always the same picture that presented itself; namely, meetings ofthe NSDAP (The German National Socialist Labour Party) were always crowded outso that the police were compelled to close and bar the doors long beforeproceedings commenced.
The organization of defence guardsfor keeping order at our meetings cleared up a very difficult question. Up tillthen the movement had possessed no party badge and no party flag. The lack ofthese tokens was not only a disadvantage at that time but would proveintolerable in the future. The disadvantages were chiefly that members of theparty possessed no outward broken of membership which linked them together, andit was absolutely unthinkable that for the future they should remain withoutsome token which would be a symbol of the movement and could be set againstthat of the International.
More than once in my youth thepsychological importance of such a symbol had become clearly evident to me andfrom a sentimental point of view also it was advisable. In Berlin, after theWar, I was present at a mass-demonstration of Marxists in front of the RoyalPalace and in the Lustgarten. A sea of red flags, red armlets and red flowerswas in itself sufficient to give that huge assembly of about 120,000 persons anoutward appearance of strength. I was now able to feel and understand howeasily the man in the street succumbs to the hypnotic magic of such a grandiosepiece of theatrical presentation.
The bourgeoisie, which as a partyneither possesses or stands for any Weltanschhauung, had therefore not asingle banner. Their party was composed of ‘patriots’ who went about in thecolours of the Reich. If these colours were the symbol of a definite Weltanschhauungthen one could understand the rulers of the State regarding this flag asexpressive of their own Weltanschhauung, seeing that through theirefforts the official Reich flag was expressive of their own Weltanschhauung.
But in reality the position wasotherwise.
The Reich was morticed togetherwithout the aid of the German bourgeoisie and the flag itself was born of the Warand therefore merely a State flag possessing no importance in the sense of anyparticular ideological mission.
Only in one part of theGerman-speaking territory – in German-Austria – was there anything like abourgeois party flag in evidence. Here a section of the national bourgeoisieselected the 1848 colours (black, red and gold) as their party flag andtherewith created a symbol which, though of no importance from aweltanschauliche viewpoint, had, nevertheless, a revolutionary character from anational point of view. The most bitter opponents of this flag at that time,and this should not be forgotten to-day, were the Social Democrats and theChristian Socialists or clericals. They, in particular, were the ones whodegraded and besmirched these colours in the same way as in 1918 they draggedblack, white and red into the gutter. Of course, the black, red and gold of theGerman parties in the old Austria were the colours of the year 1848: that is tosay, of a period likely to be regarded as somewhat visionary, but it was aperiod that had honest German souls as its representatives, although the Jewswere lurking unseen as wire-pullers in the background. It was high treason andthe shameful enslavement of the German territory that first of all made thesecolours so attractive to the Marxists of the Centre Party; so much so thatto-day they revere them as their most cherished possession and use them astheir own banners for the protection of the flag they once foully besmirched.
It is a fact, therefore, that, uptill 1920, in opposition to the Marxists there was no flag that would havestood for a consolidated resistance to them. For even if the better politicalelements of the German bourgeoisie were loath to accept the suddenly discoveredblack, red and gold colours as their symbol after the year 1918, theynevertheless were incapable of counteracting this with a future programme oftheir own that would correspond to the new trend of affairs. At the most, theyhad a reconstruction of the old Reich in mind.
And it is to this way of thinkingthat the black, white and red colours of the old Reich are indebted for theirresurrection as the flag of our so-called national bourgeois parties.
It was obvious that the symbol ofa régime which had been overthrown by the Marxists under ingloriouscircumstances was not now worthy to serve as a banner under which the sameMarxism was to be crushed in its turn. However much any decent German may loveand revere those old colours, glorious when placed side by side in theiryouthful freshness, when he had fought under them and seen the sacrifice of somany lives, that flag had little value for the struggle of the future.
In our Movement I have alwaysadopted the standpoint that it was a really lucky thing for the German nationthat it had lost its old flag 18). This standpoint of mine was instrong contrast to that of the bourgeois politicians. It may be immaterial tous what the Republic does under its flag. But let us be deeply grateful to fatefor having so graciously spared the most glorious war flag for all time frombecoming an ignominious rag. The Reich of to-day, which sells itself and itspeople, must never be allowed to adopt the honourable and heroic black, whiteand red colours.
As long as the November outrageendures, that outrage may continue to bear its own external sign and not stealthat of an honourable past. Our bourgeois politicians should awaken theirconsciences to the fact that whoever desires this State to have the black,white and red colours is pilfering from the past. The old flag was suitableonly for the old Reich and, thank Heaven, the Republic chose the colours bestsuited to itself.
This was also the reason why weNational Socialists recognized that hoisting the old colours would be no symbolof our special aims; for we had no wish to resurrect from the dead the oldReich which had been ruined through its own blunders, but to build up a newState.
The Movement which is fightingMarxism to-day along these lines must display on its banner the symbol of thenew State.
The question of the new flag, thatis to say the form and appearance it must take, kept us very busy in thosedays. Suggestions poured in from all quarters, which although well meant weremore or less impossible in practice. The new flag had not only to become asymbol expressing our own struggle but on the other hand it was necessary thatit should prove effective as a large poster. All those who busy themselves withthe tastes of the public will recognize and appreciate the great importance ofthese apparently petty matters. In hundreds of thousands of cases a reallystriking emblem may be the first cause of awakening interest in a movement.
For this reason we declined allsuggestions from various quarters for identifying our movement by means of awhite flag with the old State or rather with those decrepit parties whose solepolitical objective is the restoration of past conditions. And, apart fromthis, white is not a colour capable of attracting and focusing publicattention. It is a colour suitable only for young women’s associations and notfor a movement that stands for reform in a revolutionary period.
Black was also suggested –certainly well-suited to the times, but embodying no significance to empressthe will behind our movement. And, finally, black is incapable of attractingattention.
White and blue was discarded,despite its admirable æsthetic appeal – as being the colours of an individualGerman Federal State – a State that, unfortunately, through its political attitudeof particularist narrow-mindedness did not enjoy a good reputation. And,generally speaking, with these colours it would have been difficult to attractattention to our movement. The same applies to black and white.
Black, red and gold did not enter thequestion at all.
And this also applies to black,white and red for reasons already stated. At least, not in the form hitherto inuse. But the effectiveness of these three colours is far superior to all theothers and they are certainly the most strikingly harmonious combination to befound.
I myself was always for keepingthe old colours, not only because I, as a soldier, regarded them as my mostsacred possession, but because in their aesthetic effect, they conformed morethan anything else to my personal taste. Accordingly I had to discard all theinnumerable suggestions and designs which had been proposed for the newmovement, among which were many that had incorporated the swastika into the oldcolours. I, as leader, was unwilling to make public my own design, as it waspossible that someone else could come forward with a design just as good, ifnot better, than my own. As a matter of fact, a dental surgeon from Starnbergsubmitted a good design very similar to mine, with only one mistake, in that hisswastika with curved corners was set upon a white background.
After innumerable trials I decidedupon a final form – a flag of red material with a white disc bearing in itscentre a black swastika. After many trials I obtained the correct proportions betweenthe dimensions of the flag and of the white central disc, as well as that ofthe swastika. And this is how it has remained ever since.
At the same time we immediatelyordered the corresponding armlets for our squad of men who kept order atmeetings, armlets of red material, a central white disc with the black swastikaupon it. Herr Füss, a Munich goldsmith, supplied the first practical andpermanent design.
The new flag appeared in public inthe midsummer of 1920. It suited our movement admirably, both being new andyoung. Not a soul had seen this flag before; its effect at that time wassomething akin to that of a blazing torch. We ourselves experienced almost aboyish delight when one of the ladies of the party who had been entrusted withthe making of the flag finally handed it over to us. And a few months laterthose of us in Munich were in possession of six of these flags. The steadilyincreasing strength of our hall guards was a main factor in popularizing thesymbol.
And indeed a symbol it proved tobe.
Not only because it incorporatedthose revered colours expressive of our homage to the glorious past and whichonce brought so much honour to the German nation, but this symbol was also aneloquent expression of the will behind the movement. We National Socialistsregarded our flag as being the embodiment of our party programme. The redexpressed the social thought underlying the movement. White the nationalthought. And the swastika signified the mission allotted to us – the strugglefor the victory of Aryan mankind and at the same time the triumph of the idealof creative work which is in itself and always will be anti-Semitic.
Two years later, when our squad ofhall guards had long since grown into storm detachments, it seemed necessary togive this defensive organization of a young Weltanschhauung a particularsymbol of victory, namely a Standard. I also designed this and entrusted theexecution of it to an old party comrade, Herr Gahr, who was a goldsmith. Eversince that time this Standard has been the distinctive token of the NationalSocialist struggle.
The increasing interest taken inour meetings, particularly during 1920, compelled us at times to hold twomeetings a week. Crowds gathered round our posters; the large meeting halls inthe town were always filled and tens of thousands of people, who had been ledastray by the teachings of Marxism, found their way to us and assisted in thework of fighting for the liberation of the Reich. The public in Munich had gotto know us. We were being spoken about. The words ‘National Socialist’ hadbecome common property to many and signified for them a definite partyprogramme. Our circle of supporters and even of members was constantlyincreasing, so that in the winter of 1920–21 we were able to appear as a strongparty in Munich.
At that time there was no party inMunich with the exception of the Marxist parties – certainly no nationalistparty – which was able to hold such mass demonstrations as ours. The MunichKindl Hall, which held 5,000 people, was more than once overcrowded and up tillthen there was only one other hall, the Krone Circus Hall, into which we hadnot ventured.
At the end of January 1921 therewas again great cause for anxiety in Germany. The Paris Agreement, by which Germanypledged herself to pay the crazy sum of a hundred milliards of gold marks, wasto be confirmed by the London Ultimatum.
Thereupon an old-establishedMunich working committee, representative of so-called völkisch groups, deemedit advisable to call for a public meeting of protest. I became nervous andrestless when I saw that a lot of time was being wasted and nothing undertaken.At first a meeting was suggested in the König Platz; on second thoughts thiswas turned down, as someone feared the proceedings might be wrecked by Redelements. Another suggestion was a demonstration in front of the FeldherrnHall, but this also came to nothing. Finally a combined meeting in the MunichKindl Hall was suggested. Meanwhile, day after day had gone by; the big partieshad entirely ignored the terrible event, and the working committee could notdecide on a definite date for holding the demonstration.
On Tuesday, February 1st, I putforward an urgent demand for a final decision. I was put off until Wednesday.On that day I demanded to be told clearly if and when the meeting was to takeplace. The reply was again uncertain and evasive, it being stated that it was‘intended’ to arrange a demonstration that day week.
At that I lost all patience anddecided to conduct a demonstration of protest on my own. At noon on Wednesday Idictated in ten minutes the text of the poster and at the same time hired theKrone Circus Hall for the next day, February 3rd.
In those days this was atremendous venture. Not only because of the uncertainty of filling that vasthall, but also because of the risk of the meeting being wrecked.
Numerically our squad of hallguards was not strong enough for this vast hall. I was also uncertain aboutwhat to do in case the meeting was broken up – a huge circus building being adifferent proposition from an ordinary meeting hall. But events showed that myfears were misplaced, the opposite being the case. In that vast building asquad of wreckers could be tackled and subdued more easily than in a crampedhall.
One thing was certain: A failurewould throw us back for a long time to come. If one meeting was wrecked ourprestige would be seriously injured and our opponents would be encouraged torepeat their success. That would lead to sabotage of our work in connectionwith further meetings and months of difficult struggle would be necessary toovercome this.
We had only one day in which topost our bills, Thursday. Unfortunately it rained on the morning of that dayand there was reason to fear that many people would prefer to remain at homerather than hurry to a meeting through rain and snow, especially when there waslikely to be violence and bloodshed.
And indeed on that Thursdaymorning I was suddenly struck with fear that the hall might never be filled tocapacity, which would have made me ridiculous in the eyes of the workingcommittee. I therefore immediately dictated various leaflets, had them printedand distributed in the afternoon. Of course they contained an invitation toattend the meeting.
Two lorries which I hired weredraped as much as possible in red, each had our new flag hoisted on it and wasthen filled with fifteen or twenty members of our party. Orders were given themembers to canvas the streets thoroughly, distribute leaflets and conductpropaganda for the mass meeting to be held that evening. It was the first timethat lorries had driven through the streets bearing flags and not manned byMarxists. The public stared open-mouthed at these red-draped cars, and in theoutlying districts clenched fists were angrily raised at this new evidence of‘provocation of the proletariat’. Were not the Marxists the only ones entitledto hold meetings and drive about in motor lorries?
At seven o’clock in the eveningonly a few had gathered in the circus hall. I was being kept informed bytelephone every ten minutes and was becoming uneasy. Usually at seven or aquarter past our meeting halls were already half filled; sometimes even packed.But I soon found out the reason why I was uneasy. I had entirely forgotten totake into account the huge dimensions of this new meeting place. A thousandpeople in the Hofbräuhaus was quite an impressive sight, but the same number inthe Circus building was swallowed up in its dimensions and was hardly noticeable.Shortly afterwards I received more hopeful reports and at a quarter to eight Iwas informed that the hall was three-quarters filled, with huge crowds stilllined up at the pay boxes. I then left for the meeting.
I arrived at the Circus buildingat two minutes past eight. There was still a crowd of people outside, partlyinquisitive people and many opponents who preferred to wait outside fordevelopments.
When I entered the great hall Ifelt the same joy I had felt a year previously at the first meeting in theMunich Hofbräu Banquet Hall; but it was not until I had forced my way throughthe solid wall of people and reached the platform that I perceived the fullmeasure of our success. The hall was before me, like a huge shell, packed withthousands and thousands of people. Even the arena was densely crowded. Morethan 5,600 tickets had been sold and, allowing for the unemployed, poorstudents and our own detachments of men for keeping order, a crowd of about6,500 must have been present.
My theme was ‘Future or Downfall’and I was filled with joy at the conviction that the future was represented bythe crowds that I was addressing.
I began, and spoke for about twoand a half hours. I had the feeling after the first half-hour that the meetingwas going to be a big success. Contact had been at once established with allthose thousands of individuals. After the first hour the speech was alreadybeing received by spontaneous outbreaks of applause, but after the second hourthis died down to a solemn stillness which I was to experience so often lateron in this same hall, and which will for ever be remembered by all thosepresent. Nothing broke this impressive silence and only when the last word hadbeen spoken did the meeting give vent to its feelings by singing the nationalanthem.
I watched the scene during thenext twenty minutes, as the vast hall slowly emptied itself, and only then didI leave the platform, a happy man, and made my way home.
Photographs were taken of thisfirst meeting in the Krone Circus Hall in Munich. They are more eloquent thanwords to demonstrate the success of this demonstration. The bourgeois papersreproduced photographs and reported the meeting as having been merely‘nationalist’ in character; in their usual modest fashion they omitted allmention of its promoters.
Thus for the first time we haddeveloped far beyond the dimensions of an ordinary party. We could no longer beignored. And to dispel all doubt that the meeting was merely an isolatedsuccess, I immediately arranged for another at the Circus Hall in the followingweek, and again we had the same success. Once more the vast hall wasoverflowing with people; so much so that I decided to hold a third meetingduring the following week, which also proved a similar success.
After these initial successesearly in 1921 I increased our activity in Munich still further. I not only heldmeetings once a week, but during some weeks even two were regularly held andvery often during midsummer and autumn this increased to three. We metregularly at the Circus Hall and it gave us great satisfaction to see thatevery meeting brought us the same measure of success.
The result was shown in anever-increasing number of supporters and members into our party.
Naturally, such success did notallow our opponents to sleep soundly. At first their tactics fluctuated betweenthe use of terror and silence in our regard. Then they recognized that neitherterror nor silence could hinder the progress of our movement. So they hadrecourse to a supreme act of terror which was intended to put a definite end toour activities in the holding of meetings.
As a pretext for action along thisline they availed themselves of a very mysterious attack on one of the Landtagdeputies, named Erhard Auer. It was declared that someone had fired severalshots at this man one evening. This meant that he was not shot but that anattempt had been made to shoot him. A fabulous presence of mind and heroiccourage on the part of Social Democratic leaders not only prevented thesacrilegious intention from taking effect but also put the crazy would-beassassins to flight, like the cowards that they were. They were so quick andfled so far that subsequently the police could not find even the slightesttraces of them. This mysterious episode was used by the organ of the SocialDemocratic Party to arouse public feeling against the movement, and while doingthis it delivered its old rigmarole about the tactics that were to be employedthe next time. Their purpose was to see to it that our movement should not growbut should be immediately hewn down root and branch by the hefty arm of theproletariat.
A few days later the real attackcame. It was decided finally to interrupt one of our meetings which was billedto take place in the Munich Hofbräuhaus, and at which I myself was to speak.
On November 4th, 1921, in theevening between six and seven o’clock I received the first precise news thatthe meeting would positively be broken up and that to carry out this action ouradversaries had decided to send to the meeting great masses of workmen employedin certain ‘Red’ factories.
It was due to an unfortunateaccident that we did not receive this news sooner. On that day we had given upour old business office in the Sternecker Gasse in Munich and moved into otherquarters; or rather we had given up the old offices and our new quarters werenot yet in functioning order. The telephone arrangements had been cut off bythe former tenants and had not yet been reinstalled. Hence it happened thatseveral attempts made that day to inform us by telephone of the break-up whichhad been planned for the evening did not reach us.
Consequently our order troops werenot present in strong force at that meeting. There was only one squad present,which did not consist of the usual one hundred men, but only of aboutforty-six. And our telephone connections were not yet sufficiently organized tobe able to give the alarm in the course of an hour or so, so that asufficiently powerful number of order troops to deal with the situation couldbe called. It must also be added that on several previous occasions we had beenforewarned, but nothing special happened. The old proverb, ‘Revolutions whichwere announced have scarcely ever come off’, had hitherto been proved true inour regard.
Possibly for this reason alsosufficiently strong precautions had not been taken on that day to cope with thebrutal determination of our opponents to break up our meeting.
Finally, we did not believe thatthe Hofbräuhaus in Munich was suitable for the interruptive tactics of ouradversaries. We had feared such a thing far more in the bigger halls,especially that of the Krone Circus. But on this point we learned a veryserviceable lesson that evening. Later, we studied this whole questionaccording to a scientific system and arrived at results, both interesting andincredible, and which subsequently were an essential factor in the direction ofour organization and in the tactics of our Storm Troops.
When I arrived in the entrancehalt of the Hofbräuhaus at 7.45 that evening I realizcd that there could be nodoubt as to what the ‘Reds’ intended. The hall was filled, and for that reasonthe police had barred the entrances. Our adversaries, who had arrived veryearly, were in the hall, and our followers were for the most part outside. Thesmall bodyguard awaited me at the entrance. I had the doors leading to theprincipal hall closed and then asked the bodyguard of forty-five or forty-sixmen to come forward. I made it clear to the boys that perhaps on that eveningfor the first time they would have to show their unbending and unbreakableloyalty to the movement and that not one of us should leave the hall unlesscarried out dead. I added that I would remain in the hall and that I did notbelieve that one of them would abandon me, and that if I saw any one of themact the coward I myself would personally tear off his armlet and his badge. Idemanded of them that they should come forward if the slightest attempt tosabotage the meeting were made and that they must remember that the bestdefence is always attack.
I was greeted with a triple ‘Heil’which sounded more hoarse and violent than usual.
Then I advanced through the hall andcould take in the situation with my own eyes. Our opponents sat closely huddledtogether and tried to pierce me through with their looks. Innumerable facesglowing with hatred and rage were fixed on me, while others with sneeringgrimaces shouted at me together. Now they would ‘Finish with us. We must lookout for our entrails. To-day they would smash in our faces once and for all.’And there were other expressions of an equally elegant character. They knewthat they were there in superior numbers and they acted accordingly.
Yet we were able to open themeeting; and I began to speak. In the Hall of the Hofbräuhaus I stood always atthe side, away from the entry and on top of a beer table. Therefore I wasalways right in the midst of the audience. Perhaps this circumstance wasresponsible for creating a certain feeling and a sense of agreement which Inever found elsewhere.
Before me, and especially towardsmy left, there were only opponents, seated or standing. They were mostly robustyouths and men from the Maffei Factory, from Kustermann’s, and from thefactories on the Isar, etc. Along the right-hand wall of the hall they werethickly massed quite close to my table. They now began to order litre mugs ofbeer, one after the other, and to throw the empty mugs under the table. In thisway whole batteries were collected. I should have been surprised had thismeeting ended peacefully.
In spite of all the interruptions,I was able to speak for about an hour and a half and I felt as if I were masterof the situation. Even the ringleaders of the disturbers appeared to beconvinced of this; for they steadily became more uneasy, often left the hall,returned and spoke to their men in an obviously nervous way.
A small psychological error whichI committed in replying to an interruption, and the mistake of which I myselfwas conscious the moment the words had left my mouth, gave the sign for theoutbreak.
There were a few furious outburstsand all in a moment a man jumped on a seat and shouted "Liberty". Atthat signal the champions of liberty began their work.
In a few moments the hall wasfilled with a yelling and shrieking mob. Numerous beer-mugs flew like howitzersabove their heads. Amid this uproar one heard the crash of chair legs, thecrashing of mugs, groans and yells and screams.
It was a mad spectacle. I stoodwhere I was and could observe my boys doing their duty, every one of them.
There I had the chance of seeingwhat a bourgeois meeting could be.
The dance had hardly begun when myStorm Troops, as they were called from that day onwards, launched their attack.Like wolves they threw themselves on the enemy again and again in parties ofeight or ten and began steadily to thrash them out of the hall. After fiveminutes I could see hardly one of them that was not streaming with blood. ThenI realized what kind of men many of them were, above all my brave Maurice Hess,who is my private secretary to-day, and many others who, even though seriouslywounded, attacked again and again as long as they could stand on their feet.Twenty minutes long the pandemonium continued. Then the opponents, who hadnumbered seven or eight hundred, had been driven from the hall or hurled outheadlong by my men, who had not numbered fifty. Only in the left corner a bigcrowd still stood out against our men and put up a bitter fight. Then twopistol shots rang out from the entrance to the hall in the direction of theplatform and now a wild din of shooting broke out from all sides. One’s heartalmost rejoiced at this spectacle which recalled memories of the War.
At that moment it was not possibleto identify the person who had fired the shots. But at any rate I could seethat my boys renewed the attack with increased fury until finally the lastdisturbers were overcome and flung out of the hall.
About twenty-five minutes hadpassed since it all began. The hall looked as if a bomb had exploded there.Many of my comrades had to be bandaged and others taken away. But we remainedmasters of the situation. Hermann Essen, who was chairman of the meeting,announced: "The meeting will continue. The speaker shall proceed." SoI went on with my speech.
When we ourselves declared themeeting at an end an excited police officer rushed in, waved his hands anddeclared: "The meeting is dissolved."
Without wishing to do so I had tolaugh at this example of the law’s delay. It was the authentic constabularyofficiosiousness. The smaller they are the greater they must always appear.
That evening we learned a reallesson. And our adversaries never forgot the lesson they had received.
Up to the autumn of 1923 theMünchener post did not again mention the clenched fists of the Proletariat.
CHAPTERVIII
THE STRONG IS STRONGEST WHEN ALONE
In the preceding chapter Imentioned the existence of a co-operative union between the German patrioticassociations. Here I shall deal briefly with this question.
In speaking of a co-operativeunion we generally mean a group of associations which, for the purpose offacilitating their work, establish mutual relations for collaborating with oneanother along certain lines, appointing a common directorate with varyingpowers and thenceforth carrying out a common line of action. The averagecitizen is pleased and reassured when he hears that these associations, byestablishing a co-operative union among one another, have at long lastdiscovered a common platform on which they can stand united and have eliminatedall grounds of mutual difference. Therewith a general conviction arises, to theeffect that such a union is an immense gain in strength and that small groupswhich were weak as long as they stood alone have now suddenly become strong.Yet this conviction is for the most part a mistaken one.
It will be interesting and, in myopinion, important for the better understanding of this question if we try toget a clear notion of how it comes about that these associations, unions, etc.,are established, when all of them declare that they have the same ends in view.In itself it would be logical to expect that one aim should be fought for by asingle association and it would be more reasonable if there were not a numberof associations fighting for the same aim. In the beginning there wasundoubtedly only one association which had this one fixed aim in view. One manproclaimed a truth somewhere and, calling for the solution of a definitequestion, fixed his aim and founded a movement for the purpose of carrying hisviews into effect.
That is how an association or aparty is founded, the scope of whose programme is either the abolition ofexisting evils or the positive establishment of a certain order of things inthe future.
Once such a movement has come intoexistence it may lay practical claim to certain priority rights. The naturalcourse of things would now be that all those who wish to fight for the sameobjective as this movement is striving for should identify themselves with itand thus increase its strength, so that the common purpose in view may be allthe better served. Especially men of superior intelligence must feel, one andall, that by joining the movement they are establishing precisely thoseconditions which are necessary for practical success in the common struggle.Accordingly it is reasonable and, in a certain sense, honest – which honesty,as I shall show later, is an element of very great importance – that only onemovement should be founded for the purpose of attaining the one aim.
The fact that this does not happenmust be attributed to two causes. The first may almost be described as tragic.The second is a matter for pity, because it has its foundation in theweaknesses of human nature. But, on going to the bottom of things, I see inboth causes only facts which give still another ground for strengthening ourwill, our energy and intensity of purpose; so that finally, through the higherdevelopment of the human faculties, the solution of the problem in question maybe rendered possible.
The tragic reason why it so oftenhappens that the pursuit of one definite task is not left to one associationalone is as follows: Generally speaking, every action carried out on the grandstyle in this world is the expression of a desire that has already existed fora long time in millions of human hearts, a longing which may have beennourished in silence. Yes, it may happen that throughout centuries men may havebeen yearning for the solution of a definite problem, because they have beensuffering under an unendurable order of affairs, without seeing on the farhorizon the coming fulfilment of the universal longing. Nations which are nolonger capable of finding an heroic deliverance from such a sorrowful fate maybe looked upon as effete. But, on the other hand, nothing gives better proof ofthe vital forces of a people and the consequent guarantee of its right to existthan that one day, through a happy decree of Destiny, a man arises who iscapable of liberating his people from some great oppression, or of wiping outsome bitter distress, or of calming the national soul which had been tormentedthrough its sense of insecurity, and thus fulfilling what had long been theuniversal yearning of the people.
An essential characteristic ofwhat are called the great questions of the time is that thousands undertake thetask of solving them and that many feel themselves called to this task: yea,even that Destiny itself has proposed many for the choice, so that through thefree play of forces the stronger and bolder shall finally be victorious and tohim shall be entrusted the task of solving the problem.
Thus it may happen that forcenturies many are discontented with the form in which their religious lifeexpresses itself and yearn for a renovation of it; and so it may happen thatthrough this impulse of the soul some dozens of men may arise who believe that,by virtue of their understanding and their knowledge, they are called to solvethe religious difficulties of the time and accordingly present themselves asthe prophets of a new teaching or at least as declared adversaries of thestanding beliefs.
Here also it is certain that thenatural law will take its course, inasmuch as the strongest will be destined tofulfil the great mission. But usually the others are slow to acknowledge thatonly one man is called. On the contrary, they all believe that they have an equalright to engage in the solution of the diffculties in question and that theyare equally called to that task. Their contemporary world is generally quiteunable to decide which of all these possesses the highest gifts and accordinglymerits the support of all.
So in the course of centuries, orindeed often within the same epoch, different men establish different movementsto struggle towards the same end. At least the end is declared by the foundersof the movements to be the same, or may be looked upon as such by the masses ofthe people. The populace nourishes vague desires and has only general opinions,without having any precise notion of their own ideals and desires or of thequestion whether and how it is impossible for these ideals and desires to befulfilled.
The tragedy lies in the fact thatmany men struggle to reach the same objective by different roads, each onegenuinely believing in his own mission and holding himself in duty bound tofollow his own road without any regard for the others.
These movements, parties,religious groups, etc., originate entirely independently of one another out ofthe general urge of the time, and all with a view to working towards the samegoal. It may seem a tragic thing, at least at first sight, that this should beso, because people are too often inclined to think that forces which aredispersed in different directions would attain their ends far more quickly andmore surely if they were united in one common effort. But that is not so. ForNature herself decides according to the rules of her inexorable logic. Sheleaves these diverse groups to compete with one another and dispute the palm ofvictory and thus she chooses the clearest, shortest and surest way along whichshe leads the movement to its final goal.
How could one decide from outsidewhich is the best way, if the forces at hand were not allowed free play, if thefinal decision were to rest with the doctrinaire judgment of men who are soinfatuated with their own superior knowledge that their minds are not open toaccept the indisputable proof presented by manifest success, which in the lastanalysis always gives the final confirmation of the justice of a course ofaction.
Hence, though diverse groups marchalong different routes towards the same objective, as soon as they come to knowthat analogous efforts are being made around them, they will have to study allthe more carefully whether they have chosen the best way and whether a shorterway may not be found and how their efforts can best be employed to reach theobjective more quickly.
Through this rivalry eachindividual protagonist develops his faculties to a still higher pitch ofperfection and the human race has frequently owed its progress to the lessonslearned from the misfortunes of former attempts which have come to grief.Therefore we may conclude that we come to know the better ways of reachingfinal results through a state of things which at first sight appeared tragic;namely, the initial dispersion of individual efforts, wherein each group wasunconsciously responsible for such dispersion.
In studying the lessons of historywith a view to finding a way for the solution of the German problem, theprevailing opinion at one time was that there were two possible paths alongwhich that problem might be solved and that these two paths should have unitedfrom the very beginning. The chief representatives and champions of these twopaths were Austria and Prussia respectively, Habsburg and Hohenzollern. All therest, according to this prevalent opinion, ought to have entrusted their unitedforces to the one or the other party. But at that time the path of the mostprominent representative, the Habsburg, would have been taken, though theAustrian policy would never have led to the foundation of a united GermanReich.
Finally, a strong and unitedGerman Reich arose out of that which many millions of Germans deplored in theirhearts as the last and most terrible manifestation of our fratricidal strife.The truth is that the German Imperial Crown was retrieved on the battle fieldof Königgrätz and not in the fights that were waged before Paris, as wascommonly asserted afterwards.
Thus the foundation of the GermanReich was not the consequence of any common will working along common lines,but it was much more the outcome of a deliberate struggle for hegemony, thoughthe protagonists were often hardly conscious of this. And from this strugglePrussia finally came out victorious. Anybody who is not so blinded by partisanpolitics as to deny this truth will have to agree that the so-called wisdom ofmen would never have come to the same wise decision as the wisdom of Lifeitself, that is to say, the free play of forces, finally brought torealization. For in the German lands of two hundred years before who wouldseriously have believed that Hohenzollern Prussia, and not Habsburg, wouldbecome the germ cell, the founder and the tutor of the new Reich? And, on theother hand, who would deny to-day that Destiny thus acted wiser than humanwisdom. Who could now imagine a German Reich based on the foundations of aneffete and degenerate dynasty?
No. The general evolution ofthings, even though it took a century of struggle, placed the best in theposition that it had merited.
And that will always be so. Thereforeit is not to be regretted if different men set out to attain the sameobjective. In this way the strongest and swiftest becomes recognized and turnsout to be the victor.
Now there is a second cause forthe fact that often in the lives of nations several movements which show thesame characteristics strive along different ways to reach what appears to bethe same goal. This second cause is not at all tragic, but just something thatrightly calls forth pity. It arises from a sad mixture of envy, jealousy,ambition, and the itch for taking what belongs to others. Unfortunately thesefailings are often found united in single specimens of the human species.
The moment a man arises whoprofoundly understands the distress of his people and, having diagnosed theevil with perfect accuracy, takes measures to cure it; the moment he fixes hisaim and chooses the means to reach it – then paltry and pettifogging peoplebecome all attention and eagerly follow the doings of this man who has thuscome before the public gaze. Just like sparrows who are apparently indifferent,but in reality are firmly intent on the movements of the fortunate companionwith the morsel of bread so that they may snatch it from him if he shouldmomentarily relax his hold on it, so it is also with the human species. Allthat is needed is that one man should strike out on a new road and then a crowdof poltroons will prick up their ears and begin to sniff for whatever littlebooty may possibly lie at the end of that road. The moment they think they havediscovered where the booty is to be gathered they hurry to find another waywhich may prove to be quicker in reaching that goal.
As soon as a new movement isfounded and has formulated a definite programme, people of that kind comeforward and proclaim that they are fighting for the same cause. This does notimply that they are ready honestly to join the ranks of such a movement andthus recognize its right of priority. It implies rather that they intend tosteal the programme and found a new party on it. In doing this they areshameless enough to assure the unthinking public that for a long time they hadintended to take the same line of action as the other has now taken, andfrequently they succeed in thus placing themselves in a favourable light,instead of arousing the general disapprobation which they justly deserve. Forit is a piece of gross impudence to take what has already been inscribed onanother’s flag and display it on one’s own, to steal the programme of another,and then to form a separate group as if all had been created by the new founderof this group. The impudence of such conduct is particularly demonstrated whenthe individuals who first caused dispersion and disruption by their newfoundation are those who – as experience has shown – are most emphatic inproclaiming the necessity of union and unity the moment they find they cannotcatch up with their adversary’s advance.
It is to that kind of conduct thatthe so-called ‘patriotic disintegration’ is to be attributed.
Certainly in the years 1918 – 1919the founding of a multitude of new groups, parties, etc., calling themselves‘Patriotic,’ was a natural phenomenon of the time, for which the founders werenot at all responsible. By 1920 the National Socialist German Labour Party hadslowly crystallized from all these parties and had become supreme. There couldbe no better proof of the sterling honesty of certain individual founders thanthe fact that many of them decided, in a really admirable manner, to sacrificetheir manifestly less successful movements to the stronger movement, by joiningit unconditionally and dissolving their own.
This is specially true in regardto Julius Streicher, who was at that time the protagonist of the GermanSocialist party in Nürnberg. The National Socialist German Labour Party hadbeen founded with similar aims in view, but quite independently of the other. Ihave already said that Streicher, then a teacher in Nürnberg, was the chiefprotagonist of the German Socialist Party. He had a sacred conviction of themission and future of his own movement. As soon, however, as the superiorstrength and stronger growth of the National Socialist Party became clear andunquestionable to his mind, he gave up his work in the German Socialist Partyand called upon his followers to fall into line with the National SocialistGerman Labour Party, which had come out victorious from the mutual contest, andcarry on the fight within its ranks for the common cause. The decision waspersonally a difficult one for him, but it showed a profound sense of honesty.
When that first period of themovement was over there remained no further dispersion of forces: for theirhonest intentions had led the men of that time to the same honourable,straightforward and just conclusion. What we now call the ‘patrioticdisintegration’ owes its existence exclusively to the second of the two causeswhich I have mentioned. Ambitious men who at first had no ideas of their own,and still less any concept of aims to be pursued, felt themselves ‘called’exactly at that moment in which the success of the National Socialist GermanLabour Party became unquestionable.
Suddenly programmes appeared whichwere mere transcripts of ours. Ideas were proclaimed which had been taken fromus. Aims were set up on behalf of which we had been fighting for several years,and ways were mapped out which the National Socialists had for a long timetrodden. All kinds of means were resorted to for the purpose of trying toconvince the public that, although the National Socialist German Labour Partyhad now been for a long time in existence, it was found necessary to establishthese new parties. But all these phrases were just as insincere as the motivesbehind them were ignoble.
In reality all this was groundedonly on one dominant motive. That motive was the personal ambition of thefounders, who wished to play a part in which their own pigmy talents couldcontribute nothing original except the gross effrontery which they displayed inappropriating the ideas of others, a mode of conduct which in ordinary life islooked upon as thieving.
At that time there was not an ideaor concept launched by other people which these political kleptomaniacs did notseize upon at once for the purpose of applying to their own base uses. Thosewho did all this were the same people who subsequently, with tears in theireyes, profoundly deplored the ‘patriotic disintegration’ and spoke unceasinglyabout the ‘necessity of unity’. In doing this they nurtured the secret hopethat they might be able to cry down the others, who would tire of hearing theseloud-mouthed accusations and would end up by abandoning all claim to the ideasthat had been stolen from them and would abandon to the thieves not only thetask of carrying these ideas into effect but also the task of carrying on themovements of which they themselves were the original founders.
When that did not succeed, and thenew enterprises, thanks to the paltry mentality of their promoters, did notshow the favourable results which had been promised beforehand, then theybecame more modest in their pretences and were happy if they could landthemselves in one of the so-called ‘co-operative unions’.
At that period everything whichcould not stand on its own feet joined one of those co-operative unions,believing that eight lame people hanging on to one another could force agladiator to surrender to them.
But if among all these cripplesthere was one who was sound of limb he had to use all his strength to sustainthe others and thus he himself was practically paralysed.
We ought to look upon the questionof joining these working coalitions as a tactical problem, but, in coming to adecision, we must never forget the following fundamental principle:
Through the formation of a workingcoalition associations which are weak in themselves can never be made strong,whereas it can and does happen not infrequently that a strong association losesits strength by joining in a coalition with weaker ones. It is a mistake tobelieve that a factor of strength will result from the coalition of weakgroups; because experience shows that under all forms and all conditions themajority represents the duffers and poltroons. Hence a multiplicity ofassociations, under a directorate of many heads, elected by these sameassociations, is abandoned to the control of poltroons and weaklings. Throughsuch a coalition the free play of forces is paralysed, the struggle for theselection of the best is abolished and therewith the necessary and finalvictory of the healthier and stronger is impeded. Coalitions of that kind areinimical to the process of natural development, because for the most part theyhinder rather than advance the solution of the problem which is being foughtfor.
It may happen that, from considerationsof a purely tactical kind, the supreme command of a movement whose goal is setin the future will enter into a coalition with such associations for thetreatment of special questions and may also stand on a common platform withthem, but this can be only for a short and limited period. Such a coalitionmust not be permanent, if the movement does not wish to renounce its liberatingmission. Because if it should become indissolubly tied up in such a combinationit would lose the capacity and the right to allow its own forces to work freelyin following out a natural development, so as to overcome rivals and attain itsown objective triumphantly.
It must never be forgotten thatnothing really great in this world has ever been achieved through coalitions,but that such achievements have always been due to the triumph of theindividual. Successes achieved through coalitions, owing to the very nature oftheir source, carry the germs of future disintegration in them from the verystart; so much so that they have already forfeited what has been achieved. Thegreat revolutions which have taken place in human thought and have veritablytransformed the aspect of the world would have been inconceivable andimpossible to carry out except through titanic struggles waged betweenindividual natures, but never as the enterprises of coalitions.
And, above all things, thePeople’s State will never be created by the desire for compromise inherent in apatriotic coalition, but only by the iron will of a single movement which hassuccessfully come through in the struggle with all the others.
CHAPTER IX
FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS REGARDING THE NATURE ANDORGANIZATION OF THE STORM TROOPS
The strength of the old staterested on three pillars: the monarchical form of government, the civil service,and the army. The Revolution of 1918 abolished the form of government,dissolved the army and abandoned the civil service to the corruption of partypolitics. Thus the essential supports of what is called the Authority of theState were shattered. This authority nearly always depends on three elements,which are the essential foundations of all authority.
Popular support is the firstelement which is necessary for the creation of authority. But an authorityresting on that foundation alone is still quite frail, uncertain andvacillating. Hence everyone who finds himself vested with an authority that isbased only on popular support must take measures to improve and consolidate thefoundations of that authority by the creation of force. Accordingly we mustlook upon power, that is to say, the capacity to use force, as the secondfoundation on which all authority is based. This foundation is more stable andsecure, but not always stronger, than the first. If popular support and powerare united together and can endure for a certain time, then an authority mayarise which is based on a still stronger foundation, namely, the authority oftradition. And, finally, if popular support, power, and tradition are unitedtogether, then the authority based on them may be looked upon as invincible.
In Germany the Revolutionabolished this last foundation. There was no longer even a traditionalauthority. With the collapse of the old Reich, the suppression of themonarchical form of government, the destruction of all the old insignia ofgreatness and the imperial symbols, tradition was shattered at a blow. Theresult was that the authority of the State was shaken to its foundations.
The second pillar of statalauthority, namely power, also ceased to exist. In order to carry through theRevolution it was necessary to dissolve that body which had hithertoincorporated the organized force and power of the State, namely, the Army.Indeed, some detached fragments of the Army itself had to be employed as fightingelements in the Revolution. The Armies at the front were not subjected in thesame measure to this process of disruption; but as they gradually left fartherbehind them the fields of glory on which they had fought heroically forfour-and-half years, they were attacked by the solvent acid that had permeatedthe Fatherland; and when they arrived at the demobilizing centres they fellinto that state of confusion which was styled voluntary obedience in the timeof the Soldiers’ Councils.
Of course it was out of thequestion to think of founding any kind of authority on this crowd ofmutineering soldiers, who looked upon military service as a work of eight hoursper day. Therefore the second element, that which guarantees the stability ofauthority, was also abolished and the Revolution had only the original element,popular support, on which to build up its authority. But this basis wasextraordinarily insecure. By means of a few violent thrusts the Revolution hadshattered the old statal edifice to its deepest foundations, but only becausethe normal equilibrium within the social structure of the nation had alreadybeen destroyed by the war.
Every national body is made up ofthree main classes. At one extreme we have the best of the people, taking theword ‘best’ here to indicate those who are highly endowed with the civicvirtues and are noted for their courage and their readiness to sacrifice theirprivate interests. At the other extreme are the worst dregs of humanity, inwhom vice and egotistic interests prevail. Between these two extremes standsthe third class, which is made up of the broad middle stratum, who do notrepresent radiant heroism or vulgar vice.
The stages of a nation’s rise areaccomplished exclusively under the leadership of the best extreme.
Times of normal and symmetricaldevelopment, or of stable conditions, owe their existence and outwardly visiblecharacteristics to the preponderating influence of the middle stratum. In thisstage the two extreme classes are balanced against one another; in other words,they are relatively cancelled out.
Times of national collapse aredetermined by the preponderating influence of the worst elements.
It must be noted here, however,that the broad masses, which constitute what I have called the middle section,come forward and make their influence felt only when the two extreme sectionsare engaged in mutual strife. In case one of the extreme sections comes outvictorious the middle section will readily submit to its domination. If thebest dominate, the broad masses will follow it. Should the worst extreme turnout triumphant, then the middle section will at least offer no opposition toit; for the masses that constitute the middle class never fight their ownbattles.
The outpouring of blood for four-and-a-halfyears during the war destroyed the inner equilibrium between these threesections in so far as it can be said – though admitting the sacrifices made bythe middle section – that the class which consisted of the best human elementsalmost completely disappeared through the loss of so much of its blood in thewar, because it was impossible to replace the truly enormous quantity of heroicGerman blood which had been shed during those four-and-a-half years. Inhundreds of thousands of cases it was always a matter of ‘volunteers to thefront’, volunteers for patrol and duty, volunteer dispatch carriers, volunteersfor establishing and working telephonic communications, volunteers forbridge-building, volunteers for the submarines, volunteers for the air service,volunteers for the storm battalions, and so on, and so on. Duringfour-and-a-half years, and on thousands of occasions, there was always the callfor volunteers and again for volunteers. And the result was always the same.Beardless young fellows or fully developed men, all filled with an ardent lovefor their country, urged on by their own courageous spirit or by a lofty senseof their duty – it was always such men who answered the call for volunteers.Tens of thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands, of such men came forward, sothat that kind of human material steadily grew scarcer and scarcer. What didnot actually fall was maimed in the fight or gradually had to join the ranks ofthe crippled because of the wounds they were constantly receiving, and thusthey had to carry on interminably owing to the steady decrease in the supply ofsuch men. In 1914 whole armies were composed of volunteers who, owing to acriminal lack of conscience on the part of our feckless parliamentarians, hadnot received any proper training in times of peace, and so were thrown asdefenceless cannon-fodder to the enemy. The four hundred thousand who thus fellor were permanently maimed on the battlefields of Flanders could not bereplaced any more. Their loss was something far more than merely numerical.With their death the scales, which were already too lightly weighed at that endof the social structure which represented our best human quality, now movedupwards rapidly, becoming heavier on the other end with those vulgar elementsof infamy and cowardice – in short, there was an increase in the elements thatconstituted the worst extreme of our population.
And there was something more:While for four-and-a-half years our best human material was being thinned to anexceptional degree on the battlefields, our worst people wonderfully succeededin saving themselves. For each hero who made the supreme sacrifice and ascendedthe steps of Valhalla, there was a shirker who cunningly dodged death on theplea of being engaged in business that was more or less useful at home.
And so the picture which presenteditself at the end of the war was this: The great middle stratum of the nationhad fulfilled its duty and paid its toll of blood. One extreme of thepopulation, which was constituted of the best elements, had given a typicalexample of its heroism and had sacrificed itself almost to a man. The otherextreme, which was constituted of the worst elements of the population, hadpreserved itself almost intact, through taking advantage of absurd laws andalso because the authorities failed to enforce certain articles of the militarycode.
This carefully preserved scum ofour nation then made the Revolution. And the reason why it could do so was thatthe extreme section composed of the best elements was no longer there to opposeit. It no longer existed.
Hence the German Revolution, fromthe very beginning, depended on only one section of the population. This act ofCain was not committed by the German people as such, but by an obscure canailleof deserters, hooligans, etc.
The man at the front gladlywelcomed the end of the strife in which so much blood had been shed. He washappy to be able to return home and see his wife and children once again. Buthe had no moral connection with the Revolution. He did not like it, nor did helike those who had provoked and organized it. During the four-and-a-half yearsof that bitter struggle at the front he had come to forget the party hyenas athome and all their wrangling had become foreign to him.
The Revolution was really popularonly with a small section of the German people: namely, that class and theiraccomplices who had selected the rucksack as the hall-mark of all honourablecitizens in this new State. They did not like the Revolution for its own sake,though many people still erroneously believe the contrary, but for theconsequences which followed in its train.
But it was very difficult toestablish any abiding authority on the popular support given to these Marxist freebooters.And yet the young Republic stood in need of authority at any cost, unless itwas ready to agree to be overthrown after a short period of chaos by anelementary force assembled from those last elements that still remained amongthe best extreme of the population.
The danger which those who wereresponsible for the Revolution feared most at that time was that, in theturmoil of the confusion which they themselves had created, the ground wouldsuddenly be taken from under their feet, that they might be suddenly seized andtransported to another terrain by an iron grip, such as has often appeared atthese junctures in the history of nations. The Republic must be consolidated atall costs.
Hence it was forced almostimmediately after its foundation to erect another pillar beside that waveringpillar of popularity. They found that power must be organized once again inorder to procure a firmer foundation for their authority.
When those who had been thematadors of the Revolution in December 1918, and January and February 1919,felt the ground trembling beneath their feet they looked around them for menwho would be ready to reinforce them with military support; for their feebleposition was dependent only on whatever popular favour they enjoyed. The ‘anti-militarist’Republic had need of soldiers. But the first and only pillar on which theauthority of the State rested, namely, its popularity, was grounded only on aconglomeration of rowdies and thieves, burglars, deserters, shirkers, etc.Therefore in that section of the nation which we have called the evil extremeit was useless to look for men who would be willing to sacrifice their lives onbehalf of a new ideal. The section which had nourished the revolutionary ideaand carried out the Revolution was neither able nor willing to call on thesoldiers to protect it. For that section had no wish whatsoever to organize arepublican State, but to disorganize what already existed and thus satisfy itsown instincts all the better. Their password was not the organization andconstruction of the German Republic, but rather the plundering of it.
Hence the cry for help sent out bythe public representatives, who were beset by a thousand anxieties, did notfind any response among this class of people, but rather provoked a feeling ofbitterness and repudiation. For they looked upon this step as the beginning ofa breach of faith and trust, and in the building up of an authority which wasno longer based on popular support but also on force they saw the beginning ofa hostile move against what the Revolution meant essentially for thoseelements. They feared that measures might be taken against the right to robberyand absolute domination on the part of a horde of thieves and plunderers – inshort, the worst rabble – who had broken out of the convict prisons and lefttheir chains behind.
The representatives of the peoplemight cry out as much as they liked, but they could get no help from thatrabble. The cries for help were met with the counter-cry ‘traitors’ by thosevery people on whose support the popularity of the regime was founded.
Then for the first time largenumbers of young Germans were found who were ready to button on the militaryuniform once again in the service of ‘Peace and Order’, as they believed,shouldering the carbine and rifle and donning the steel helmet to defend thewreckers of the Fatherland. Volunteer corps were assembled and, although hatingthe Revolution, they began to defend it. The practical effect of their actionwas to render the Revolution firm and stable. In doing this they acted inperfect good faith.
The real organizer of theRevolution and the actual wire-puller behind it, the international Jew, hadsized up the situation correctly. The German people were not yet ripe to be drawninto the blood swamp of Bolshevism, as the Russian people had been drawn. Andthat was because there was a closer racial union between the intellectualclasses in Germany and the manual workers, and also because broad social stratawere permeated with cultured people, such as was the case also in the otherStates of Western Europe; but this state of affairs was completely lacking inRussia. In that country the intellectual classes were mostly not of Russiannationality, or at least they did not have the racial characteristics of theSlav. The thin upper layer of intellectuals which then existed in Russia mightbe abolished at any time, because there was no intermediate stratum connectingit organically with the great mass of the people. There the mental and morallevel of the great mass of the people was frightfully low.
In Russia the moment the agitatorswere successful in inciting broad masses of the people, who could not read orwrite, against the upper layer of intellectuals who were not in contact withthe masses or permanently linked with them in any way – at that moment thedestiny of Russia was decided, the success of the Revolution was assured.Thereupon the analphabetic Russian became the slave of his Jewish dictatorswho, on their side, were shrewd enough to name their dictatorship ‘TheDictatorship of the People’.
In the case of Germany anadditional factor must be taken into account. Here the Revolution could becarried into effect only if the Army could first be gradually dismembered. Butthe real author of the Revolution and of the process of disintegration in theArmy was not the soldier who had fought at the front but the canaille whichmore or less shunned the light and which were either quartered in the homegarrisons or were officiating as ‘indispensables’ somewhere in the businessworld at home. This army was reinforced by ten thousand deserters who, withoutrunning any particular risk, could turn their backs on the Front. At all timesthe real poltroon fears nothing so much as death. But at the Front he had deathbefore his eyes every day in a thousand different shapes. There has always beenone possible way, and one only, of making weak or wavering men, or evendownright poltroons, face their duty steadfastly. This means that the desertermust be given to understand that his desertion will bring upon him just thevery thing he is flying from. At the Front a man may die, but the deserter mustdie. Only this draconian threat against every attempt to desert the flag canhave a terrifying effect, not merely on the individual but also on the mass.Therein lay the meaning and purpose of the military penal code.
It was a fine belief to think thatthe great struggle for the life of a nation could be carried through if it werebased solely on voluntary fidelity arising from and sustained by the knowledgethat such a struggle was necessary. The voluntary fulfilment of one’s duty is amotive that determines the actions of only the best men, but not of the averagetype of men. Hence special laws are necessary; just as, for instance, the lawagainst stealing, which was not made for men who are honest on principle butfor the weak and unstable elements. Such laws are meant to hinder the evil-doerthrough their deterrent effect and thus prevent a state of affairs from arisingin which the honest man is considered the more stupid, and which would end inthe belief that it is better to have a share in the robbery than to stand bywith empty hands or allow oneself to be robbed.
It was a mistake to believe thatin a struggle which, according to all human foresight, might last for severalyears it would be possible to dispense with those expedients which theexperience of hundreds and even of thousands of years had proved to beeffective in making weak and unstable men face and fulfil their duty indifficult times and at moments of great nervous stress.
For the voluntary war hero it is,of course, not necessary to have the death penalty in the military code, but itis necessary for the cowardly egoists who value their own lives more than theexistence of the community in the hour of national need. Such weak andcharacterless people can be held back from surrendering to their cowardice onlyby the application of the heaviest penalties. When men have to struggle withdeath every day and remain for weeks in trenches of mire, often very badlysupplied with food, the man who is unsure of himself and begins to waver cannotbe made to stick to his post by threats of imprisonment or even penalservitude. Only by a ruthless enforcement of the death penalty can this beeffected. For experience shows that at such a time the recruit considers prisona thousand times more preferable than the battlefield. In prison at least hisprecious life is not in danger. The practical abolition of the death penaltyduring the war was a mistake for which we had to pay dearly. Such omissionreally meant that the military penal code was no longer recognized as valid. Anarmy of deserters poured into the stations at the rear or returned home,especially in 1918, and there began to form that huge criminal organizationwith which we were suddenly faced, after November 7th, 1918, and whichperpetrated the Revolution.
The Front had nothing to do withall this. Naturally, the soldiers at the Front were yearning for peace. But itwas precisely that fact which represented a special danger for the Revolution.For when the German soldiers began to draw near home, after the Armistice, therevolutionaries were in trepidation and asked the same question again andagain: What will the troops from the Front do? Will the field-greys stand forit?
During those weeks the Revolutionwas forced to give itself at least an external appearance of moderation, if itwere not to run the risk of being wrecked in a moment by a few Germandivisions. For at that time, even if the commander of one division alone hadmade up his mind to rally the soldiers of his division, who had always remainedfaithful to him, in an onslaught to tear down the red flag and put the ‘councils’up against the wall, or, if there was any resistance, to break it withtrench-mortars and hand grenades, that division would have grown into an armyof sixty divisions in less than four weeks. The Jew wire-pullers were terrifiedby this prospect more than by anything else; and to forestall this particulardanger they found it necessary to give the Revolution a certain aspect ofmoderation. They dared not allow it to degenerate into Bolshevism, so they hadto face the existing conditions by putting up the hypocritical picture of‘order and tranquillity’. Hence many important concessions, the appeal to theold civil service and to the heads of the old Army. They would be needed atleast for a certain time, and only when they had served the purpose of Turks’ Headscould the deserved kick-out be administered with impunity. Then the Republicwould be taken entirely out of the hands of the old servants of the State anddelivered into the claws of the revolutionaries.
They thought that this was theonly plan which would succeed in duping the old generals and civil servants anddisarm any eventual opposition beforehand through the apparently harmless andmild character of the new regime.
Practical experience has shown towhat extent the plan succeeded.
The Revolution, however, was notmade by the peaceful and orderly elements of the nation but rather by rioters,thieves and robbers. And the way in which the Revolution was developing did notaccord with the intentions of these latter elements; still, on tactical grounds,it was not possible to explain to them the reasons for the course things weretaking and make that course acceptable.
As Social Democracy graduallygained power it lost more and more the character of a crude revolutionaryparty. Of course in their inner hearts the Social Democrats wanted arevolution; and their leaders had no other end in view. Certainly not. But whatfinally resulted was only a revolutionary programme; but not a body of men whowould be able to carry it out. A revolution cannot be carried through by aparty of ten million members. If such a movement were attempted the leaderswould find that it was not an extreme section of the population on which theyhad to depend butrather the broad masses of the middle stratum; hence the inertmasses.
Recognizing all this, alreadyduring the war, the Jews caused the famous split in the Social DemocraticParty. While the Social Democratic Party, conforming to the inertia of its massfollowing, clung like a leaden weight on the neck of the national defence, theactively radical elements were extracted from it and formed into new aggressivecolumns for purposes of attack. The Independent Socialist Party and theSpartacist League were the storm battalions of revolutionary Marxism. Theobjective assigned to them was to create a fait accompli, on the grounds ofwhich the masses of the Social Democratic Party could take their stand, havingbeen prepared for this event long beforehand. The feckless bourgeoisie had beenestimated at its just value by the Marxists and treated en canaille. Nobodybothered about it, knowing well that in their canine servility therepresentatives of an old and worn-out generation would not be able to offerany serious resistance.
When the Revolution had succeededand its artificers believed that the main pillars of the old State had beenbroken down, the Army returning from the Front began to appear in the light ofa sinister sphinx and thus made it necessary to slow down the national courseof the Revolution. The main body of the Social Democratic horde occupied theconquered positions, and the Independent Socialist and Spartacist stormbattalions were side-tracked.
But that did not happen without astruggle.
The activist assault formationsthat had started the Revolution were dissatisfied and felt that they had beenbetrayed. They now wanted to continue the fight on their own account. But theirillimitable racketeering became odious even to the wire-pullers of theRevolution. For the Revolution itself had scarcely been accomplished when twocamps appeared. In the one camp were the elements of peace and order; in theother were those of blood and terror. Was it not perfectly natural that ourbourgeoisie should rush with flying colours to the camp of peace and order? Foronce in their lives their piteous political organizations found it possible toact, inasmuch as the ground had been prepared for them on which they were gladto get a new footing; and thus to a certain extent they found themselves incoalition with that power which they hated but feared. The German politicalbourgeoisie achieved the high honour of being able to associate itself with theaccursed Marxist leaders for the purpose of combating Bolshevism.
Thus the following state ofaffairs took shape as early as December 1918 and January 1919:
A minority constituted of theworst elements had made the Revolution. And behind this minority all theMarxist parties immediately fell into step. The Revolution itself had anoutward appearance of moderation, which aroused against it the enmity of thefanatical extremists. These began to launch hand-grenades and firemachine-guns, occupying public buildings, thus threatening to destroy themoderate appearance of the Revolution. To prevent this terror from developingfurther a truce was concluded between the representatives of the new regime andthe adherents of the old order, so as to be able to wage a common fight againstthe extremists. The result was that the enemies of the Republic ceased tooppose the Republic as such and helped to subjugate those who were also enemiesof the Republic, though for quite different reasons. But a further result wasthat all danger of the adherents of the old State putting up a fight againstthe new was now definitely averted.
This fact must always be clearlykept in mind. Only by remembering it can we understand how it was possible thata nation in which nine-tenths of the people had not joined in a revolution,where seven-tenths repudiated it and six-tenths detested it – how this nationallowed the Revolution to be imposed upon it by the remaining one-tenth of thepopulation.
Gradually the barricade heroes inthe Spartacist camp petered out, and so did the nationalist patriots andidealists on the other side. As these two groups steadily dwindled, the massesof the middle stratum, as always happens, triumphed. The Bourgeoisie and theMarxists met together on the grounds of accomplished facts, and the Republicbegan to be consolidated. At first, however, that did not prevent the bourgeoisparties from propounding their monarchist ideas for some time further,especially at the elections, whereby they endeavoured to conjure up the spiritsof the dead past to encourage their own feeble-hearted followers. It was not anhonest proceeding. In their hearts they had broken with the monarchy long ago;but the foulness of the new regime had begun to extend its corruptive actionand make itself felt in the camp of the bourgeois parties. The common bourgeoispolitician now felt better in the slime of republican corruption than in thesevere decency of the defunct State, which still lived in his memory.
As I have already pointed out,after the destruction of the old Army the revolutionary leaders were forced tostrengthen statal authority by creating a new factor of power. In theconditions that existed they could do this only by winning over to their sidethe adherents of a Weltanschhauung which was a direct contradiction oftheir own. From those elements alone it was possible slowly to create a newarmy which, limited numerically by the peace treaties, had to be subsequentlytransformed in spirit so as to become an instrument of the new regime.
Setting aside the defects of theold State, which really became the cause of the Revolution, if we ask how itwas possible to carry the Revolution to a successful issue as a political act,we arrive at the following conclusions:
l. It was due to a process of dryrot in our conceptions of duty and obedience.
2. It was due also to the passive timidityof the Parties who were supposed to uphold the State.
To this the following must beadded: The dry rot which attacked our concepts of duty and obedience wasfundamentally due to our wholly non-national and purely State education. Fromthis came the habit of confusing means and ends. Consciousness of duty,fulfilment of duty, and obedience, are not ends in themselves no more than theState is an end in itself; but they all ought to be employed as means tofacilitate and assure the existence of a community of people who are kindredboth physically and spiritually. At a moment when a nation is manifestlycollapsing and when all outward signs show that it is on the point of becomingthe victim of ruthless oppression, thanks to the conduct of a few miscreants,to obey these people and fulfil one’s duty towards them is merely doctrinaireformalism, and indeed pure folly; whereas, on the other hand, the refusal ofobedience and fulfilment of duty in such a case might save the nation fromcollapse. According to our current bourgeois idea of the State, if a divisionalgeneral received from above the order not to shoot he fulfilled his duty andtherefore acted rightly in not shooting, because to the bourgeois mind blindformal obedience is a more valuable thing than the life of a nation. Butaccording to the National Socialist concept it is not obedience to weaksuperiors that should prevail at such moments, in such an hour the duty ofassuming personal responsibility towards the whole nation makes its appearance.
The Revolution succeeded becausethat concept had ceased to be a vital force with our people, or rather with ourgovernments, and died down to something that was merely formal and doctrinaire.
As regards the second point, itmay be said that the more profound cause of the fecklessness of the bourgeoisparties must be attributed to the fact that the most active and upright sectionof our people had lost their lives in the war. Apart from that, the bourgeoisparties, which may be considered as the only political formations that stood bythe old State, were convinced that they ought to defend their principles onlyby intellectual ways and means, since the use of physical force was permittedonly to the State. That outlook was a sign of the weakness and decadence whichhad been gradually developing. And it was also senseless at a period when therewas a political adversary who had long ago abandoned that standpoint and,instead of this, had openly declared that he meant to attain his political endsby force whenever that became possible. When Marxism emerged in the world ofbourgeois democracy, as a consequence of that democracy itself, the appeal sentout by the bourgeois democracy to fight Marxism with intellectual weapons was apiece of folly for which a terrible expiation had to be made later on. ForMarxism always professed the doctrine that the use of arms was a matter whichhad to be judged from the standpoint of expediency and that success justifiedthe use of arms.
This idea was proved correct duringthe days from November 7 to 10, 1918. The Marxists did not then botherthemselves in the least about parliament or democracy, but they gave the deathblow to both by turning loose their horde of criminals to shoot and raise hell.
When the Revolution was over thebourgeois parties changed the title of their firm and suddenly reappeared, theheroic leaders emerging from dark cellars or more lightsome storehouses wherethey had sought refuge. But, just as happens in the case of all representativesof antiquated institutions, they had not forgotten their errors or learnedanything new. Their political programme was grounded in the past, even thoughthey themselves had become reconciled to the new regime. Their aim was tosecure a share in the new establishment, and so they continued the use of wordsas their sole weapon.
Therefore after the Revolution thebourgeois parties also capitulated to the street in a miserable fashion.
When the law for the Protection ofthe Republic was introduced the majority was not at first in favour of it. But,confronted with two hundred thousand Marxists demonstrating in the streets, thebourgeois ‘statesmen’ were so terror-stricken that they voted for the Lawagainst their wills, for the edifying reason that otherwise they feared theymight get their heads smashed by the enraged masses on leaving the Reichstag.
And so the new State developedalong its own course, as if there had been no national opposition at all.
The only organizations which atthat time had the strength and courage to face Marxism and its enraged masseswere first of all the volunteer corps 19), and subsequently theorganizations for self-defence, the civic guards and finally the associationsformed by the demobilized soldiers of the old Army.
But the existence of these bodiesdid not appreciably change the course of German history; and that for thefollowing causes:
As the so-called national partieswere without influence, because they had no force which could effectivelydemonstrate in the street, the Leagues of Defence could not exercise anyinfluence because they had no political idea and especially because they had nodefinite political aim in view.
The success which Marxism onceattained was due to perfect co-operation between political purposes and ruthlessforce. What deprived nationalist Germany of all practical hopes of shapingGerman development was the lack of a determined co-operation between bruteforce and political aims wisely chosen.
Whatever may have been theaspirations of the ‘national’ parties, they had no force whatsoever to fightfor these aspirations, least of all in the streets.
The Defence Leagues had force attheir disposal. They were masters of the street and of the State, but theylacked political ideas and aims on behalf of which their forces might have beenor could have been employed in the interests of the German nation. The cunningJew was able in both cases, by his astute powers of persuasion, in reinforcingan already existing tendency to make this unfortunate state of affairspermanent and at the same time to drive the roots of it still deeper.
The Jew succeeded brilliantly inusing his Press for the purpose of spreading abroad the idea that the defenceassociations were of a ‘non-political’ character just as in politics he wasalways astute enough to praise the purely intellectual character of thestruggle and demand that it must always be kept on that plane
Millions of German imbeciles thenrepeated this folly without having the slightest suspicion that by so doingthey were, for all practical purposes, disarming themselves and deliveringthemselves defenceless into the hands of the Jew.
But there is a natural explanationof this also. The lack of a great idea which would re-shape things anew hasalways meant a limitation in fighting power. The conviction of the right toemploy even the most brutal weapons is always associated with an ardent faithin the necessity for a new and revolutionary transformation of the world.
A movement which does not fightfor such high aims and ideals will never have recourse to extreme means.
The appearance of a new and greatidea was the secret of success in the French Revolution. The Russian Revolutionowes its triumph to an idea. And it was only the idea that enabled Fascismtriumphantly to subject a whole nation to a process of complete renovation.
Bourgeois parties are not capableof such an achievement. And it was not the bourgeois parties alone that fixedtheir aim in a restoration of the past. The defence associations also did so, inso far as they concerned themselves with political aims at all. The spirit ofthe old war legions and Kyffauser tendencies lived in them and therewith helpedpolitically to blunt the sharpest weapons which the German nation thenpossessed and allow them to rust in the hands of republican serfs. The factthat these associations were inspired by the best of intentions in so doing,and certainly acted in good faith, does not alter in the slightest degree thefoolishness of the course they adopted.
In the consolidated ReichswehrMarxism gradually acquired the support of force, which it needed for itsauthority. As a logical consequence it proceeded to abolish those defenceassociations which it considered dangerous, declaring that they were now nolonger necessary. Some rash leaders who defied the Marxist orders were summonedto court and sent to prison. But they all got what they had deserved.
The founding of the NationalSocialist German Labour Party incited a movement which was the first to fix itsaim, not in a mechanical restoration of the past – as the bourgeois parties did– but in the substitution of an organic People’s State for the present absurdstatal mechanism.
From the first day of itsfoundation the new movement took its stand on the principle that its ideas hadto be propagated by intellectual means but that, wherever necessary, muscularforce must be employed to support this propaganda. In accordance with theirconviction of the paramount importance of the new doctrine, the leaders of thenew movement naturally believe that no sacrifice can be considered too greatwhen it is a question of carrying through the purpose of the movement.
I have emphasized that in certaincircumstances a movement which is meant to win over the hearts of the people mustbe ready to defend itself with its own forces against terrorist attempts on thepart of its adversaries. It has invariably happened in the history of the worldthat formal State authority has failed to break a reign of terror which wasinspired by a Weltanschhauung. It can only be conquered by a new anddifferent Weltanschhauung whose representatives are quite as audaciousand determined. The acknowledgment of this fact has always been very unpleasantfor the bureaucrats who are the protectors of the State, but the fact remainsnevertheless. The rulers of the State can guarantee tranquillity and order onlyin case the State embodies a Weltanschhauung which is shared in by thepeople as a whole; so that elements of disturbance can be treated as isolated criminals,instead of being considered as the champions of an idea which is diametricallyopposed to official opinions. If such should be the case the State may employthe most violent measures for centuries long against the terror that threatensit; but in the end all these measures will prove futile, and the State willhave to succumb.
The German State is intenselyoverrun by Marxism. In a struggle that went on for seventy years the State wasnot able to prevent the triumph of the Marxist idea. Even though the sentencesto penal servitude and imprisonment amounted in all to thousands of years, andeven though the most sanguinary methods of repression were in innumerableinstances threatened against the champions of the Marxist Weltanschhauung,in the end the State was forced to capitulate almost completely. The ordinarybourgeois political leaders will deny all this, but their protests are futile.
Seeing that the State capitulatedunconditionally to Marxism on November 9th, 1918, it will not suddenly rise uptomorrow as the conqueror of Marxism. On the contrary. Bourgeois simpletonssitting on office stools in the various ministries babble about the necessityof not governing against the wishes of the workers, and by the word ‘workers’they mean the Marxists. By identifying the German worker with Marxism not onlyare they guilty of a vile falsification of the truth, but they thus try to hidetheir own collapse before the Marxist idea and the Marxist organization.
In view of the completesubordination of the present State to Marxism, the National Socialist Movementfeels all the more bound not only to prepare the way for the triumph of itsidea by appealing to the reason and understanding of the public but also totake upon itself the responsibility of organizing its own defence against theterror of the International, which is intoxicated with its own victory.
I have already described howpractical experience in our young movement led us slowly to organize a system ofdefence for our meetings. This gradually assumed the character of a militarybody specially trained for the maintenance of order, and tended to develop intoa service which would have its properly organized cadres.
This new formation might resemblethe defence associations externally, but in reality there were no grounds ofcomparison between the one and the other.
As I have already said, the Germandefence organizations did not have any definite political ideas of their own.They really were only associations for mutual protection, and they were trainedand organized accordingly, so that they were an illegal complement or auxiliaryto the legal forces of the State. Their character as free corps arose only fromthe way in which they were constructed and the situation in which the Statefound itself at that time. But they certainly could not claim to be free corpson the grounds that they were associations formed freely and privately for thepurpose of fighting for their own freely formed political convictions. Suchthey were not, despite the fact that some of their leaders and someassociations as such were definitely opposed to the Republic. For before we canspeak of political convictions in the higher sense we must be something morethan merely convinced that the existing regime is defective. Politicalconvictions in the higher sense mean that one has the picture of a new regimeclearly before one’s mind, feels that the establishment of this regime is anabsolute necessity and sets himself to carry out that purpose as the highesttask to which his life can be devoted.
The troops for the preservation oforder, which were then formed under the National Socialist Movement, werefundamentally different from all the other defence associations by reason of thefact that our formations were not meant in any way to defend the state ofthings created by the Revolution, but rather that they were meant exclusivelyto support our struggle for the creation of a new Germany.
In the beginning this body wasmerely a guard to maintain order at our meetings. Its first task was limited tomaking it possible for us to hold our meetings, which otherwise would have beencompletely prevented by our opponents. These men were at that time trainedmerely for purposes of attack, but they were not taught to adore the big stickexclusively, as was then pretended in stupid German patriotic circles. Theyused the cudgel because they knew that it can be made impossible for highideals to be put forward if the man who endeavours to propagate them can bestruck down with the cudgel. As a matter of fact, it has happened in historynot infrequently that some of the greatest minds have perished under the blowsof the most insignificant helots. Our bodyguards did not look upon violence asan end in itself, but they protected the expositors of ideal aims and purposesagainst hostile coercion by violence. They also understood that there was noobligation to undertake the defence of a State which did not guarantee thedefence of the nation, but that, on the contrary, they had to defend the nationagainst those who were threatening to destroy nation and State.
After the fight which took placeat the meeting in the Munich Hofbräuhaus, where the small number of our guardswho were present won everlasting fame for themselves by the heroic manner inwhich they stormed the adversaries; these guards were called The StormDetachment. As the name itself indicates, they represent only a detachment ofthe Movement. They are one constituent element of it, just as is the Press, thepropaganda, educational institutes, and other sections of the Party.
We learned how necessary was theformation of such a body, not only from our experience on the occasion of thatmemorable meeting but also when we sought gradually to carry the Movementbeyond Munich and extend it to the other parts of Germany. Once we had begun toappear as a danger to Marxism the Marxists lost no opportunity of trying tocrush beforehand all preparations for the holding of National Socialist meetings.When they did not succeed in this they tried to break up the meeting itself. Itgoes without saying that all the Marxist organizations, no matter of what gradeor view, blindly supported the policy and activities of their representationsin every case. But what is to be said of the bourgeois parties who, when theywere reduced to silence by these same Marxists and in many places did not dareto send their speakers to appear before the public, yet showed themselvespleased, in a stupid and incomprehensible manner, every time we received anykind of set-back in our fight against Marxism. The bourgeois parties were happyto think that those whom they themselves could not stand up against, but had toknuckle down to, could not be broken by us. What must be said of those Stateofficials, chiefs of police, and even cabinet ministers, who showed ascandalous lack of principle in presenting themselves externally to the publicas ‘national’ and yet shamelessly acted as the henchmen of the Marxists in thedisputes which we, National Socialists, had with the latter. What can be saidof persons who debased themselves so far, for the sake of a little abjectpraise in the Jewish Press, that they persecuted those men to whose heroiccourage and intervention, regardless of risk, they were partly indebted for nothaving been torn to pieces by the Red mob a few years previously and strung upto the lamp-posts?
One day these lamentable phenomenafired the late but unforgotten Prefect Pöhner – a man whose unbendingstraightforwardness forced him to hate all twisters and to hate them as only aman with an honest heart can hate – to say: "In all my life I wished to befirst a German and then an official, and I never wanted to mix up with thesecreatures who, as if they were kept officials, prostituted themselves beforeanybody who could play lord and master for the time being."
It was a specially sad thing thatgradually tens of thousands of honest and loyal servants of the State did notonly come under the power of such people but were also slowly contaminated bytheir unprincipled morals. Moreover, these kind of men pursued honest officialswith a furious hatred, degrading them and driving them from their positions,and yet passed themselves off as ‘national’ by the aid of their lyinghypocrisy.
From officials of that kind wecould expect no support, and only in very rare instances was it given. Only bybuilding up its own defence could our movement become secure and attract thatamount of public attention and general respect which is given to those who candefend themselves when attacked.
As an underlying principle in theinternal development of the Storm Detachment, we came to the decision that notonly should it be perfectly trained in bodily efficiency but that the men shouldbe so instructed as to make them indomitably convinced champions of theNational Socialist ideas and, finally, that they should be schooled to observethe strictest discipline. This body was to have nothing to do with the defenceorganizations of the bourgeois type and especially not with any secretorganization.
My reasons at that time forguarding strictly against letting the Storm Detachment of the German NationalSocialist Labour Party appear as a defence association were as follows:
On purely practical grounds it isimpossible to build up a national defence organization by means of privateassociations, unless the State makes an enormous contribution to it. Whoeverthinks otherwise overestimates his own powers. Now it is entirely out of thequestion to form organizations of any military value for a definite purpose onthe principle of so-called ‘voluntary discipline’. Here the chief support forenforcing orders, namely, the power of inflicting punishment, is lacking. Inthe autumn, or rather in the spring, of 1919 it was still possible to raise‘volunteer corps’, not only because most of the men who came forward at thattime had been through the school of the old Army, but also because the kind ofduty imposed there constrained the individual to absolute obedience at leastfor a definite period of time.
That spirit is entirely lacking inthe volunteer defence organizations of to-day. The more the defence associationgrows, the weaker its discipline becomes and so much the less can one demandfrom the individual members. Thus the whole organization will more and moreassume the character of the old non-political associations of war comrades andveterans.
It is impossible to carry througha voluntary training in military service for larger masses unless one isassured absolute power of command. There will always be few men who willvoluntarily and spontaneously submit to that kind of obedience which isconsidered natural and necessary in the Army.
Moreover, a proper system ofmilitary training cannot be developed where there are such ridiculously scantymeans as those at the disposal of the defence associations. The principal taskof such an institution must be to impart the best and most reliable kind ofinstruction. Eight years have passed since the end of the War, and during thattime none of our German youth, at an age when formerly they would have had todo military service, have received any systematic training at all. The aim of adefence association cannot be to enlist here and now all those who have alreadyreceived a military training; for in that case it could be reckoned withmathematical accuracy when the last member would leave the association. Eventhe younger soldier from 1918 will no longer be fit for front-line servicetwenty years later, and we are approaching that state of things with a rapiditythat gives cause for anxiety. Thus the defence associations must assume moreand more the aspect of the old ex-service men’s societies. But that cannot bethe meaning and purpose of an institution which calls itself, not anassociation of ex-service men but a defence association, indicating by thistitle that it considers its task to be, not only to preserve the tradition ofthe old soldiers and hold them together but also to propagate the idea ofnational defence and be able to carry this idea into practical effect, whichmeans the creation of a body of men who are fit and trained for militarydefence.
But this implies that thoseelements will receive a military training which up to now have received none.This is something that in practice is impossible for the defence associations.Real soldiers cannot be made by a training of one or two hours per week. Inview of the enormously increasing demands which modern warfare imposes on eachindividual soldier to-day, a military service of two years is barely sufficientto transform a raw recruit into a trained soldier. At the Front during the Warwe all saw the fearful consequences which our young recruits had to suffer fromtheir lack of a thorough military training. Volunteer formations which had beendrilled for fifteen or twenty weeks under an iron discipline and shownunlimited self-denial proved nevertheless to be no better than cannon fodder atthe Front. Only when distributed among the ranks of the old and experiencedsoldiers could the young recruits, who had been trained for four or six months,become useful members of a regiment. Guided by the ‘old men’, they adaptedthemselves gradually to their task.
In the light of all this, howhopeless must the attempt be to create a body of fighting troops by a so-calledtraining of one or two hours in the week, without any definite power of commandand without any considerable means. In that way perhaps one could refreshmilitary training in old soldiers, but raw recruits cannot thus be transformedinto expert soldiers.
How such a proceeding producesutterly worthless results may also be demonstrated by the fact that at the sametime as these so-called volunteer defence associations, with great effort andoutcry and under difficulties and lack of necessities, try to educate and traina few thousand men of goodwill (the others need not be taken into account) forpurposes of national defence, the State teaches our young men democratic andpacifist ideas and thus deprives millions and millions of their nationalinstincts, poisons their logical sense of patriotism and gradually turns theminto a herd of sheep who will patiently follow any arbitrary command. Thus theyrender ridiculous all those attempts made by the defence associations toinculcate their ideas in the minds of the German youth.
Almost more important is thefollowing consideration, which has always made me take up a stand against allattempts at a so-called military training on the basis of the volunteerassociations.
Assuming that, in spite of all thedifficulties just mentioned, a defence association were successful in traininga certain number of Germans every year to be efficient soldiers, not only asregards their mental outlook but also as regards bodily efficiency and theexpert handling of arms, the result must necessarily be null and void in aState whose whole tendency makes it not only look upon such a defensiveformation as undesirable but even positively hate it, because such an associationwould completely contradict the intimate aims of the political leaders, who arethe corrupters of this State.
But anyhow, such a result would beworthless under governments which have demonstrated by their own acts that theydo not lay the slightest importance on the military power of the nation and arenot disposed to permit an appeal to that power only in case that it werenecessary for the protection of their own malignant existence.
And that is the state of affairsto-day. It is not ridiculous to think of training some ten thousand men in theuse of arms, and carry on that training surreptitiously, when a few yearspreviously the State, having shamefully sacrificed eight-and-a-half millionhighly trained soldiers, not merely did not require their services any more,but, as a mark of gratitude for their sacrifices, held them up to publiccontumely. Shall we train soldiers for a regime which besmirched and spat uponour most glorious soldiers, tore the medals and badges from their breasts, trampledon their flags and derided their achievements? Has the present regime taken onestep towards restoring the honour of the old army and bringing those whodestroyed and outraged it to answer for their deeds? Not in the least. On thecontrary, the people I have just referred to may be seen enthroned in thehighest positions under the State to-day. And yet it was said at Leipzig:"Right goes with might." Since, however, in our Republic to-day mightis in the hands of the very men who arranged for the Revolution, and since thatRevolution represents a most despicable act of high treason against the nation– yea, the vilest act in German history – there can surely be no grounds forsaying that might of this character should be enhanced by the formation of a newyoung army. It is against all sound reason.
The importance which this Stateattached, after the Revolution of 1918, to the reinforcement of its positionfrom the military point of view is clearly and unmistakably demonstrated by itsattitude towards the large self-defence organizations which existed in thatperiod. They were not unwelcome as long as they were of use for the personalprotection of the miserable creatures cast up by the Revolution.
But the danger to these creaturesseemed to disappear as the debasement of our people gradually increased. As theexistence of the defence associations no longer implied a reinforcement of thenational policy they became superfluous. Hence every effort was made to disarmthem and suppress them wherever that was possible.
History records only a fewexamples of gratitude on the part of princes. But there is not one patriotamong the new bourgeoisie who can count on the gratitude of revolutionaryincendiaries and assassins, persons who have enriched themselves from thepublic spoil and betrayed the nation. In examining the problem as to the wisdomof forming these defence associations I have never ceased to ask: ‘For whomshall I train these young men? For what purpose will they be employed when theywill have to be called out?’ The answer to these questions lays down at thesame time the best rule for us to follow.
If the present State should oneday have to call upon trained troops of this kind it would never be for thepurpose of defending the interests of the nation vis-à-vis those of thestranger but rather to protect the oppressors of the nation inside the countryagainst the danger of a general outbreak of wrath on the part of a nation whichhas been deceived and betrayed and whose interests have been bartered away.
For this reason it was decidedthat the Storm Detachment of the German National Socialist Labour Party oughtnot to be in the nature of a military organization. It had to be an instrumentof protection and education for the National Socialist Movement and its dutiesshould be in quite a different sphere from that of the military defenceassociation.
And, of course, the StormDetachment should not be in the nature of a secret organization. Secretorganizations are established only for purposes that are against the law.Therewith the purpose of such an organization is limited by its very nature.Considering the loquacious propensities of the German people, it is notpossible to build up any vast organization, keeping it secret at the same timeand cloaking its purpose. Every attempt of that kind is destined to turn outabsolutely futile. It is not merely that our police officials to-day have attheir disposal a staff of eaves-droppers and other such rabble who are ready toplay traitor, like Judas, for thirty pieces of silver and will betray whateversecrets they can discover and will invent what they would like to reveal. Inorder to forestall such eventualities, it is never possible to bind one’s ownfollowers to the silence that is necessary. Only small groups can become reallysecret societies, and that only after long years of filtration. But the verysmallness of such groups would deprive them of all value for the NationalSocialist Movement. What we needed then and need now is not one or two hundreddare-devil conspirators but a hundred thousand devoted champions of our Weltanschhauung.The work must not be done through secret conventicles but through formidablemass demonstrations in public. Dagger and pistol and poison-vial cannot clearthe way for the progress of the movement. That can be done only by winning overthe man in the street. We must overthrow Marxism, so that for the futureNational Socialism will be master of the street, just as it will one day becomemaster of the State.
There is another danger connectedwith secret societies. It lies in the fact that their members often completelymisunderstand the greatness of the task in hand and are apt to believe that afavourable destiny can be assured for the nation all at once by means of asingle murder. Such a belief may find historical justification by appealing tocases where a nation had been suffering under the tyranny of some oppressor whoat the same time was a man of genius and whose extraordinary personalityguaranteed the internal solidity of his position and enabled him to maintainhis fearful oppression. In such cases a man may suddenly arise from the ranksof the people who is ready to sacrifice himself and plunge the deadly steelinto the heart of the hated individual. In order to look upon such a deed asabhorrent one must have the republican mentality of that petty canaille who areconscious of their own crime. But the greatest champion 20) ofliberty that the German people have ever had has glorified such a deed in WilliamTell.
During 1919 and 1920 there wasdanger that the members of secret organizations, under the influence of greathistorical examples and overcome by the immensity of the nation’s misfortunes,might attempt to wreak vengeance on the destroyers of their country, under thebelief that this would end the miseries of the people. All such attempts weresheer folly, for the reason that the Marxist triumph was not due to thesuperior genius of one remarkable person but rather to immeasurable incompetenceand cowardly shirking on the part of the bourgeoisie. The hardest criticismthat can be uttered against our bourgeoisie is simply to state the fact that itsubmitted to the Revolution, even though the Revolution did not produce onesingle man of eminent worth. One can always understand how it was possible tocapitulate before a Robespierre, a Danton, or a Marat; but it was utterlyscandalous to go down on all fours before the withered Scheidemann, the obeseHerr Erzberger, Frederick Ebert, and the innumerable other political pigmies ofthe Revolution. There was not a single man of parts in whom one could see therevolutionary man of genius. Therein lay the country’s misfortune; for theywere only revolutionary bugs, Spartacists wholesale and retail. To suppress oneof them would be an act of no consequence. The only result would be thatanother pair of bloodsuckers, equally fat and thirsty, would be ready to takehis place.
During those years we had to takeup a determined stand against an idea which owed its origin and foundation tohistorical episodes that were really great, but to which our own despicableepoch did not bear the slightest similarity.
The same reply may be given whenthere is question of putting somebody ‘on the spot’ who has acted as a traitorto his country. It would be ridiculous and illogical to shoot a poor wretch 21)who had betrayed the position of a howitzer to the enemy while the highestpositions of the government are occupied by a rabble who bartered away a wholeempire, who have on their consciences the deaths of two million men who weresacrificed in vain, fellows who were responsible for the millions maimed in thewar and who make a thriving business out of the republican regime withoutallowing their souls to be disturbed in any way. It would be absurd to do awaywith small traitors in a State whose government has absolved the great traitorsfrom all punishment. For it might easily happen that one day an honestidealist, who, out of love for his country, had removed from circulation somemiserable informer that had given information about secret stores of arms mightnow be called to answer for his act before the chief traitors of the country.And there is still an important question: Shall some small traitorous creaturebe suppressed by another small traitor, or by an idealist? In the former casethe result would be doubtful and the deed would almost surely be revealed lateron. In the second case a petty rascal is put out of the way and the life of anidealist who may be irreplaceable is in jeopardy.
For myself, I believe that smallthieves should not be hanged while big thieves are allowed to go free. One daya national tribunal will have to judge and sentence some tens of thousands oforganizers who were responsible for the criminal November betrayal and all theconsequences that followed on it. Such an example will teach the necessarylesson, once and for ever, to those paltry traitors who revealed to the enemythe places where arms were hidden.
On the grounds of these considerationsI steadfastly forbade all participation in secret societies, and I took carethat the Storm Detachment should not assume such a character. During thoseyears I kept the National Socialist Movement away from those experiments whichwere being undertaken by young Germans who for the most part were inspired witha sublime idealism but who became the victims of their own deeds, because theycould not ameliorate the lot of their fatherland to the slightest degree.
If then the Storm Detachment mustnot be either a military defence organization or a secret society, thefollowing conclusions must result:
1. Its training must not beorganized from the military standpoint but from the standpoint of what is mostpractical for party purposes. Seeing that its members must undergo a goodphysical training, the place of chief importance must not be given to militarydrill but rather to the practice of sports. I have always considered boxing andju-jitsu more important than some kind of bad, because mediocre, training inrifle-shooting. If the German nation were presented with a body of young menwho had been perfectly trained in athletic sports, who were imbued with anardent love for their country and a readiness to take the initiative in afight, then the national State could make an army out of that body within lessthan two years if it were necessary, provided the cadres already existed. Inthe actual state of affairs only the Reichswehr could furnish the cadres andnot a defence organization that was neither one thing nor the other. Bodilyefficiency would develop in the individual a conviction of his superiority andwould give him that confidence which is always based only on the consciousnessof one’s own powers. They must also develop that athletic agility which can beemployed as a defensive weapon in the service of the Movement.
2. In order to safeguard the StormDetachment against any tendency towards secrecy, not only must the uniform besuch that it can immediately be recognized by everybody, but the large numberof its effectives show the direction in which the Movement is going and whichmust be known to the whole public. The members of the Storm Detachment must nothold secret gatherings but must march in the open and thus, by their actions,put an end to all legends about a secret organization. In order to keep themaway from all temptations towards finding an outlet for their activities insmall conspiracies, from the very beginning we had to inculcate in their mindsthe great idea of the Movement and educate them so thoroughly to the task ofdefending this idea that their horizon became enlarged and that the individualno longer considered it his mission to remove from circulation some rascal orother, whether big or small, but to devote himself entirely to the task ofbringing about the establishment of a new National Socialist People’s State. Inthis way the struggle against the present State was placed on a higher planethan that of petty revenge and small conspiracies. It was elevated to the levelof a spiritual struggle on behalf of a Weltanschhauung, for thedestruction of Marxism in all its shapes and forms.
3. The form of organizationadopted for the Storm Detachment, as well as its uniform and equipment, had tofollow different models from those of the old Army. They had to be speciallysuited to the requirements of the task that was assigned to the StormDetachment.
These were the ideas I followed in1920 and 1921. I endeavoured to instil them gradually into the members of theyoung organization. And the result was that by the midsummer of 1922 we had agoodly number of formations which consisted of a hundred men each. By the lateautumn of that year these formations received their distinctive uniforms. Therewere three events which turned out to be of supreme importance for thesubsequent development of the Storm Detachment.
1. The great mass demonstrationagainst the Law for the Protection of the Republic. This demonstration was heldin the late summer of 1922 on the Königs-platz in Munich, by all the patrioticsocieties. The National Socialist Movement also participated in it. Themarch-past of our party, in serried ranks, was led by six Munich companies of ahundred men each, followed by the political sections of the Party. Two bandsmarched with us and about fifteen flags were carried. When the NationalSocialists arrived at the great square it was already half full, but no flagwas flying. Our entry aroused unbounded enthusiasm. I myself had the honour ofbeing one of the speakers who addressed that mass of about sixty thousandpeople.
The demonstration was anoverwhelming success; especially because it was proved for the first time thatnationalist Munich could march on the streets, in spite of all threats from theReds. Members of the organization for the defence of the Red Republicendeavoured to hinder the marching columns by their terrorist activities, butthey were scattered by the companies of the Storm Detachment within a fewminutes and sent off with bleeding skulls. The National Socialist Movement hadthen shown for the first time that in future it was determined to exercise theright to march on the streets and thus take this monopoly away from theinternational traitors and enemies of the country.
The result of that day was an incontestableproof that our ideas for the creation of the Storm Detachment were right, bothfrom the psychological viewpoint and as to the manner in which this body wasorganized.
On the basis of this success theenlistment progressed so rapidly that within a few weeks the number of Munichcompanies of a hundred men each became doubled.
2. The expedition to Coburg inOctober 1922.
Certain People’s Societies haddecided to hold a German Day at Coburg. I was invited to take part, with theintimation that they wished me to bring a following along. This invitation,which I received at eleven o’clock in the morning, arrived just in time. Withinan hour the arrangements for our participation in the German Congress wereready. I picked eight hundred men of the Storm Detachment to accompany me.These were divided into about fourteen companies and had to be brought byspecial train from Munich to Coburg, which had just voted by plebiscite to beannexed to Bavaria. Corresponding orders were given to other groups of theNational Socialist Storm Detachment which had meanwhile been formed in variousother localities.
This was the first time that sucha special train ran in Germany. At all the places where the new members of theStorm Detachment joined us our train caused a sensation. Many of the people hadnever seen our flag. And it made a very great impression.
As we arrived at the station inCoburg we were received by a deputation of the organizing committee of theGerman Day. They announced that it had been ‘arranged’ at the orders of localtrades unions – that is to say, the Independent and Communist Parties – that weshould not enter the town with our flags unfurled and our band playing (we hada band consisting of forty-two musicians with us) and that we should not marchwith closed ranks.
I immediately rejected theseunmilitary conditions and did not fail to declare before the gentlemen who hadarranged this ‘day’ how astonished I was at the idea of their negotiating withsuch people and coming to an agreement with them. Then I announced that theStorm Troops would immediately march into the town in company formation, withour flags flying and the band playing.
And that is what happened.
As we came out into the stationyard we were met by a growling and yelling mob of several thousand, thatshouted at us: ‘Assassins’, ‘Bandits’, ‘Robbers’, ‘Criminals’. These were thechoice names which these exemplary founders of the German Republic showered onus. The young Storm Detachment gave a model example of order. The companiesfell into formation on the square in front of the station and at first took nonotice of the insults hurled at them by the mob. The police were anxious. Theydid not pilot us to the quarters assigned to us on the outskirts of Coburg, acity quite unknown to us, but to the Hofbräuhaus Keller in the centre of thetown. Right and left of our march the tumult raised by the accompanying mobsteadily increased. Scarcely had the last company entered the courtyard of theHofbräuhaus when the huge mass made a rush to get in after them, shoutingmadly. In order to prevent this, the police closed the gates. Seeing theposition was untenable I called the Storm Detachment to attention and thenasked the police to open the gates immediately. After a good deal of hesitation,they consented.
We now marched back along the sameroute as we had come, in the direction of our quarters, and there we had tomake a stand against the crowd. As their cries and yells all along the routehad failed to disturb the equanimity of our companies, the champions of trueSocialism, Equality, and Fraternity now took to throwing stones. That broughtour patience to an end. For ten minutes long, blows fell right and left, like adevastating shower of hail. Fifteen minutes later there were no more Reds to beseen in the street.
The collisions which took placewhen the night came on were more serious. Patrols of the Storm Detachment haddiscovered National Socialists who had been attacked singly and were in anatrocious state. Thereupon we made short work of the opponents. By thefollowing morning the Red terror, under which Coburg had been suffering foryears, was definitely smashed.
Adopting the typically Marxist andJewish method of spreading falsehoods, leaflets were distributed by hand on thestreets, bearing the caption: "Comrades and Comradesses of theInternational Proletariat." These leaflets were meant to arouse the wrathof the populace. Twisting the facts completely around, they declared that our‘bands of assasins’ had commenced ‘a war of extermination against the peacefulworkers of Coburg’. At half-past one that day there was to be a ‘great populardemonstration’, at which it was hoped that the workers of the whole districtwould turn up. I was determined finally to crush this Red terror and so Isummoned the Storm Detachment to meet at midday. Their number had now increasedto 1,500. I decided to march with these men to the Coburg Festival and to crossthe big square where the Red demonstration was to take place. I wanted to seeif they would attempt to assault us again. When we entered the square we foundthat instead of the ten thousand that had been advertised, there were only afew hundred people present. As we approached they remained silent for the mostpart, and some ran away. Only at certain points along the route some bodies ofReds, who had arrived from outside the city and had not yet come to know us,attempted to start a row. But a few fisticuffs put them to flight. And now onecould see how the population, which had for such a long time been so wretchedlyintimidated, slowly woke up and recovered their courage. They welcomed usopenly, and in the evening, on our return march, spontaneous shouts ofjubilation broke out at several points along the route.
At the station the railwayemployees informed us all of a sudden that our train would not move. ThereuponI had some of the ringleaders told that if this were the case I would have allthe Red Party heroes arrested that fell into our hands, that we would drive thetrain ourselves, but that we would take away with us, in the locomotive andtender and in some of the carriages, a few dozen members of this brotherhood ofinternational solidarity. I did not omit to let those gentry know that if wehad to conduct the train the journey would undoubtedly be a very riskyadventure and that we might all break our necks. It would be a consolation,however, to know that we should not go to Eternity alone, but in equality andfraternity with the Red gentry.
Thereupon the train departedpunctually and we arrived next morning in Munich safe and sound.
Thus at Coburg, for the first timesince 1914, the equality of all citizens before the law was re-established. Foreven if some coxcomb of a higher official should assert to-day that the Stateprotects the lives of its citizens, at least in those days it was not so. Forat that time the citizens had to defend themselves against the representativesof the present State.
At first it was not possible fullyto estimate the importance of the consequences which resulted from that day.The victorious Storm Troops had their confidence in themselves considerablyreinforced and also their faith in the sagacity of their leaders. Ourcontemporaries began to pay us special attention and for the first time manyrecognized the National Socialist Movement as an organization that in allprobability was destined to bring the Marxist folly to a deserving end.
Only the democrats lamented the factthat we had not the complaisance to allow our skulls to be cracked and that wehad dared, in a democratic Republic, to hit back with fists and sticks at abrutal assault, rather than with pacifist chants.
Generally speaking, the bourgeoisPress was partly distressed and partly vulgar, as always. Only a few decentnewspapers expressed their satisfaction that at least in one locality theMarxist street bullies had been effectively dealt with.
And in Coburg itself at least apart of the Marxist workers who must be looked upon as misled, learned from theblows of National Socialist fists that these workers were also fighting forideals, because experience teaches that the human being fights only forsomething in which he believes and which he loves.
The Storm Detachment itselfbenefited most from the Coburg events. It grew so quickly in numbers that atthe Party Congress in January 1923 six thousand men participated in theceremony of consecrating the flags and the first companies were fully clad intheir new uniform.
Our experience in Coburg provedhow essential it is to introduce one distinctive uniform for the StormDetachment, not only for the purpose of strengthening the esprit de corpsbut also to avoid confusion and the danger of not recognizing the opponent in asquabble. Up to that time they had merely worn the armlet, but now the tunicand the well-known cap were added.
But the Coburg experience had alsoanother important result. We now determined to break the Red Terror in allthose localities where for many years it had prevented men of other views fromholding their meetings. We were determined to restore the right of freeassembly. From that time onwards we brought our battalions together in suchplaces and little by little the red citadels of Bavaria, one after another,fell before the National Socialist propaganda. The Storm Troops became more andmore adept at their job. They increasingly lost all semblance of an aimless andlifeless defence movement and came out into the light as an active militantorganization, fighting for the establishment of a new German State.
This logical development continueduntil March 1923. Then an event occurred which made me divert the Movement fromthe course hitherto followed and introduce some changes in its outer formation.
In the first months of 1923 theFrench occupied the Ruhr district. The consequence of this was of greatimportance in the development of the Storm Detachment.
It is not yet possible, nor wouldit be in the interest of the nation, to write or speak openly and freely on thesubject. I shall speak of it only as far as the matter has been dealt with inpublic discussions and thus brought to the knowledge of everybody.
The occupation of the Ruhrdistrict, which did not come as a surprise to us, gave grounds for hoping thatGermany would at last abandon its cowardly policy of submission and therewithgive the defensive associations a definite task to fulfil. The Storm Detachmentalso, which now numbered several thousand of robust and vigorous young men,should not be excluded from this national service. During the spring and summerof 1923 it was transformed into a fighting military organization. It is to thisreorganization that we must in great part attribute the later developments thattook place during 1923, in so far as it affected our Movement.
Elsewhere I shall deal in broadoutline with the development of events in 1923. Here I wish only to state thatthe transformation of the Storm Detachment at that time must have beendetrimental to the interests of the Movement if the conditions that hadmotivated the change were not to be carried into effect, namely, the adoptionof a policy of active resistance against France.
The events which took place at theclose of 1923, terrible as they may appear at first sight, were almost anecessity if looked at from a higher standpoint; because, in view of theattitude taken by the Government of the German Reich, conversion of the StormTroops into a military force would be meaningless and thus a transformationwhich would also be harmful to the Movement was ended at one stroke. At thesame time it was made possible for us to reconstruct at the point where we hadbeen diverted from the proper course.
In the year 1925 the GermanNational Socialist Labour Party was re-founded and had to organize and trainits Storm Detachment once again according to the principles I have laid down.It must return to the original idea and once more it must consider its mostessential task to function as the instrument of defence and reinforcement inthe spiritual struggle to establish the ideals of the Movement.
The Storm Detachment must not beallowed to sink to the level of something in the nature of a defenceorganization or a secret society. Steps must be taken rather to make it avanguard of 100,000 men in the struggle for the National Socialist ideal whichis based on the profound principle of a People’s State.
CHAPTER X
THE MASK OF FEDERALISM
In the winter of 1919, and stillmore in the spring and summer of 1920, the young Party felt bound to take up adefinite stand on a question which already had become quite serious during theWar. In the first volume of this book I have briefly recorded certain factswhich I had personally witnessed and which foreboded the break-up of Germany.In describing these facts I made reference to the special nature of thepropaganda which was directed by the English as well as the French towardsreopening the breach that had existed between North and South in Germany. Inthe spring of 1915 there appeared the first of a series of leaflets which wassystematically followed up and the aim of which was to arouse feeling againstPrussia as being solely responsible for the war. Up to 1916 this system hadbeen developed and perfected in a cunning and shameless manner. Appealing tothe basest of human instincts, this propaganda endeavoured to arouse the wrathof the South Germans against the North Germans and after a short time it borefruit. Persons who were then in high positions under the Government and in theArmy, especially those attached to headquarters in the Bavarian Army, meritedthe just reproof of having blindly neglected their duty and failed to take thenecessary steps to counter such propaganda. But nothing was done. On the contrary,in some quarters it did not appear to be quite unwelcome and probably they wereshort-sighted enough to think that such propaganda might help along thedevelopment of unification in Germany but even that it might automaticallybring about consolidation of the federative forces. Scarcely ever in historywas such a wicked neglect more wickedly avenged. The weakening of Prussia,which they believed would result from this propaganda, affected the whole ofGermany. It resulted in hastening the collapse which not only wrecked Germanyas a whole but even more particularly the federal states.
In that town where theartificially created hatred against Prussia raged most violently the revoltagainst the reigning House was the beginning of the Revolution.
It would be a mistake to thinkthat the enemy propaganda was exclusively responsible for creating ananti-Prussian feeling and that there were no reasons which might excuse thepeople for having listened to this propaganda. The incredible fashion in whichthe national economic interests were organized during the War, the absolutelycrazy system of centralization which made the whole Reich its ward andexploited the Reich, furnished the principal grounds for the growth of thatanti-Prussian feeling. The average citizen looked upon the companies for theplacing of war contracts, all of which had their headquarters in Berlin, asidentical with Berlin and Berlin itself as identical with Prussia. The averagecitizen did not know that the organization of these robber companies, whichwere called War Companies, was not in the hands of Berlin or Prussia and noteven in German hands at all. People recognized only the gross irregularitiesand the continual encroachments of that hated institution in the Metropolis ofthe Reich and directed their anger towards Berlin and Prussia, all the morebecause in certain quarters (the Bavarian Government) nothing was done tocorrect this attitude, but it was even welcomed with silent rubbing of hands.
The Jew was far too shrewd not tounderstand that the infamous campaign which he had organized, under the cloakof War Companies, for plundering the German nation would and must eventuallyarouse opposition. As long as that opposition did not spring directly at hisown throat he had no reason to be afraid. Hence he decided that the best way offorestalling an outbreak on the part of the enraged and desperate masses wouldbe to inflame their wrath and at the same time give it another outlet.
Let Bavaria quarrel as much as itliked with Prussia and Prussia with Bavaria. The more, the merrier. This bitterstrife between the two states assured peace to the Jew. Thus public attentionwas completely diverted from the international maggot in the body of thenation; indeed, he seemed to have been forgotten. Then when there came a dangerthat level-headed people, of whom there are many to be found also in Bavaria,would advise a little more reserve and a more judicious evaluation of things,thus calming the rage against Prussia, all the Jew had to do in Berlin was tostage a new provocation and await results. Every time that was done all thosewho had profiteered out of the conflict between North and South filled theirlungs and again fanned the flame of indignation until it became a blaze.
It was a shrewd and expertmanoeuvre on the part of the Jew, to set the different branches of the Germanpeople quarrelling with one another, so that their attention would be turnedaway from himself and he could plunder them all the more completely.
Then came the Revolution.
Until the year 1918, or ratheruntil the November of that year, the average German citizen, particularly theless educated lower middle-class and the workers, did not rightly understandwhat was happening and did not realize what must be the inevitableconsequences, especially for Bavaria, of this internecine strife between thebranches of the German people; but at least those sections which calledthemselves ‘National’ ought to have clearly perceived these consequences on theday that the Revolution broke out. For the moment the coup d’état hadsucceeded, the leader and organizer of the Revolution in Bavaria put himselfforward as the defender of ‘Bavarian’ interests. The international Jew, KurtEisner, began to play off Bavaria against Prussia. This Oriental was just aboutthe last person in the world that could be pointed to as the logical defenderof Bavarian interests. In his trade as newspaper reporter he had wandered fromplace to place all over Germany and to him it was a matter of sheer indifferencewhether Bavaria or any other particular part of God’s whole world continued toexist.
In deliberately giving therevolutionary rising in Bavaria the character of an offensive against Prussia, KurtEisner was not acting in the slightest degree from the standpoint of Bavarianinterests, but merely as the commissioned representative of Jewry. He exploitedexisting instincts and antipathies in Bavaria as a means which would help tomake the dismemberment of Germany all the more easy. When once dismembered, theReich would fall an easy prey to Bolshevism.
The tactics employed by him werecontinued for a time after his death. The Marxists, who had always derided andexploited the individual German states and their princes, now suddenlyappealed, as an ‘Independent Party’ to those sentiments and instincts which hadtheir strongest roots in the families of the reigning princes and theindividual states.
The fight waged by the BavarianSoviet Republic against the military contingents that were sent to free Bavariafrom its grasp was represented by the Marxist propagandists as first of all the‘Struggle of the Bavarian Worker’ against ‘Prussian Militarism.’ This explainswhy it was that the suppression of the Soviet Republic in Munich did not havethe same effect there as in the other German districts. Instead of recallingthe masses to a sense of reason, it led to increased bitterness and angeragainst Prussia.
The art of the Bolshevikagitators, in representing the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic as avictory of ‘Prussian Militarism’ over the ‘Anti-militarists’ and‘Anti-Prussian’ people of Bavaria, bore rich fruit. Whereas on the occasion ofthe elections to the Bavarian Legislative Diet, Kurt Eisner did not have tenthousand followers in Munich and the Communist party less than three thousand,after the fall of the Bavarian Republic the votes given to the two partiestogether amounted to nearly one hundred thousand.
It was then that I personallybegan to combat that crazy incitement of some branches of the German peopleagainst other branches.
I believe that never in my lifedid I undertake a more unpopular task than I did when I took my stand againstthe anti-Prussian incitement. During the Soviet regime in Munich great publicmeetings were held at which hatred against the rest of Germany, butparticularly against Prussia, was roused up to such a pitch that a North Germanwould have risked his life in attending one of those meetings. These meetingsoften ended in wild shouts: "Away from Prussia", "Down with thePrussians", "War against Prussia", and so on. This feeling wasopenly expressed in the Reichstag by a particularly brilliant defender ofBavarian sovereign rights when he said: "Rather die as a Bavarian than rotas a Prussian".
One should have attended some ofthe meetings held at that time in order to understand what it meant for onewhen, for the first time and surrounded by only a handful of friends, I raisedmy voice against this folly at a meeting held in the Munich Löwenbräu Keller.Some of my War comrades stood by me then. And it is easy to imagine how we feltwhen that raging crowd, which had lost all control of its reason, roared at usand threatened to kill us. During the time that we were fighting for thecountry the same crowd were for the most part safely ensconced in the rearpositions or were peacefully circulating at home as deserters and shirkers. Itis true that that scene turned out to be of advantage to me. My small band ofcomrades felt for the first time absolutely united with me and readily swore tostick by me through life and death.
These conflicts, which wereconstantly repeated in 1919, seemed to become more violent soon after thebeginning of 1920. There were meetings – I remember especially one in theWagner Hall in the Sonnenstrasse in Munich – during the course of which mygroup, now grown much larger, had to defend themselves against assaults of themost violent character. It happened more than once that dozens of my followerswere mishandled, thrown to the floor and stamped upon by the attackers and werefinally thrown out of the hall more dead than alive.
The struggle which I hadundertaken, first by myself alone and afterwards with the support of my warcomrades, was now continued by the young movement, I might say almost as asacred mission.
I am proud of being able to sayto-day that we – depending almost exclusively on our followers in Bavaria –were responsible for putting an end, slowly but surely, to the coalition offolly and treason. I say folly and treason because, although convinced that themasses who joined in it meant well but were stupid, I cannot attribute suchsimplicity as an extenuating circumstance in the case of the organizers and theirabetters. I then looked upon them,and still look upon them to-day, as traitorsin the payment of France. In one case, that of Dorten, history has alreadypronounced its judgment.
The situation became speciallydangerous at that time by reason of the fact that they were very astute intheir ability to cloak their real tendencies, by insisting primarily on theirfederative intentions and claiming that those were the sole motives of theagitation. Of course it is quite obvious that the agitation against Prussia hadnothing to do with federalism. Surely ‘Federal Activities’ is not the phrasewith which to describe an effort to dissolve and dismember another federalstate. For an honest federalist, for whom the formula used by Bismarck todefine his idea of the Reich is not a counterfeit phrase, could not in the samebreath express the desire to cut off portions of the Prussian State, which wascreated or at least completed by Bismarck. Nor could he publicly support such aseparatist attempt.
What an outcry would be raised inMunich if some prussian conservative party declared itself in favour ofdetaching Franconia from Bavaria or took public action in demanding andpromoting such a separatist policy. Nevertheless, one can only have sympathyfor all those real and honest federalists who did not see through this infamousswindle, for they were its principal victims. By distorting the federalist ideain such a way its own champions prepared its grave. One cannot make propagandafor a federalist configuration of the Reich by debasing and abusing andbesmirching the essential element of such a political structure, namelyPrussia, and thus making such a Confederation impossible, if it ever had beenpossible. It is all the more incredible by reason of the fact that the fightcarried on by those so-called federalists was directed against that section ofthe Prussian people which was the last that could be looked upon as connectedwith the November democracy. For the abuse and attacks of these so-calledfederalists were not levelled against the fathers of the Weimar Constitution –the majority of whom were South Germans or Jews – but against those whorepresented the old conservative Prussia, which was the antipodes of the WeimarConstitution. The fact that the directors of this campaign were careful not totouch the Jews is not to be wondered at and perhaps gives the key to the wholeriddle.
Before the Revolution the Jew wassuccessful in distracting attention from himself and his War Companies byinciting the masses, and especially the Bavarians, against Prussia. Similarlyhe felt obliged, after the Revolution, to find some way of camouflaging his newplunder campaign which was nine or ten times greater. And again he succeeded,in this case by provoking the so-called ‘national’ elements against oneanother: the conservative Bavarians against the Prussians, who were just asconservative. He acted again with extreme cunning, inasmuch as he who held thereins of Prussia’s destiny in his hands provoked such crude and tactlessaggressions that again and again they set the blood boiling in those who werebeing continually duped. Never against the Jew, however, but always the Germanagainst his own brother. The Bavarian did not see the Berlin of four millionindustrious and efficient working people, but only the lazy and decadent Berlinwhich is to be found in the worst quarters of the West End. And his antipathywas not directed against this West End of Berlin but against the ‘Prussian’city.
In many cases it tempted one todespair.
The ability which the Jew hasdisplayed in turning public attention away from himself and giving it anotherdirection may be studied also in what is happening to-day.
In 1918 there was nothing like anorganized anti-Semitic feeling. I still remember the difficulties weencountered the moment we mentioned the Jew. We were either confronted withdumb-struck faces or else a lively and hefty antagonism. The efforts we made atthe time to point out the real enemy to the public seemed to be doomed to failure.But then things began to change for the better, though only very slowly. The‘League for Defence and Offence’ was defectively organized but at least it hadthe great merit of opening up the Jewish question once again. In the winter of1918–1919 a kind of anti-semitism began slowly to take root. Later on theNational Socialist Movement presented the Jewish problem in a new light. Takingthe question beyond the restricted circles of the upper classes and smallbourgeoisie we succeeded in transforming it into the driving motive of a greatpopular movement. But the moment we were successful in placing this problembefore the German people in the light of an idea that would unite them in onestruggle the Jew reacted. He resorted to his old tactics. With amazing alacrityhe hurled the torch of discord into the patriotic movement and opened a riftthere. In bringing forward the ultramontane question and in the mutual quarrelsthat it gave rise to between Catholicism and Protestantism lay the solepossibility, as conditions then were, of occupying public attention with otherproblems and thus ward off the attack which had been concentrated againstJewry. The men who dragged our people into this controversy can never makeamends for the crime they then committed against the nation. Anyhow, the Jewhas attained the ends he desired. Catholics and Protestants are fighting withone another to their hearts’ content, while the enemy of Aryan humanity and allChristendom is laughing up his sleeve.
Once it was possible to occupy theattention of the public for several years with the struggle between federalismand unification, wearing out their energies in this mutual friction while theJew trafficked in the freedom of the nation and sold our country to the mastersof international high finance. So in our day he has succeeded again, this timeby raising ructions between the two German religious denominations while thefoundations on which both rest are being eaten away and destroyed through thepoison injected by the international and cosmopolitan Jew.
Look at the ravages from which ourpeople are suffering daily as a result of being contaminated with Jewish blood.Bear in mind the fact that this poisonous contamination can be eliminated fromthe national body only after centuries, or perhaps never. Think further of howthe process of racial decomposition is debasing and in some cases evendestroying the fundamental Aryan qualities of our German people, so that ourcultural creativeness as a nation is gradually becoming impotent and we arerunning the danger, at least in our great cities, of falling to the level whereSouthern Italy is to-day. This pestilential adulteration of the blood, of whichhundreds of thousands of our people take no account, is being systematically practisedby the Jew to-day. Systematically these negroid parasites in our national bodycorrupt our innocent fair-haired girls and thus destroy something which can nolonger be replaced in this world.
The two Christian denominationslook on with indifference at the profanation and destruction of a noble andunique creature who was given to the world as a gift of God’s grace. For thefuture of the world, however, it does not matter which of the two triumphs overthe other, the Catholic or the Protestant. But it does matter whether Aryanhumanity survives or perishes. And yet the two Christian denominations are notcontending against the destroyer of Aryan humanity but are trying to destroyone another. Everybody who has the right kind of feeling for his country issolemnly bound, each within his own denomination, to see to it that he is notconstantly talking about the Will of God merely from the lips but that inactual fact he fulfils the Will of God and does not allow God’s handiwork to bedebased. For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodilyshape, were given their natures and their faculties. Whoever destroys His workwages war against God’s Creation and God’s Will. Therefore everyone shouldendeavour, each in his own denomination of course, and should consider it ashis first and most solemn duty to hinder any and everyone whose conduct tends,either by word or deed, to go outside his own religious body and pick a quarrelwith those of another denomination. For, in view of the religious schism thatexists in Germany, to attack the essential characteristics of one denominationmust necessarily lead to a war of extermination between the two Christiandenominations. Here there can be no comparison between our position and that ofFrance, or Spain or Italy. In those three countries one may, for instance, makepropaganda for the side that is fighting against ultramontanism without therebyincurring the danger of a national rift among the French, or Spanish or Italianpeople. In Germany, however, that cannot be so, for here the Protestants wouldalso take part in such propaganda. And thus the defence which elsewhere onlyCatholics organize against clerical aggression in political matters wouldassume with us the character of a Protestant attack against Catholicism. Whatmay be tolerated by the faithful in one denomination even when it seems unjustto them, will at once be indignantly rejected and opposed on a priori groundsif it should come from the militant leaders of another denomination. This is sotrue that even men who would be ready and willing to fight for the removal ofmanifest grievances within their own religious denomination will drop their ownfight and turn their activities against the outsider the moment the abolitionof such grievances is counselled or demanded by one who is not of the samefaith. They consider it unjustified and inadmissible and incorrect foroutsiders to meddle in matters which do not affect them at all. Such attemptsare not excused even when they are inspired by a feeling for the supremeinterests of the national community; because even in our day religious feelingsstill have deeper roots than all feeling for political and national expediency.That cannot be changed by setting one denomination against another in bitterconflict. It can be changed only if, through a spirit of mutual tolerance, thenation can be assured of a future the greatness of which will gradually operateas a conciliating factor in the sphere of religion also. I have no hesitationin saying that in those men who seek to-day to embroil the patriotic movementin religious quarrels I see worse enemies of my country than the internationalcommunists are. For the National Socialist Movement has set itself to the taskof converting those communists. But anyone who goes outside the ranks of hisown Movement and tends to turn it away from the fulfilment of its mission isacting in a manner that deserves the severest condemnation. He is acting as achampion of Jewish interests, whether consciously or unconsciously does notmatter. For it is in the interests of the Jews to-day that the energies of thepatriotic movement should be squandered in a religious conflict, because it isbeginning to be dangerous for the Jews. I have purposely used the phrase aboutsquandering the energies of the Movement, because nobody but some person who isentirely ignorant of history could imagine that this movement can solve aquestion which the greatest statesmen have tried for centuries to solve, andtried in vain.
Anyhow the facts speak forthemselves. The men who suddenly discovered, in 1924, that the highest missionof the patriotic movement was to fight ultramontanism, have not succeeded insmashing ultramontanism, but they succeeded in splitting the patriotic movement.I have to guard against the possibility of some immature brain arising in thepatriotic movement which thinks that it can do what even a Bismarck failed todo. It will be always one of the first duties of those who are directing theNational Socialist Movement to oppose unconditionally any attempt to place theNational Socialist Movement at the service of such a conflict. And anybody whoconducts a propaganda with that end in view must be expelled forthwith from itsranks.
As a matter of fact we succeededuntil the autumn of 1923 in keeping our movement away from such controversies.The most devoted Protestant could stand side by side with the most devotedCatholic in our ranks without having his conscience disturbed in the slightestas far as concerned his religious convictions. The bitter struggle which bothwaged in common against the wrecker of Aryan humanity taught them naturalrespect and esteem. And it was just in those years that our movement had toengage in a bitter strife with the Centre Party not for religious ends but fornational, racial, political and economic ends. The success we then achievedshowed that we were right, but it does not speak to-day in favour of those whothought they knew better.
In recent years things have goneso far that patriotic circles, in god-forsaken blindness of their religiousstrife, could not recognize the folly of their conduct even from the fact thatatheist Marxist newspapers advocated the cause of one religious denomination orthe other, according as it suited Marxist interests, so as to create confusionthrough slogans and declarations which were often immeasurably stupid, nowmolesting the one party and again the other, and thus poking the fire to keepthe blaze at its highest.
But in the case of a people likethe Germans, whose history has so often shown them capable of fighting forphantoms to the point of complete exhaustion, every war-cry is a mortal danger.By these slogans our people have often been drawn away from the real problemsof their existence. While we were exhausting our energies in religious wars theothers were acquiring their share of the world. And while the patrioticmovement is debating with itself whether the ultramontane danger be greaterthan the Jewish, or vice versa, the Jew is destroying the racial basis of ourexistence and thereby annihilating our people. As far as regards that kind of‘patriotic’ warrior, on behalf of the National Socialist Movement and thereforeof the German people I pray with all my heart: "Lord, preserve us fromsuch friends, and then we can easily deal with our enemies."
The controversy over federationand unification, so cunningly propagandized by the Jews in 1919–1920 andonwards, forced National Socialism, which repudiated the quarrel, to take up adefinite stand in relation to the essential problem concerned in it. OughtGermany to be a confederacy or a military State? What is the practicalsignificance of these terms? To me it seems that the second question is moreimportant than the first, because it is fundamental to the understanding of thewhole problem and also because the answer to it may help to clear up confusionand therewith have a conciliating effect.
What is a Confederacy? 22)
By a Confederacy we mean a union ofsovereign states which of their own free will and in virtue of theirsovereignty come together and create a collective unit, ceding to that unit asmuch of their own sovereign rights as will render the existence of the unionpossible and will guarantee it.
But the theoretical formula is notwholly put into practice by any confederacy that exists to-day. And least ofall by the American Union, where it is impossible to speak of originalsovereignty in regard to the majority of the states. Many of them were notincluded in the federal complex until long after it had been established. Thestates that make up the American Union are mostly in the nature of territories,more or less, formed for technical administrative purposes, their boundarieshaving in many cases been fixed in the mapping office. Originally these statesdid not and could not possess sovereign rights of their own. Because it was theUnion that created most of the so-called states. Therefore the sovereignrights, often very comprehensive, which were left, or rather granted, to thevarious territories correspond not only to the whole character of theConfederation but also to its vast space, which is equivalent to the size of aContinent. Consequently, in speaking of the United States of America one mustnot consider them as sovereign states but as enjoying rights or, betterperhaps, autarchic powers, granted to them and guaranteed by the Constitution.
Nor does our definition adequatelyexpress the condition of affairs in Germany. It is true that in Germany theindividual states existed as states before the Reich and that the Reich wasformed from them. The Reich, however, was not formed by the voluntary and equalco-operation of the individual states, but rather because the state of Prussiagradually acquired a position of hegemony over the others. The difference inthe territorial area alone between the German states prevents any comparisonwith the American Union. The great difference in territorial area between thevery small German states that then existed and the larger, or even still morethe largest, demonstrates the inequality of their achievements and shows thatthey could not take an equal part in founding and shaping the federal Empire.In the case of most of these individual states it cannot be maintained thatthey ever enjoyed real sovereignty; and the term ‘State Sovereignty’ was reallynothing more than an administrative formula which had no inner meaning. As amatter of fact, not only developments in the past but also in our own timewiped out several of these so-called ‘Sovereign States’ and thus proved in themost definite way how frail these ‘sovereign’ state formations were.
I cannot deal here with thehistorical question of how these individual states came to be established, butI must call attention to the fact that hardly in any case did their frontierscoincide with ethical frontiers of the inhabitants. They were purely politicalphenomena which for the most part emerged during the sad epoch when the GermanEmpire was in a state of exhaustion and was dismembered. They represented bothcause and effect in the process of exhaustion and partition of our fatherland.
The Constitution of the old Reichtook all this into account, at least up to a certain degree, in so far as the individualstates were not accorded equal representation in the Reichstag, but arepresentation proportionate to their respective areas, their actual importanceand the role which they played in the formation of the Reich.
The sovereign rights which the individualstates renounced in order to form the Reich were voluntarily ceded only to avery small degree. For the most part they had no practical existence or theywere simply taken by Prussia under the pressure of her preponderant power. Theprinciple followed by Bismarck was not to give the Reich what he could takefrom the individual states but to demand from the individual states only whatwas absolutely necessary for the Reich. A moderate and wise policy. On the oneside Bismarck showed the greatest regard for customs and traditions; on theother side his policy secured for the new Reich from its foundation onwards agreat measure of love and willing co-operation. But it would be a fundamentalerror to attribute Bismarck’s decision to any conviction on his part that theReich was thus acquiring all the rights of sovereignty which would suflice forall time. That was far from Bismarck’s idea. On the contrary, he wished toleave over for the future what it would be difficult to carry through at themoment and might not have been readily agreed to by the individual states. Hetrusted to the levelling effect of time and to the pressure exercised by theprocess of evolution, the steady action of which appeared more effective thanan attempt to break the resistance which the individual states offered at themoment. By this policy he showed his great ability in the art of statesmanship.And, as a matter of fact, the sovereignty of the Reich has continuallyincreased at the cost of the sovereignty of the individual states. The passingof time has achieved what Bismarck hoped it would.
The German collapse and theabolition of the monarchical form of government necessarily hastened thisdevelopment. The German federal states, which had not been grounded on ethnicalfoundations but arose rather out of political conditions, were bound to losetheir importance the moment the monarchical form of government and thedynasties connected with it were abolished, for it was to the spirit inherentin these that the individual states owned their political origin anddevelopment. Thus deprived of their internal raison d’être, they renounced allright to survival and were induced by purely practical reasons to fuse withtheir neighbours or else they joined the more powerful states out of their ownfree will. That proved in a striking manner how extraordinarily frail was theactual sovereignty these small phantom states enjoyed, and it proved too howlightly they were estimated by their own citizens.
Though the abolition of the monarchicalregime and its representatives had dealt a hard blow to the federal characterof the Reich, still more destructive, from the federal point of view, was theacceptance of the obligations that resulted from the ‘peace’ treaty.
It was only natural and logicalthat the federal states should lose all sovereign control over the finances themoment the Reich, in consequence of a lost war, was subjected to financialobligations which could never be guaranteed through separate treaties with theindividual states. The subsequent steps which led the Reich to take over theposts and railways were an enforced advance in the process of enslaving ourpeople, a process which the peace treaties gradually developed. The Reich wasforced to secure possession of resources which had to be constantly increasedin order to satisfy the demands made by further extortions.
The form in which the powers ofthe Reich were thus extended to embrace the federal states was oftenridiculously stupid, but in itself the procedure was logical and natural. Theblame for it must be laid at the door of these men and those parties thatfailed in the hour of need to concentrate all their energies in an effort tobring the war to a victorious issue. The guilt lies on those parties which, especiallyin Bavaria, catered for their own egotistic interests during the war andrefused to the Reich what the Reich had to requisition to a tenfold greatermeasure when the war was lost. The retribution of History! Rarely has thevengeance of Heaven followed so closely on the crime as it did in this case.Those same parties which, a few years previously, placed the interests of theirown states – especially in Bavaria – before those of the Reich had now to lookon passively while the pressure of events forced the Reich, in its owninterests, to abolish the existence of the individual states. They were thevictims of their own defaults.
It was an unparalleled example ofhypocrisy to raise the cry of lamentation over the loss which the federalstates suffered in being deprived of their sovereign rights. This cry wasraised before the electorate, for it is only to the electorate that ourcontemporary parties address themselves. But these parties, without exception,outbid one another in accepting a policy of fulfilment which, by the sheerforce of circumstances and in its ultimate consequences, could not but lead toa profound alteration in the internal structure of the Reich. Bismarck’s Reichwas free and unhampered by any obligations towards the outside world.
Bismarck’s Reich never had toshoulder such heavy and entirely unproductive obligations as those to whichGermany was subjected under the Dawes Plan. Also in domestic affairs Bismarck’sReich was able to limit its powers to a few matters that were absolutelynecessary for its existence. Therefore it could dispense with the necessity ofa financial control over these states and could live from their contributions.On the other side the relatively small financial tribute which the federalstates had to pay to the Reich induced them to welcome its existence. But it isuntrue and unjust to state now, as certain propagandists do, that the federalstates are displeased with the Reich merely because of their financialsubjection to it. No, that is not how the matter really stands. The lack ofsympathy for the political idea embodied in the Reich is not due to the loss ofsovereign rights on the part of the individual states. It is much more theresult of the deplorable fashion in which the present régime cares for theinterests of the German people. Despite all the celebrations in honour of thenational flag and the Constitution, every section of the German people feelsthat the present Reich is not in accordance with its heart’s desire. And theLaw for the Protection of the Republic may prevent outrages against republicaninstitutions, but it will not gain the love of one single German. In itsconstant anxiety to protect itself against its own citizens by means of lawsand sentences of imprisonment, the Republic has aroused sharp and humiliatingcriticism of all republican institutions as such.
For another reason also it isuntrue to say, as certain parties affirm to-day, that the Reich has ceased tobe popular on account of its overbearing conduct in regard to certain sovereignrights which the individual states had heretofore enjoyed. Supposing the Reichhad not extended its authority over the individual states, there is no reasonto believe that it would find more favour among those states if the generalobligations remained so heavy as they now are. On the contrary, if theindividual states had to pay their respective shares of the highly increasedtribute which the Reich has to meet to-day in order to fulfil the provisions ofthe Versailles Dictate, the hostility towards the Reich would be infinitelygreater. For then not only would it prove difficult to collect the respectivecontributions due to the Reich from the federal states, but coercive methodswould have to be employed in making the collections. The Republic stands on thefooting of the peace treaties and has neither the courage nor the intention tobreak them. That being so, it must observe the obligations which the peacetreaties have imposed on it. The responsibility for this situation is to beattributed solely to those parties who preach unceasingly to the patientelectoral masses on the necessity of maintaining the autonomy of the federalstates, while at the same time they champion and demand of the Reich a policywhich must necessarily lead to the suppression of even the very last of thoseso-called ‘sovereign’ rights.
I say necessarily because thepresent Reich has no other possible means of bearing the burden of chargeswhich an insane domestic and foreign policy has laid on it. Here still anotherwedge is placed on the former, to drive it in still deeper. Every new debtwhich the Reich contracts, through the criminal way in which the interests ofGermany are represented vis-à-vis foreign countries, necessitates a new andstronger blow which drives the under wedges still deeper, That blow demandsanother step in the progressive abolition of the sovereign rights of theindividual states, so as not to allow the germs of opposition to rise up intoactivity or even to exist.
The chief characteristic differencebetween the policy of the present Reich and that of former times lies in this:The old Reich gave freedom to its people at home and showed itself strongtowards the outside world, whereas the Republic shows itself weak towards thestranger and oppresses its own citizens at home. In both cases one attitudedetermines the other. A vigorous national State does not need to make many lawsfor the interior, because of the affection and attachment of its citizens. Theinternational servile State can live only by coercing its citizens to render itthe services it demands. And it is a piece of impudent falsehood for thepresent regime to speak of ‘Free citizens’. Only the old Germany could speak inthat manner. The present Republic is a colony of slaves at the service of thestranger. At best it has subjects, but not citizens. Hence it does not possessa national flag but only a trade mark, introduced and protected by officialdecree and legislative measures. This symbol, which is the Gessler’s cap ofGerman Democracy, will always remain alien to the spirit of our people. On itsside, the Republic having no sense of tradition or respect for past greatness,dragged the symbol of the past in the mud, but it will be surprised one day todiscover how superficial is the devotion of its citizens to its own symbol. TheRepublic has given to itself the character of an intermezzo in German history.And so this State is bound constantly to restrict more and more the sovereignrights of the individual states, not only for general reasons of a financialcharacter but also on principle. For by enforcing a policy of financialblackmail, to squeeze the last ounce of substance out of its people, it isforced also to take their last rights away from them, lest the general discontentmay one day flame up into open rebellion.
We, National Socialists, wouldreverse this formula and would adopt the following axiom: A strong nationalReich which recognizes and protects to the largest possible measure the rightsof its citizens both within and outside its frontiers can allow freedom toreign at home without trembling for the safety of the State. On the other hand,a strong national Government can intervene to a considerable degree in theliberties of the individual subject as well as in the liberties of theconstituent states without thereby weakening the ideal of the Reich; and it cando this while recognizing its responsibility for the ideal of the Reich,because in these particular acts and measures the individual citizen recognizesa means of promoting the prestige of the nation as a whole.
Of course, every State in theworld has to face the question of unification in its internal organization. AndGermany is no exception in this matter. Nowadays it is absurd to speak of‘statal sovereignty’ for the constituent states of the Reich, because that hasalready become impossible on account of the ridiculously small size of so manyof these states. In the sphere of commerce as well as that of administrationthe importance of the individual states has been steadily decreasing. Modernmeans of communication and mechanical progress have been increasinglyrestricting distance and space. What was once a State is to-day only a provinceand the territory covered by a modern State had once the importance of acontinent. The purely technical difficulty of administering a State likeGermany is not greater than that of governing a province like Brandenburg ahundred years ago. And to-day it is easier to cover the distance from Munich toBerlin than it was to cover the distance from Munich to Starnberg a hundredyears ago. In view of the modern means of transport, the whole territory of theReich to-day is smaller than that of certain German federal states at the timeof the Napoleonic wars. To close one’s eyes to the consequences of these factsmeans to live in the past. There always were, there are and always will be, menwho do this. They may retard but they cannot stop the revolutions of history.
We, National Socialists, must notallow the consequences of that truth to pass by us unnoticed. In these mattersalso we must not permit ourselves to be misled by the phrases of our so-callednational bourgeois parties. I say ‘phrases’, because these same parodies do notseriously believe that it is possible for them to carry out their proposals,and because they themselves are the chief culprits and also the accomplicesresponsible for the present state of affairs. Especially in Bavaria, thedemands for a halt in the process of centralization can be no more than a partymove behind which there is no serious idea. If these parties ever had to passfrom the realm of phrase-making into that of practical deeds they would presenta sorry spectacle. Every so-called ‘Robbery of Sovereign Rights’ from Bavariaby the Reich has met with no practical resistance, except for some fatuousbarking by way of protest. Indeed, when anyone seriously opposed the madnessthat was shown in carrying out this system of centralization he was told bythose same parties that he understood nothing of the nature and needs of theState to-day. They slandered him and pronounced him anathema and persecuted himuntil he was either shut up in prison or illegally deprived of the right ofpublic speech. In the light of these facts our followers should become all themore convinced of the profound hypocrisy which characterizes these so-calledfederalist circles. To a certain extent they use the federalist doctrine justas they use the name of religion, merely as a means of promoting their own baseparty interests.
A certain unification, especiallyin the field of transport., appears logical. But we, National Socialists, feelit our duty to oppose with all our might such a development in the modernState, especially when the measures proposed are solely for the purpose ofscreening a disastrous foreign policy and making it possible. And just becausethe present Reich has threatened to take over the railways, the posts, thefinances, etc., not from the high standpoint of a national policy, but in orderto have in its hands the means and pledges for an unlimited policy offulfilment – for that reason we, National Socialists, must take every step thatseems suitable to obstruct and, if possible, definitely to prevent such apolicy. We must fight against the present system of amalgamating institutionsthat are vitally important for the existence of our people, because this systemis being adopted solely to facilitate the payment of milliards and thetransference of pledges to the stranger, under the post-War provisions whichour politicians have accepted.
For these reasons also theNational Socialist Movement has to take up a stand against such tendencies.
Moreover, we must oppose suchcentralization because in domestic affairs it helps to reinforce a system ofgovernment which in all its manifestations has brought the greatest misfortuneson the German nation. The present Jewish-Democratic Reich, which has become averitable curse for the German people, is seeking to negative the force of thecriticism offered by all the federal states which have not yet become imbuedwith the spirit of the age, and is trying to carry out this policy by crushingthem to the point of annihilation. In face of this we National Socialists musttry to ground the opposition of the individual states on such a basis that itwill be able to operate with a good promise of success. We must do this bytransforming the struggle against centralization into something that will be anexpression of the higher interests of the German nation as such. Therefore,while the Bavarian Populist Party, acting from its own narrow and particulariststandpoint, fights to maintain the ‘special rights’ of the Bavarian State, weought to stand on quite a different ground in fighting for the same rights. Ourgrounds ought to be those of the higher national interests in opposition to theNovember Democracy.
A still further reason foropposing a centralizing process of that kind arises from the certain convictionthat in great part this so-called nationalization does not make for unificationat all and still less for simplification. In many cases it is adopted simply asa means of removing from the sovereign control of the individual states certaininstitutions which they wish to place in the hands of the revolutionaryparties. In German History favouritism has never been of so base a character asin the democratic republic. A great portion of this centralization to-day isthe work of parties which once promised that they would open the way for thepromotion of talent, meaning thereby that they would fill those posts andoffices entirely with their own partisans. Since the foundation of the Republicthe Jews especially have been obtaining positions in the economic institutionstaken over by the Reich and also positions in the national administration, sothat the one and the other have become preserves of Jewry.
For tactical reasons, this lastconsideration obliges us to watch with the greatest attention every furtherattempt at centralization and fight it at each step. But in doing this ourstandpoint must always be that of a lofty national policy and never apettifogging particularism.
This last observation isnecessary, lest an opinion might arise among our own followers that we do notaccredit to the Reich the right of incorporating in itself a sovereignty whichis superior to that of the constituent states. As regards this right we cannotand must not entertain the slightest doubt. Because for us the State is nothingbut a form. Its substance, or content, is the essential thing. And that is thenation, the people. It is clear therefore that every other interest must besubordinated to the supreme interests of the nation. In particular we cannotaccredit to any other state a sovereign power and sovereign rights within theconfines of the nation and the Reich, which represents the nation. Theabsurdity which some federal states commit by maintaining ‘representations’abroad and corresponding foreign ‘representations’ among themselves – that mustcease and will cease. Until this happens we cannot be surprised if certainforeign countries are dubious about the political unity of the Reich and actaccordingly. The absurdity of these ‘representations’ is all the greaterbecause they do harm and do not bring the slightest advantage. If the interestsof a German abroad cannot be protected by the ambassador of the Reich, muchless can they be protected by the minister from some small federal state whichappears ridiculous in the framework of the present world order. The real truthis that these small federal states are envisaged as points of attack forattempts at secession, which prospect is always pleasing to a certain foreignState. We, National Socialists, must not allow some noble caste which hasbecome effete with age to occupy an ambassadorial post abroad, with the ideathat by engrafting one of its withered branches in new soil the green leavesmay sprout again. Already in the time of the old Reich our diplomaticrepresentatives abroad were such a sorry lot that a further trial of thatexperience would be out of the question.
It is certain that in the futurethe importance of the individual states will be transferred to the sphere ofour cultural policy. The monarch who did most to make Bavaria an importantcentre was not an obstinate particularist with anti-German tendencies, butLudwig I who was as much devoted to the ideal of German greatness as he was tothat of art. His first consideration was to use the powers of the state todevelop the cultural position of Bavaria and not its political power. And indoing this he produced better and more durable results than if he had followedany other line of conduct. Up to this time Munich was a provincial residencetown of only small importance, but he transformed it into the metropolis ofGerman art and by doing so he made it an intellectual centre which even to-dayholds Franconia to Bavaria, though the Franconians are of quite a differenttemperament. If Munich had remained as it had been earlier, what has happenedin Saxony would have been repeated in Bavaria, with the diAerence that Leipzigand Bavarian Nürnberg would have become, not Bavarian but Franconian cities. Itwas not the cry of "Down with Prussia" that made Munich great. Whatmade this a city of importance was the King who wished to present it to theGerman nation as an artistic jewel that would have to be seen and appreciated,and so it has turned out in fact. Therein lies a lesson for the future. Theimportance of the individual states in the future will no longer lie in theirpolitical or statal power. I look to them rather as important ethnical andcultural centres. But even in this respect time will do its levelling work.Modern travelling facilities shuffle people among one another in such a waythat tribal boundaries will fade out and even the cultural picture willgradually become more of a uniform pattern.
The army must definitely be keptclear of the influence of the individual states. The coming National SocialistState must not fall back into the error of the past by imposing on the army atask which is not within its sphere and never should have been assigned to it.The German army does not exist for the purpose of being a school in whichtribal particularisms are to be cultivated and preserved, but rather as aschool for teaching all the Germans to understand and adapt their habits to oneanother. Whatever tends to have a separating influence in the life of thenation ought to be made a unifying influence in the army. The army must raisethe German boy above the narrow horizon of his own little native province andset him within the broad picture of the nation. The youth must learn to know,not the confines of his own region but those of the fatherland, because it isthe latter that he will have to defend one day. It is therefore absurd to havethe German youth do his military training in his own native region. During thatperiod he ought to learn to know Germany. This is all the more importantto-day, since young Germans no longer travel on their own account as they onceused to do and thus enlarge their horizon. In view of this, is it not absurd toleave the young Bavarian recruit at Munich, the recruit from Baden at Badenitself and the Württemberger at Stuttgart and so on? And would it not be more reasonableto show the Rhine and the North Sea to the Bavarian, the Alps to the native ofHamburg and the mountains of Central Germany to the boy from East Prussia? Thecharacter proper to each region ought to be maintained in the troops but not inthe training garrisons. We may disapprove of every attempt at unification butnot that of unifying the army. On the contrary, even though we should wish towelcome no other kind of unification, this must be greeted with joy. In view ofthe size of the present army of the Reich, it would be absurd to maintain thefederal divisions among the troops. Moreover, in the unification of the Germanarmy which has actually been effected we see a fact which we must not renouncebut restore in the future national army.
Finally a new and triumphant ideashould burst every chain which tends to paralyse its efforts to push forward.National Socialism must claim the right to impose its principles on the wholeGerman nation, without regard to what were hitherto the confines of federalstates. And we must educate the German nation in our ideas and principles. Asthe Churches do not feel themselves bound or limited by political confines, sothe National Socialist Idea cannot feel itself limited to the territories ofthe individual federal states that belong to our Fatherland.
The National Socialist doctrine isnot handmaid to the political interests of the single federal states. One dayit must become teacher to the whole German nation. It must determine the lifeof the whole people and shape that life anew. For this reason we mustimperatively demand the right to overstep boundaries that have been traced by apolitical development which we repudiate.
The more completely our ideastriumph, the more liberty can we concede in particular affairs to our citizensat home.
The year 1921 was speciallyimportant for me from many points of view.
When I entered the German Labour PartyI at once took charge of the propaganda, believing this branch to be far themost important for the time being. Just then it was not a matter of pressingnecessity to cudgel one’s brains over problems of organization. The firstnecessity was to spread our ideas among as many people as possible. Propagandashould go well ahead of organization and gather together the human material forthe latter to work up. I have never been in favour of hasty and pedanticmethods of organization, because in most cases the result is merely a piece ofdead mechanism and only rarely a living organization. Organization is a thingthat derives its existence from organic life, organic evolution. When the sameset of ideas have found a lodgement in the minds of a certain number of peoplethey tend of themselves to form a certain degree of order among those peopleand out of this inner formation something that is very valuable arises. Ofcourse here, as everywhere else, one must take account of those humanweaknesses which make men hesitate, especially at the beginning, to submit tothe control of a superior mind. If an organization is imposed from abovedownwards in a mechanical fashion, there is always the danger that someindividual may push himself forward who is not known for what he is and who,out of jealousy, will try to hinder abler persons from taking a leading placein the movement. The damage that results from that kind of thing may have fatalconsequences, especially in a new movement.
For this reason it is advisablefirst to propagate and publicly expound the ideas on which the movement isfounded. This work of propaganda should continue for a certain time and shouldbe directed from one centre. When the ideas have gradually won over a number ofpeople this human material should be carefully sifted for the purpose ofselecting those who have ability in leadership and putting that ability to thetest. It will often be found that apparently insignificant persons willnevertheless turn out to be born leaders.
Of course, it is quite a mistaketo suppose that those who show a very intelligent grasp of the theoryunderlying a movement are for that reason qualified to fill responsiblepositions on the directorate. The contrary is very frequently the case.
Great masters of theory are onlyvery rarely great organizers also. And this is because the greatness of thetheorist and founder of a system consists in being able to discover and laydown those laws that are right in the abstract, whereas the organizer mustfirst of all be a man of psychological insight. He must take men as they are,and for that reason he must know them, not having too high or too low anestimate of human nature. He must take account of their weaknesses, theirbaseness and all the other various characteristics, so as to form something outof them which will be a living organism, endowed with strong powers ofresistance, fitted to be the carrier of an idea and strong enough to ensure thetriumph of that idea.
But it is still more rare to finda great theorist who is at the same time a great leader. For the latter must bemore of an agitator, a truth that will not be readily accepted by many of thosewho deal with problems only from the scientific standpoint. And yet what I sayis only natural. For an agitator who shows himself capable of expounding ideasto the great masses must always be a psychologist, even though he may be only ademagogue. Therefore he will always be a much more capable leader than thecontemplative theorist who meditates on his ideas, far from the human throngand the world. For to be a leader means to be able to move the masses. The giftof formulating ideas has nothing whatsoever to do with the capacity forleadership. It would be entirely futile to discuss the question as to which isthe more important: the faculty of conceiving ideals and human aims or that ofbeing able to have them put into practice. Here, as so often happens in life,the one would be entirely meaningless without the other. The noblestconceptions of the human understanding remain without purpose or value if theleader cannot move the masses towards them. And, conversely, what would itavail to have all the genius and elan of a leader if the intellectual theoristdoes not fix the aims for which mankind must struggle. But when the abilitiesof theorist and organizer and leader are united in the one person, then we havethe rarest phenomenon on this earth. And it is that union which produces thegreat man.
As I have already said, during myfirst period in the Party I devoted myself to the work of propaganda. I had tosucceed in gradually gathering together a small nucleus of men who would acceptthe new teaching and be inspired by it. And in this way we should provide thehuman material which subsequently would form the constituent elements of theorganization. Thus the goal of the propagandist is nearly always fixed farbeyond that of the organizer.
If a movement proposes tooverthrow a certain order of things and construct a new one in its place, thenthe following principles must be clearly understood and must dominate in theranks of its leadership: Every movement which has gained its human materialmust first divide this material into two groups: namely, followers and members.
It is the task of the propagandistto recruit the followers and it is the task of the organizer to select themembers.
The follower of a movement is hewho understands and accepts its aims; the member is he who fights for them.
The follower is one whom thepropaganda has converted to the doctrine of the movement. The member is he whowill be charged by the organization to collaborate in winning over newfollowers from which in turn new members can be formed.
To be a follower needs only thepassive recognition of the idea. To be a member means to represent that ideaand fight for it. From ten followers one can have scarcely more than twomembers. To be a follower simply implies that a man has accepted the teachingof the movement; whereas to be a member means that a man has the courage to participateactively in diffusing that teaching in which he has come to believe.
Because of its passive character,the simple effort of believing in a political doctrine is enough for themajority, for the majority of mankind is mentally lazy and timid. To be amember one must be intellectually active, and therefore this applies only tothe minority.
Such being the case, thepropagandist must seek untiringly to acquire new followers for the movement,whereas the organizer must diligently look out for the best elements among suchfollowers, so that these elements may be transformed into members. Thepropagandist need not trouble too much about the personal worth of theindividual proselytes he has won for the movement. He need not inquire intotheir abilities, their intelligence or character. From these proselytes,however, the organizer will have to select those individuals who are mostcapable of actively helping to bring the movement to victory.
The propagandist aims at inducingthe whole people to accept his teaching. The organizer includes in his body ofmembership only those who, on psychological grounds, will not be an impedimentto the further diffusion of the doctrines of the movement.
The propagandist inculcates hisdoctrine among the masses, with the idea of preparing them for the time whenthis doctrine will triumph, through the body of combatant members which he hasformed from those followers who have given proof of the necessary ability andwill-power to carry the struggle to victory.
The final triumph of a doctrinewill be made all the more easy if the propagandist has effectively convertedlarge bodies of men to the belief in that doctrine and if the organization thatactively conducts the fight be exclusive, vigorous and solid.
When the propaganda work hasconverted a whole people to believe in a doctrine, the organization can turnthe results of this into practical effect through the work of a mere handful ofmen. Propaganda and organization, therefore follower and member, then standtowards one another in a definite mutual relationship. The better thepropaganda has worked, the smaller will the organization be. The greater thenumber of followers, so much the smaller can be the number of members. Andconversely. If the propaganda be bad, the organization must be large. And ifthere be only a small number of followers, the membership must be all thelarger – if the movement really counts on being successful.
The first duty of the propagandistis to win over people who can subsequently be taken into the organization. Andthe first duty of the organization is to select and train men who will becapable of carrying on the propaganda. The second duty of the organization isto disrupt the existing order of things and thus make room for the penetrationof the new teaching which it represents, while the duty of the organizer mustbe to fight for the purpose of securing power, so that the doctrine may finallytriumph.
A revolutionary conception of theworld and human existence will always achieve decisive success when the new Weltanschhauunghas been taught to a whole people, or subsequently forced upon them ifnecessary, and when, on the other hand, the central organization, the movementitself, is in the hands of only those few men who are absolutely indispensableto form the nerve-centres of the coming State.
Put in another way, this meansthat in every great revolutionary movement that is of world importance the ideaof this movement must always be spread abroad through the operation ofpropaganda. The propagandist must never tire in his efforts to make the newideas clearly understood, inculcating them among others, or at least he mustplace himself in the position of those others and endeavour to upset theirconfidence in the convictions they have hitherto held. In order that suchpropaganda should have backbone to it, it must be based on an organization. Theorganization chooses its members from among those followers whom the propagandahas won. That organization will become all the more vigorous if the work ofpropaganda be pushed forward intensively. And the propaganda will work all thebetter when the organization back of it is vigorous and strong in itself.
Hence the supreme task of theorganizer is to see to it that any discord or differences which may arise amongthe members of the movement will not lead to a split and thereby cramp the workwithin the movement. Moreover, it is the duty of the organization to see thatthe fighting spirit of the movement does not flag or die out but that it is constantlyreinvigorated and restrengthened. It is not necessary the number of membersshould increase indefinitely. Quite the contrary would be better. In view ofthe fact that only a fraction of humanity has energy and courage, a movementwhich increases its own organization indefinitely must of necessity one daybecome plethoric and inactive. Organizations, that is to say, groups ofmembers, which increase their size beyond certain dimensions gradually losetheir fighting force and are no longer in form to back up the propagation of adoctrine with aggressive elan and determination.
Now the greater and morerevolutionary a doctrine is, so much the more active will be the spiritinspiring its body of members, because the subversive energy of such a doctrinewill frighten way the chicken-hearted and small-minded bourgeoisie. In theirhearts they may believe in the doctrine but they are afraid to acknowledgetheir belief openly. By reason of this very fact, however, an organizationinspired by a veritable revolutionary idea will attract into the body of itsmembership only the most active of those believers who have been won for it byits propaganda. It is in this activity on the part of the membership body,guaranteed by the process of natural selection, that we are to seek theprerequisite conditions for the continuation of an active and spiritedpropaganda and also the victorious struggle for the success of the idea onwhich the movement is based.
The greatest danger that canthreaten a movement is an abnormal increase in the number of its members, owingto its too rapid success. So long as a movement has to carry on a hard andbitter fight, people of weak and fundamentally egotistic temperament will steervery clear of it; but these will try to be accepted as members the moment theparty achieves a manifest success in the course of its development.
It is on these grounds that we areto explain why so many movements which were at first successful slowed downbefore reaching the fulfilment of their purpose and, from an inner weaknesswhich could not otherwise be explained, gave up the struggle and finallydisappeared from the field. As a result of the early successes achieved, somany undesirable, unworthy and especially timid individuals became members of themovement that they finally secured the majority and stifled the fighting spiritof the others. These inferior elements then turned the movement to the serviceof their personal interests and, debasing it to the level of their ownmiserable heroism, no longer struggled for the triumph of the original idea.The fire of the first fervour died out, the fighting spirit flagged and, as thebourgeois world is accustomed to say very justly in such cases, the party mixedwater with its wine.
For this reason it is necessarythat a movement should, from the sheer instinct of self-preservation, close itslists to new membership the moment it becomes successful. And any furtherincrease in its organization should be allowed to take place only with the mostcareful foresight and after a painstaking sifting of those who apply formembership. Only thus will it be possible to keep the kernel of the movementintact and fresh and sound. Care must be taken that the conduct of the movementis maintained exclusively in the hands of this original nucleus. This meansthat the nucleus must direct the propaganda which aims at securing generalrecognition for the movement. And the movement itself, when it has securedpower in its hands, must carry out all those acts and measures which arenecessary in order that its ideas should be finally established in practice.
With those elements thatoriginally made the movement, the organization should occupy all the importantpositions that have been conquered and from those elements the wholedirectorate should be formed. This should continue until the maxims anddoctrines of the party have become the foundation and policy of the new State.Only then will it be permissible gradually to give the reins into the hands ofthe Constitution of that State which the spirit of the movement has created.But this usually happens through a process of mutual rivalry, for here it isless a question of human intelligence than of the play and effect of the forceswhose development may indeed be foreseen from the start but not perpetuallycontrolled.
All great movements, whether of apolitical or religious nature, owe their imposing success to the recognitionand adoption of those principles. And no durable success is conceivable ifthese laws are not observed.
As director of propaganda for theparty, I took care not merely to prepare the ground for the greatness of themovement in its subsequent stages, but I also adopted the most radical measuresagainst allowing into the organization any other than the best material. Forthe more radical and exciting my propaganda was, the more did it frighten weakand wavering characters away, thus preventing them from entering the firstnucleus of our organization. Perhaps they remained followers, but they did notraise their voices. On the contrary, they maintained a discreet silence on thefact. Many thousands of persons then assured me that they were in fullagreement with us but they could not on any account become members of ourparty. They said that the movement was so radical that to take part in it asmembers would expose them to grave censures and grave dangers, so that theywould rather continue to be looked upon as honest and peaceful citizens andremain aside, for the time being at least, though devoted to our cause with alltheir hearts.
And that was all to the good. Ifall these men who in their hearts did not approve of revolutionary ideas cameinto our movement as members at that time, we should be looked upon as a piousconfraternity to-day and not as a young movement inspired with the spirit ofcombat.
The lively and combative formwhich I gave to all our propaganda fortified and guaranteed the radicaltendency of our movement, and the result was that, with a few exceptions, onlymen of radical views were disposed to become members.
It was due to the effect of ourpropaganda that within a short period of time hundreds of thousands of citizensbecame convinced in their hearts that we were right and wished us victory,although personally they were too timid to make sacrifices for our cause oreven participate in it.
Up to the middle of 1921 thissimple activity of gathering in followers was sufficient and was of value tothe movement. But in the summer of that year certain events happened which madeit seem opportune for us to bring our organization into line with the manifestsuccesses which the propaganda had achieved.
An attempt made by a group ofpatriotic visionaries, supported by the chairman of the party at that time, totake over the direction of the party led to the break up of this littleintrigue and, by a unanimous vote at a general meeting, entrusted the entiredirection of the party to my own hands. At the same time a new statute waspassed which invested sole responsibility in the chairman of the movement,abolished the system of resolutions in committee and in its stead introducedthe principle of division of labour which since that time has workedexcellently.
From August 1st, 1921, onwards Iundertook this internal reorganization of the party and was supported by anumber of excellent men. I shall mention them and their work individually lateron.
In my endeavour to turn theresults gained by the propaganda to the advantage of the organization and thusstabilize them, I had to abolish completely a number of old customs andintroduce regulations which none of the other parties possessed or had adopted.
In the years 1920–21 the movementwas controlled by a committee elected by the members at a general meeting. Thecommittee was composed of a first and second treasurer, a first and secondsecretary, and a first and second chairman at the head of it. In addition tothese there was a representative of the members, the director of propaganda,and various assessors.
Comically enough, the committeeembodied the very principle against which the movement itself wanted to fightwith all its energy, namely, the principle of parliamentarianism. Here was aprinciple which personified everything that was being opposed by the movement,from the smallest local groups to the district and regional groups, the stategroups and finally the national directorate itself. It was a system under whichwe all suffered and are still suffering.
It was imperative to change thisstate of affairs forthwith, if this bad foundation in the internal organizationwas not to keep the movement insecure and render the fulfilment of its highmission impossible.
The sessions of the committee,which were ruled by a protocol, and in which decisions were made according tothe vote of the majority, presented the picture of a miniature parliament. Herealso there was no such thing as personal responsibility. And here reigned thesame absurdities and illogical state of affairs as flourish in our greatrepresentative bodies of the State. Names were presented to this committee forelection as secretaries, treasurers, representatives of the members of theorganization, propaganda agents and God knows what else. And then they allacted in common on every particular question and decided it by vote.Accordingly, the director of propaganda voted on a question that concerned theman who had to do with the finances and the latter in his turn voted on aquestion that concerned only the organization as such, the organizer voting ona subject that had to do with the secretarial department, and so on.
Why select a special man forpropaganda if treasurers and scribes and commissaries, etc., had to deliverjudgment on questions concerning it? To a person of commonsense that sort ofthing seemed as incomprehensible as it would be if in a great manufacturingconcern the board of directors were to decide on technical questions ofproduction or if, inversely, the engineers were to decide on questions ofadministration.
I refused to countenance that kindof folly and after a short time I ceased to appear at the meetings of thecommittee. I did nothing else except attend to my own department of propagandaand I did not permit any of the others to poke their heads into my activities.Conversely, I did not interfere in the affairs of others.
When the new statute was approvedand I was appointed as president, I had the necessary authority in my hands andalso the corresponding right to make short shrift of all that nonsense. In theplace of decisions by the majority vote of the committee, the principle ofabsolute responsibility was introduced.
The chairman is responsible forthe whole control of the movement. He apportions the work among the members ofthe committee subordinate to him and for special work he selects otherindividuals. Each of these gentlemen must bear sole responsibility for the taskassigned to him. He is subordinate only to the chairman, whose duty is tosupervise the general collaboration, selecting the personnel and giving generaldirections for the co-ordination of the common work.
This principle of absoluteresponsibility is being adopted little by little throughout the movement. Inthe small local groups and perhaps also in the regional and district groups itwill take yet a long time before the principle can be thoroughly imposed,because timid and hesitant characters are naturally opposed to it. For them theidea of bearing absolute responsibility for an act opens up an unpleasantprospect. They would like to hide behind the shoulders of the majority in theso-called committee, having their acts covered by decisions passed in that way.But it seems to me a matter of absolute necessity to take a decisive standagainst that view, to make no concessions whatsoever to this fear ofresponsibility, even though it takes some time before we can put fully intoeffect this concept of duty and ability in leadership, which will finally bringforward leaders who have the requisite abilities to occupy the chief posts.
In any case, a movement which mustfight against the absurdity of parliamentary institutions must be immune fromthis sort of thing. Only thus will it have the requisite strength to carry onthe struggle.
At a time when the majoritydominates everywhere else a movement which is based on the principle of oneleader who has to bear personal responsibility for the direction of theofficial acts of the movement itself will one day overthrow the presentsituation and triumph over the existing regime. That is a mathematical certainty.
This idea made it necessary toreorganize our movement internally. The logical development of thisreorganization brought about a clear-cut distinction between the economicsection of the movement and the general political direction. The principle of personalresponsibility was extended to all the administrative branches of the party andit brought about a healthy renovation, by liberating them from politicalinfluences and allowing them to operate solely on economic principles.
In the autumn of 1921, when theparty was founded, there were only six members. The party did not have anyheadquarters, nor officials, nor formularies, nor a stamp, nor printed materialof any sort. The committee first held its sittings in a restaurant on theHerrengasse and then in a café at Gasteig. This state of affairs could notlast. So I at once took action in the matter. I went around to severalrestaurants and hotels in Munich, with the idea of renting a room in one ofthem for the use of the Party. In the old Sterneckerbräu im Tal, there was asmall room with arched roof, which in earlier times was used as a sort offestive tavern where the Bavarian Counsellors of the Holy Roman Empireforegathered. It was dark and dismal and accordingly well suited to its ancientuses, though less suited to the new purpose it was now destined to serve. Thelittle street on which its one window looked out was so narrow that even on thebrightest summer day the room remained dim and sombre. Here we took up ourfirst fixed abode. The rent came to fifty marks per month, which was then anenormous sum for us. But our exigencies had to be very modest. We dared notcomplain even when they removed the wooden wainscoting a few days after we hadtaken possession. This panelling had been specially put up for the ImperialCounsellors. The place began to look more like a grotto than an office.
Still it marked an important stepforward. Slowly we had electric light installed and later on a telephone. Atable and some borrowed chairs were brought, an open paper-stand and later on acupboard. Two sideboards, which belonged to the landlord, served to store ourleaflets, placards, etc.
As time went on it turned outimpossible to direct the course of the movement merely by holding a committeemeeting once a week. The current business administration of the movement couldnot be regularly attended to except we had a salaried official.
But that was then very difficultfor us. The movement had still so few members that it was hard to find amongthem a suitable person for the job who would be content with very little forhimself and at the same time would be ready to meet the manifold demands whichthe movement would make on his time and energy.
After long searching we discovereda soldier who consented to become our first administrator. His name wasSchüssler, an old war comrade of mine. At first he came to our new office everyday between six and eight o’clock in the evening. Later on he came from five toeight and subsequently for the whole afternoon. Finally it became a full-timejob and he worked in the office from morning until late at night. He was anindustrious, upright and thoroughly honest man, faithful and devoted to themovement. He brought with him a small Adler typewriter of his own. It was thefirst machine to be used in the service of the party. Subsequently the partybought it by paying for it in installments. We needed a small safe in order tokeep our papers and register of membership from danger of being stolen – not toguard our funds, which did not then exist. On the contrary, our financialposition was so miserable that I often had to dip my hand into my own personalsavings.
After eighteen months our businessquarters had become too small, so we moved to a new place in the CorneliusStrasse. Again our office was in a restaurant, but instead of one room we nowhad three smaller rooms and one large room with great windows. At that timethis appeared a wonderful thing to us. We remained there until the end ofNovember 1923.
In December 1920, we acquired theVölkischer Beobachter. This newspaper which, as its name implies, championedthe claims of the people, was now to become the organ of the German NationalSocialist Labour Party. At first it appeared twice weekly; but at the beginningof 1928 it became a daily paper, and at the end of August in the same year itbegan to appear in the large format which is now well known.
As a complete novice in journalismI then learned many a lesson for which I had to pay dearly.
In contradistinction to theenormous number of papers in Jewish hands, there was at that time only oneimportant newspaper that defended the cause of the people. This was a matterfor grave consideration. As I have often learned by experience, the reason forthat state of things must be attributed to the incompetent way in which thebusiness side of the so-called popular newspapers was managed. These wereconducted too much according to the rule that opinion should prevail overaction that produces results. Quite a wrong standpoint, for opinion is ofitself something internal and finds its best expression in productive activity.The man who does valuable work for his people expresses thereby his excellentsentiments, whereas another who merely talks about his opinions and doesnothing that is of real value or use to the people is a person who perverts allright thinking. And that attitude of his is also pernicious for the community.
The Völkische Beobachter was aso-called ‘popular’ organ, as its name indicated. It had all the goodqualities, but still more the errors and weaknesses, inherent in all popularinstitutions. Though its contents were excellent, its management as a businessconcern was simply impossible. Here also the underlying idea was that popularnewspapers ought to be subsidized by popular contributions, without recognizingthat it had to make its way in competition with the others and that it wasdishonest to expect the subscriptions of good patriots to make up for themistaken management of the undertaking.
I took care to alter thoseconditions promptly, for I recognized the danger lurking in them. Luck was onmy side here, inasmuch as it brought me the man who since that time hasrendered innumerable services to the movement, not only as business manager ofthe newspaper but also as business manager of the party. In 1914, in the War, Imade the acquaintance of Max Amann, who was then my superior and is to-daygeneral business Director of the Party. During four years in the War I hadoccasion to observe almost continually the unusual ability, the diligence andthe rigorous conscientiousness of my future collaborator.
In the summer of 1921 I applied tomy old regimental comrade, whom I met one day by chance, and asked him tobecome business manager of the movement. At that time the movement was passingthrough a grave crisis and I had reason to be dissatisfied with several of ourofficials, with one of whom I had had a very bitter experience. Amann then helda good situation in which there were also good prospects for him.
After long hesitation he agreed tomy request, but only on condition that he must not be at the mercy ofincompetent committees. He must be responsible to one master, and only one.
It is to the inestimable credit ofthis first business manager of the party, whose commercial knowledge isextensive and profound, that he brought order and probity into the variousoffices of the party. Since that time these have remained exemplary and cannotbe equalled or excelled in this by any other branches of the movement. But, asoften happens in life, great ability provokes envy and disfavour. That had alsoto be expected in this case and borne patiently.
Since 1922 rigorous regulationshave been in force, not only for the commercial construction of the movementbut also in the organization of it as such. There exists now a central filingsystem, where the names and particulars of all the members are enrolled. Thefinancing of the party has been placed on sound lines. The current expendituremust be covered by the current receipts and special receipts can be used onlyfor special expenditures. Thus, notwithstanding the difficulties of the timethe movement remained practically without any debts, except for a few smallcurrent accounts. Indeed, there was a permanent increase in the funds. Thingsare managed as in a private business. The employed personnel hold their jobs invirtue of their practical efficiency and could not in any manner take coverbehind their professed loyalty to the party. A good National Socialist proveshis soundness by the readiness, diligence and capability with which hedischarges whatever duties are assigned to him in whatever situation he holdswithin the national community. The man who does not fulfil his duty in the jobhe holds cannot boast of a loyalty against which he himself really sins.
Adamant against all kinds of outerinfluence, the new business director of the party firmly maintained thestandpoint that there were no sinecure posts in the party administration for followersand members of the movement whose pleasure is not work. A movement which fightsso energetically against the corruption introduced into our civil service bythe various political parties must be immune from that vice in its ownadministrative department. It happened that some men were taken on the staff ofthe paper who had formerly been adherents of the Bavarian People’s Party, buttheir work showed that they were excellently qualified for the job. The resultof this experiment was generally excellent. It was owing to this honest andfrank recognition of individual efficiency that the movement won the hearts ofits employees more swiftly and more profoundly than had ever been the casebefore. Subsequently they became good National Socialists and remained so. Notin word only, but they proved it by the steady and honest and conscientiouswork which they performed in the service of the new movement. Naturally a wellqualified party member was preferred to another who had equal qualificationsbut did not belong to the party. The rigid determination with which our newbusiness chief applied these principles and gradually put them into force,despite all misunderstandings, turned out to be of great advantage to themovement. To this we owe the fact that it was possible for us – during thedifficult period of the inflation, when thousands of businesses failed andthousands of newspapers had to cease publication – not only to keep thecommercial department of the movement going and meet all its obligations butalso to make steady progress with the Völkische Beobachter. At that time itcame to be ranked among the great newspapers.
The year 1921 was of furtherimportance for me by reason of the fact that in my position as chairman of theparty I slowly but steadily succeeded in putting a stop to the criticisms andthe intrusions of some members of the committee in regard to the detailedactivities of the party administration. This was important, because we couldnot get a capable man to take on a job if nincompoops were constantly allowedto butt in, pretending that they knew everything much better; whereas inreality they had left only general chaos behind them. Then these wise-acresretired, for the most part quite modestly, to seek another field for their activitieswhere they could supervise and tell how things ought to be done. Some menseemed to have a mania for sniffing behind everything and were, so to say,always in a permanent state of pregnancy with magnificent plans and ideas andprojects and methods. Naturally their noble aim and ideal were always theformation of a committee which could pretend to be an organ of control in orderto be able to sniff as experts into the regular work done by others. But it isoffensive and contrary to the spirit of National Socialism when incompetentpeople constantly interfere in the work of capable persons. But these makers ofcommittees do not take that very much into account. In those years I felt it myduty to safeguard against such annoyance all those who were entrusted withregular and responsible work, so that there should be no spying over theshoulder and they would be guaranteed a free hand in their day’s work.
The best means of makingcommittees innocuous, which either did nothing or cooked up impracticable decisions,was to give them some real work to do. It was then amusing to see how themembers would silently fade away and were soon nowhere to be found. It made methink of that great institution of the same kind, the Reichstag. How quicklythey would evanesce if they were put to some real work instead of talking,especially if each member were made personally responsible for the workassigned to him.
I always demanded that, just as inprivate life so also in the movement, one should not tire of seeking until thebest and honestest and manifestly the most competent person could be found forthe position of leader or administrator in each section of the movement. Onceinstalled in his position he was given absolute authority and full freedom ofaction towards his subordinates and full responsibility towards his superiors.Nobody was placed in a position of authority towards his subordinates unless hehimself was competent in the work entrusted to them. In the course of two yearsI brought my views more and more into practice; so that to-day, at least as faras the higher direction of the movement is concerned, they are accepted as amatter of course.
The manifest success of thisattitude was shown on November 9th, 1923. Four years previously, when I enteredthe movement, it did not have even a rubber stamp. On November 9th, 1923, theparty was dissolved and its property confiscated. The total sum realized by allthe objects of value and the paper amounted to more than 170,000 gold marks.
CHAPTERXII
THE PROBLEM OF THE TRADE UNIONS
Owing to the rapid growth of themovement, in 1922 we felt compelled to take a definite stand on a questionwhich has not been fully solved even yet.
In our efforts to discover thequickest and easiest way for the movement to reach the heart of the broadmasses we were always confronted with the objection that the worker could nevercompletely belong to us while his interests in the purely vocational andeconomic sphere were cared for by a political organization conducted by men whoseprinciples were quite different from ours.
That was quite a seriousobjection. The general belief was that a workman engaged in some trade or othercould not exist if he did not belong to a trade union. Not only were hisprofessional interests thus protected but a guarantee of permanent employmentwas simply inconceivable without membership in a trade union. The majority ofthe workers were in the trades unions. Generally speaking, the unions hadsuccessfully conducted the battle for the establishment of a definite scale ofwages and had concluded agreements which guaranteed the worker a steady income.Undoubtedly the workers in the various trades benefited by the results of thatcampaign and, for honest men especially, conflicts of conscience must havearisen if they took the wages which had been assured through the strugglefought by the trades unions and if at the same time the men themselves withdrewfrom the fight.
It was difficult to discuss thisproblem with the average bourgeois employer. He had no understanding (or didnot wish to have any) for either the material or moral side of the question.Finally he declared that his own economic interests were in principle opposedto every kind of organization which joined together the workmen that weredependent on him. Hence it was for the most part impossible to bring thesebourgeois employers to take an impartial view of the situation. Here,therefore, as in so many other cases, it was necessary to appeal todisinterested outsiders who would not be subject to the temptation of fixingtheir attention on the trees and failing to see the forest. With a little goodwill on their part, they could much more easily understand a state of affairswhich is of the highest importance for our present and future existence.
In the first volume of this book Ihave already expressed my views on the nature and purpose and necessity oftrade unions. There I took up the standpoint that unless measures areundertaken by the State (usually futile in such cases) or a new ideal isintroduced in our education, which would change the attitude of the employertowards the worker, no other course would be open to the latter except todefend his own interests himself by appealing to his equal rights as acontracting party within the economic sphere of the nation’s existence. Istated further that this would conform to the interests of the nationalcommunity if thereby social injustices could be redressed which otherwise wouldcause serious damage to the whole social structure. I stated, moreover, thatthe worker would always find it necessary to undertake this protective actionas long as there were men among the employers who had no sense of their socialobligations nor even of the most elementary human rights. And I concluded by sayingthat if such self-defence be considered necessary its form ought to be that ofan association made up of the workers themselves on the basis of trades unions.
This was my general idea and itremained the same in 1922. But a clear and precise formula was still to bediscovered. We could not be satisfied with merely understanding the problem. Itwas necessary to come to some conclusions that could be put into practice. Thefollowing questions had to be answered:
(1) Are trade unions necessary?
(2) Should the German NationalSocialist Labour Party itself operate on a trade unionist basis or have itsmembers take part in trade unionist activities in some form or other?
(3) What form should a National SocialistTrades Union take? What are the tasks confronting us and the ends we must tryto attain?
(4) How can we establish tradeunions for such tasks and aims?
I think that I have alreadyanswered the first question adequately. In the present state of affairs I amconvinced that we cannot possibly dispense with the trades unions. On thecontrary, they are among the most important institutions in the economic lifeof the nation. Not only are they important in the sphere of social policy butalso, and even more so, in the national political sphere. For when the greatmasses of a nation see their vital needs satisfied through a just tradeunionist movement the stamina of the whole nation in its struggle for existencewill be enormously reinforced thereby.
Before everything else, the tradesunions are necessary as building stones for the future economic parliament,which will be made up of chambers representing the various professions andoccupations.
The second question is also easyto answer. If the trade unionist movement is important, then it is clear thatNational Socialism ought to take a definite stand on that question, not onlytheoretically but also in practice. But how? That is more difficult to seeclearly.
The National Socialist Movement,which aims at establishing the National Socialist People’s State, must alwaysbear steadfastly in mind the principle that every future institution under thatState must be rooted in the movement itself. It is a great mistake to believethat by acquiring possession of supreme political power we can bring about adefinite reorganization, suddenly starting from nothing, without the help of acertain reserve stock of men who have been trained beforehand, especially inthe spirit of the movement. Here also the principle holds good that the spiritis always more important than the external form which it animates; since thisform can be created mechanically and quickly. For instance, the leadershipprinciple may be imposed on an organized political community in a dictatorialway. But this principle can become a living reality only by passing through thestages that are necessary for its own evolution. These stages lead from thesmallest cell of the State organism upwards. As its bearers andrepresentatives, the leadership principle must have a body of men who havepassed through a process of selection lasting over several years, who have beentempered by the hard realities of life and thus rendered capable of carryingthe principle into practical effect.
It is out of the question to thinkthat a scheme for the Constitution of a State can be pulled out of a portfolioat a moment’s notice and ‘introduced’ by imperative orders from above. One maytry that kind of thing but the result will always be something that has not sufficientvitality to endure. It will be like a stillborn infant. The idea of it calls tomind the origin of the Weimar Constitution and the attempt to impose on theGerman people a new Constitution and a new flag, neither of which had any innerrelation to the vicissitudes of our people’s history during the last halfcentury.
The National Socialist State mustguard against all such experiments. It must grow out of an organization whichhas already existed for a long time. This organization must possess NationalSocialist life in itself, so that finally it may be able to establish aNational Socialist State that will be a living reality.
As I have already said, the germcells of this State must lie in the administrative chambers which willrepresent the various occupations and professions, therefore first of all inthe trades unions. If this subsequent vocational representation and the CentralEconomic Parliament are to be National Socialist institutions, these importantgerm cells must be vehicles of the National Socialist concept of life. Theinstitutions of the movement are to be brought over into the State; for theState cannot call into existence all of a sudden and as if by magic thoseinstitutions which are necessary to its existence, unless it wishes to haveinstitutions that are bound to remain completely lifeless.
Looking at the matter from thehighest standpoint, the National Socialist Movement will have to recognize thenecessity of adopting its own trade-unionist policy.
It must do this for a furtherreason, namely because a real National Socialist education for the employer aswell as for the employee, in the spirit of a mutual co-operation within thecommon framework of the national community, cannot be secured by theoreticalinstruction, appeals and exhortations, but through the struggles of daily life.In this spirit and through this spirit the movement must educate the severallarge economic groups and bring them closer to one another under a wideroutlook. Without this preparatory work it would be sheer illusion to hope thata real national community can be brought into existence. The great idealrepresented by its philosophy of life and for which the movement fights canalone form a general style of thought steadily and slowly. And this style willshow that the new state of things rests on foundations that are internallysound and not merely an external façade.
Hence the movement must adopt apositive attitude towards the trade-unionist idea. But it must go further thanthis. For the enormous number of members and followers of the trade-unionistmovement it must provide a practical education which will meet the exigenciesof the coming National Socialist State.
The answer to the third questionfollows from what has been already said.
The National Socialist TradesUnion is not an instrument for class warfare, but a representative organ of thevarious occupations and callings. The National Socialist State recognizes no‘classes’. But, under the political aspect, it recognizes only citizens with absolutelyequal rights and equal obligations corresponding thereto. And, side by sidewith these, it recognizes subjects of the State who have no political rightswhatsoever.
According to the NationalSocialist concept, it is not the task of the trades union to band togethercertain men within the national community and thus gradually transform thesemen into a class, so as to use them in a conflict against other groupssimilarly organized within the national community. We certainly cannot assignthis task to the trades union as such. This was the task assigned to it themoment it became a fighting weapon in the hands of the Marxists. The tradesunion is not naturally an instrument of class warfare; but the Marxiststransformed it into an instrument for use in their own class struggle. Theycreated the economic weapon which the international Jew uses for the purpose ofdestroying the economic foundations of free and independent national States,for ruining their national industry and trade and thereby enslaving freenations to serve Jewish world-finance, which transcends all State boundaries.
In contradistinction to this, theNational Socialist Trades Union must organize definite groups and those whoparticipate in the economic life of the nation and thus enhance the security ofthe national economic system itself, reinforcing it by the elimination of allthose anomalies which ultimately exercise a destructive influence on the socialbody of the nation, damaging the vital forces of the national community, prejudicingthe welfare of the State and, by no means as a last consequence, bringing eviland destruction on economic life itself.
Therefore in the hands of theNational Socialist Trades Union the strike is not an instrument for disturbingand dislocating the national production, but for increasing it and making itrun smoothly, by fighting against all those annoyances which by reason of theirunsocial character hinder efficiency in business and thereby hamper theexistence of the whole nation. For individual efficiency stands always incasual relation to the general social and juridical position of the individualin the economic process. Individual efficiency is also the sole root of theconviction that the economic prosperity of the nation must necessarily redoundto the benefit of the individual citizen.
The National Socialist employeewill have to recognize the fact that the economic prosperity of the nationbrings with it his own material happiness.
The National Socialist employermust recognize that the happiness and contentment of his employees arenecessary pre-requisites for the existence and development of his own economicprosperity.
National Socialist workers andemployers are both together the delegates and mandatories of the whole nationalcommunity. The large measure of personal freedom which is accorded to them fortheir activities must be explained by the fact that experience has shown thatthe productive powers of the individual are more enhanced by being accorded agenerous measure of freedom than by coercion from above. Moreover, by accordingthis freedom we give free play to the natural process of selection which bringsforward the ablest and most capable and most industrious. For the NationalSocialist Trades Union, therefore, the strike is a means that may, and indeedmust, be resorted to as long as there is not a National Socialist State yet.But when that State is established it will, as a matter of course, abolish themass struggle between the two great groups made up of employers and employeesrespectively, a struggle which has always resulted in lessening the nationalproduction and injuring the national community. In place of this struggle, theNational Socialist State will take over the task of caring for and defendingthe rights of all parties concerned. It will be the duty of the EconomicChamber itself to keep the national economic system in smooth working order andto remove whatever defects or errors it may suffer from. Questions that are nowfought over through a quarrel that involves millions of people will then besettled in the Representative Chambers of Trades and Professions and in theCentral Economic Parliament. Thus employers and employees will no longer findthemselves drawn into a mutual conflict over wages and hours of work, always tothe detriment of their mutual interests. But they will solve these problemstogether on a higher plane, where the welfare of the national community and ofthe State will be as a shining ideal to throw light on all their negotiations.
Here again, as everywhere else,the inflexible principle must be observed, that the interests of the countrymust come before party interests.
The task of the National SocialistTrades Union will be to educate and prepare its members to conform to these ideals.That task may be stated as follows: All must work together for the maintenanceand security of our people and the People’s State, each one according to theabilities and powers with which Nature has endowed him and which have beendeveloped and trained by the national community.
Our fourth question was: How shallwe establish trades unions for such tasks and aims? That is far more difficultto answer.
Generally speaking, it is easierto establish something in new territory than in old territory which already hasits established institutions. In a district where there is no existing businessof a special character one can easily establish a new business of thischaracter. But it is more difficult if the same kind of enterprise alreadyexists and it is most difficult of all when the conditions are such that onlyone enterprise of this kind can prosper. For here the promoters of the newenterprise find themselves confronted not only with the problem of introducingtheir own business but also that of how to bring about the destruction of theother business already existing in the district, so that the new enterprise maybe able to exist.
It would be senseless to have aNational Socialist Trades Union side by side with other trades unions. For thisTrades Union must be thoroughly imbued with a feeling for the ideologicalnature of its task and of the resulting obligation not to tolerate othersimilar or hostile institutions. It must also insist that itself alone isnecessary, to the exclusion of all the rest. It can come to no arrangement andno compromise with kindred tendencies but must assert its own absolute andexclusive right.
There were two ways which mightlead to such a development:
(1) We could establish our TradesUnion and then gradually take up the fight against the Marxist InternationalTrades Union.
(2) Or we could enter the MarxistTrades Union and inculcate a new spirit in it, with the idea of transforming itinto an instrument in the service of the new ideal.
The first way was not advisable,by reason of the fact that our financial situation was still the cause of muchworry to us at that time and our resources were quite slender. The effects ofthe inflation were steadily spreading and made the particular situation stillmore difficult for us, because in those years one could scarcely speak of anymaterial help which the trades unions could extend to their members. From thispoint of view, there was no reason why the individual worker should pay hisdues to the union. Even the Marxist unions then existing were already on thepoint of collapse until, as the result of Herr Cuno’s enlightened Ruhr policy,millions were suddenly poured into their coffers. This so-called ‘national’Chancellor of the Reich should go down in history as the Redeemer of theMarxist trades unions.
We could not count on similarfinancial facilities. And nobody could be induced to enter a new Trades Unionwhich, on account of its financial weakness, could not offer him the slightest materialbenefit. On the other hand, I felt bound absolutely to guard against thecreation of such an organization which would only be a shelter for shirkers ofthe more or less intellectual type.
At that time the question ofpersonnel played the most important role. I did not have a single man whom Imight call upon to carry out this important task. Whoever could have succeededat that time in overthrowing the Marxist unions to make way for the triumph ofthe National Socialist corporative idea, which would then take the place of theruinous class warfare – such a person would be fit to rank with the verygreatest men our nation has produced and his bust should be installed in theValhalla at Regensburg for the admiration of posterity.
But I knew of no person who couldqualify for such a pedestal.
In this connection we must not beled astray by the fact that the international trades unions are conducted bymen of only mediocre significance, for when those unions were founded there wasnothing else of a similar kind already in existence. To-day the NationalSocialist Movement must fight against a monster organization which has existedfor a long time, rests on gigantic foundations and is carefully constructedeven in the smallest details. An assailant must always exercise moreintelligence than the defender, if he is to overthrow the latter. The Marxisttrade-unionist citadel may be governed to-day by mediocre leaders, but itcannot be taken by assault except through the dauntless energy and genius of asuperior leader on the other side. If such a leader cannot be found it isfutile to struggle with Fate and even more foolish to try to overthrow theexisting state of things without being able to construct a better in its place.
Here one must apply the maxim thatin life it is often better to allow something to go by the board rather thantry to half do it or do it badly, owing to a lack of suitable means.
To this we must add anotherconsideration, which is not at all of a demagogic character. At that time I had,and I still have to-day, a firmly rooted conviction that when one is engaged ina great ideological struggle in the political field it would be a grave mistaketo mix up economic questions with this struggle in its earlier stages. Thisapplies particularly to our German people. For if such were to happen in theircase the economic struggle would immediately distract the energy necessary forthe political fight. Once the people are brought to believe that they can buy alittle house with their savings they will devote themselves to the task ofincreasing their savings and no spare time will be left to them for thepolitical struggle against those who, in one way or another, will one daysecure possession of the pennies that have been saved. Instead of participatingin the political conflict on behalf of the opinions and convictions which theyhave been brought to accept they will now go further with their ‘settlement’idea and in the end they will find themselves for the most part sitting on theground amidst all the stools.
To-day the National SocialistMovement is at the beginning of its struggle. In great part it must first ofall shape and develop its ideals. It must employ every ounce of its energy inthe struggle to have its great ideal accepted, and the success of this effortis not conceivable unless the combined energies of the movement be entirely atthe service of this struggle.
To-day we have a classical exampleof how the active strength of a people becomes paralysed when that people istoo much taken up with purely economic problems.
The Revolution which took place inNovember 1918 was not made by the trades unions, but it was carried out inspite of them. And the people of Germany did not wage any political fight forthe future of their country because they thought that the future could besufficiently secured by constructive work in the economic field.
We must learn a lesson from thisexperience, because in our case the same thing must happen under the samecircumstances. The more the combined strength of our movement is concentratedin the political struggle, the more confidently may we count on beingsuccessful along our whole front. But if we busy ourselves prematurely withtrade unionist problems, settlement problems, etc., it will be to thedisadvantage of our own cause, taken as a whole. For, though these problems maybe important, they cannot be solved in an adequate manner until we havepolitical power in our hand and are able to use it in the service of this idea.Until that day comes these problems can have only a paralysing effect on themovement. And if it takes them up too soon they will only be a hindrance in theeffort to attain its own ideological aims. It may then easily happen that tradeunionist considerations will control the political direction of the movement,instead of the ideological aims of the movement directing the way that thetrades unions are to take.
The movement and the nation canderive advantage from a National Socialist trade unionist organization only ifthe latter be so thoroughly inspired by National Socialist ideas that it runsno danger of falling into step behind the Marxist movement. For a NationalSocialist Trades Union which would consider itself only as a competitor againstthe Marxist unions would be worse than none. It must declare war against theMarxist Trades Union, not only as an organization but, above all, as an idea.It must declare itself hostile to the idea of class and class warfare and, inplace of this, it must declare itself as the defender of the variousoccupational and professional interests of the German people.
Considered from all these pointsof view it was not then advisable, nor is it yet advisable, to think offounding our own Trades Union. That seemed clear to me, at least until somebodyappeared who was obviously called by fate to solve this particular problem.
Therefore there remained only twopossible ways. Either to recommend our own party members to leave the tradesunions in which they were enrolled or to remain in them for the moment, withthe idea of causing as much destruction in them as possible.
In general, I recommended thelatter alternative.
Especially in the year 1922–23 wecould easily do that. For, during the period of inflation, the financialadvantages which might be reaped from a trades union organization would benegligible, because we could expect to enroll only a few members owing to theundeveloped condition of our movement. The damage which might result from sucha policy was all the greater because its bitterest critics and opponents wereto be found among the followers of the National Socialist Party.
I had already entirelydiscountenanced all experiments which were destined from the very beginning tobe unsuccessful. I would have considered it criminal to run the risk ofdepriving a worker of his scant earnings in order to help an organizationwhich, according to my inner conviction, could not promise real advantages toits members.
Should a new political party fadeout of existence one day nobody would be injured thereby and some would haveprofited, but none would have a right to complain. For what each individualcontributes to a political movement is given with the idea that it mayultimately come to nothing. But the man who pays his dues to a trade union hasthe right to expect some guarantee in return. If this is not done, then thedirectors of such a trade union are swindlers or at least careless people whoought to be brought to a sense of their responsibilities.
We took all these viewpoints intoconsideration before making our decision in 1922. Others thought otherwise andfounded trades unions. They upbraided us for being short-sighted and failing tosee into the future. But it did not take long for these organizations todisappear and the result was what would have happened in our own case. But thedifference was that we should have deceived neither ourselves nor those whobelieved in us.
CHAPTERXIII
THE GERMAN POST-WAR POLICY OF ALLIANCES
The erratic manner in which theforeign affairs of the Reich were conducted was due to a lack of sound guidingprinciples for the formation of practical and useful alliances. Not only wasthis state of affairs continued after the Revolution, but it became even worse.
For the confused state of ourpolitical ideas in general before the War may be looked upon as the chief causeof our defective statesmanship; but in the post-War period this cause must beattributed to a lack of honest intentions. It was natural that those partieswho had fully achieved their destructive purpose by means of the Revolutionshould feel that it would not serve their interests if a policy of allianceswere adopted which must ultimately result in the restoration of a free GermanState. A development in this direction would not be in conformity with thepurposes of the November crime. It would have interrupted and indeed put an endto the internationalization of German national economy and German Labour. Butwhat was feared most of all was that a successful effort to make the Reichindependent of foreign countries might have an influence in domestic politicswhich one day would turn out disastrous for those who now hold supreme power inthe government of the Reich. One cannot imagine the revival of a nation unlessthat revival be preceded by a process of nationalization. Conversely, everyimportant success in the field of foreign politics must call forth a favourablereaction at home. Experience proves that every struggle for liberty increasesthe national sentiment and national self-consciousness and therewith gives riseto a keener sensibility towards anti-national elements and tendencies. A stateof things, and persons also, that may be tolerated and even pass unnoticed intimes of peace will not only become the object of aversion when nationalenthusiasm is aroused but will even provoke positive opposition, whichfrequently turns out disastrous for them. In this connection we may recall thespy-scare that became prevalent when the war broke out, when human passionsuddenly manifested itself to such a heightened degree as to lead to the mostbrutal persecutions, often without any justifiable grounds, although everybodyknew that the danger resulting from spies is greater during the long periods ofpeace; but, for obvious reasons, they do not then attract a similar amount ofpublic attention. For this reason the subtle instinct of the State parasiteswho came to the surface of the national body through the November happeningsmakes them feel at once that a policy of alliances which would restore thefreedom of our people and awaken national sentiment might possibly ruin theirown criminal existence.
Thus we may explain the fact thatsince 1918 the men who have held the reins of government adopted an entirelynegative attitude towards foreign affairs and that the business of the Statehas been almost constantly conducted in a systematic way against the interestsof the German nation. For that which at first sight seemed a matter of chanceproved, on closer examination, to be a logical advance along the road which wasfirst publicly entered upon by the November Revolution of 1918.
Undoubtedly a distinction ought tobe made between (1) the responsible administrators of our affairs of State, orrather those who ought to be responsible; (2) the average run of ourparliamentary politicasters, and (3) the masses of our people, whose sheepishdocility corresponds to their want of intelligence.
The first know what they want. Thesecond fall into line with them, either because they have been already schooledin what is afoot or because they have not the courage to take an uncompromisingstand against a course which they know and feel to be detrimental. The thirdjust submit to it because they are too stupid to understand.
While the German NationalSocialist Labour Party was only a small and practically unknown society,problems of foreign policy could have only a secondary importance in the eyesof many of its members. This was the case especially because our movement hasalways proclaimed the principle, and must proclaim it, that the freedom of thecountry in its foreign relations is not a gift that will be bestowed upon us byHeaven or by any earthly Powers, but can only be the fruit of a development ofour inner forces. We must first root out the causes which led to our collapseand we must eliminate all those who are profiting by that collapse. Then weshall be in a position to take up the fight for the restoration of our freedomin the management of our foreign relations.
It will be easily understoodtherefore why we did not attach so much importance to foreign affairs duringthe early stages of our young movement, but preferred to concentrate on theproblem of internal reform.
But when the small andinsignificant society expanded and finally grew too large for its firstframework, the young organization assumed the importance of a great associationand we then felt it incumbent on us to take a definite stand on problemsregarding the development of a foreign policy. It was necessary to lay down themain lines of action which would not only be in accord with the fundamentalideas of our Weltanschhauung but would actually be an expansion of it inthe practical world of foreign affairs.
Just because our people have hadno political education in matters concerning our relations abroad, it wasnecessary to teach the leaders in the various sections of our movement, andalso the masses of the people, the chief principles which ought to guide the developmentof our foreign relations. That was one of the first tasks to be accomplished inorder to prepare the ground for the practical carrying out of a foreign policywhich would win back the independence of the nation in managing its externalaffairs and thus restore the real sovereignty of the Reich.
The fundamental and guidingprinciples which we must always bear in mind when studying this question isthat foreign policy is only a means to an end and that the sole end to bepursued is the welfare of our own people. Every problem in foreign politicsmust be considered from this point of view, and this point of view alone. Shallsuch and such a solution prove advantageous to our people now or in the future,or will it injure their interests? That is the question.
This is the sole preoccupationthat must occupy our minds in dealing with a question. Party politics,religious considerations, humanitarian ideals – all such and all otherpreoccupations must absolutely give way to this.
Before the War the purpose towhich German foreign policy should have been devoted was to assure the supplyof material necessities for the maintenance of our people and their children.And the way should have been prepared which would lead to this goal. Alliancesshould have been established which would have proved beneficial to us from thispoint of view and would have brought us the necessary auxiliary support. Thetask to be accomplished is the same to-day, but with this difference: Inpre-War times it was a question of caring for the maintenance of the Germanpeople, backed up by the power which a strong and independent State thenpossessed, but our task to-day is to make our nation powerful once again byre-establishing a strong and independent State. The re-establishment of such aState is the prerequisite and necessary condition which must be fulfilled inorder that we may be able subsequently to put into practice a foreign policywhich will serve to guarantee the existence of our people in the future,fulfilling their needs and furnishing them with those necessities of life whichthey lack. In other words, the aim which Germany ought to pursue to-day in herforeign policy is to prepare the way for the recovery of her liberty to-morrow.In this connection there is a fundamental principle which we must keep steadilybefore our minds. It is this: The possibility of winning back the independenceof a nation is not absolutely bound up with the question of territorialreintegration but it will suffice if a small remnant, no matter how small, ofthis nation and State will exist, provided it possesses the necessaryindependence to become not only the vehicle of’ the common spirit of the wholepeople but also to prepare the way for the military fight to reconquer thenation’s liberty.
When a people who amount to ahundred million souls tolerate the yoke of common slavery in order to preventthe territory belonging to their State from being broken up and divided, thatis worse than if such a State and such a people were dismembered while onefragment still retained its complete independence. Of course, the naturalproviso here is that this fragment must be inspired with a consciousness of thesolemn duty that devolves upon it, not only to proclaim persistently theinviolable unity of its spiritual and cultural life with that of its detachedmembers but also to prepare the means that are necessary for the militaryconflict which will finally liberate and re-unite the fragments that aresuffering under oppression.
One must also bear in mind thefact that the restoration of lost districts which were formerly parts of theState, both ethnically and politically, must in the first instance be aquestion of winning back political power and independence for the motherlanditself, and that in such cases the special interests of the lost districts mustbe uncompromisingly regarded as a matter of secondary importance in the face ofthe one main task, which is to win back the freedom of the central territory.For the detached and oppressed fragments of a nation or an imperial provincecannot achieve their liberation through the expression of yearnings andprotests on the part of the oppressed and abandoned, but only when the portionwhich has more or less retained its sovereign independence can resort to theuse of force for the purpose of reconquering those territories that oncebelonged to the common fatherland.
Therefore, in order to reconquerlost territories the first condition to be fulfilled is to work energeticallyfor the increased welfare and reinforcement of the strength of that portion ofthe State which has remained over after the partition. Thus the unquenchableyearning which slumbers in the hearts of the people must be awakened andrestrengthened by bringing new forces to its aid, so that when the hour comesall will be devoted to the one purpose of liberating and uniting the wholepeople. Therefore, the interests of the separated territories must besubordinated to the one purpose. That one purpose must aim at obtaining for thecentral remaining portion such a measure of power and might that will enable itto enforce its will on the hostile will of the victor and thus redress thewrong. For flaming protests will not restore the oppressed territories to thebosom of a common Reich. That can be done only through the might of the sword.
The forging of this sword is awork that has to be done through the domestic policy which must be adopted by anational government. To see that the work of forging these arms is assured, andto recruit the men who will bear them, that is the task of the foreign policy.
In the first volume of this book Idiscussed the inadequacy of our policy of alliances before the War. There werefour possible ways to secure the necessary foodstuffs for the maintenance of ourpeople. Of these ways the fourth, which was the most unfavourable, was chosen.Instead of a sound policy of territorial expansion in Europe, our rulersembarked on a policy of colonial and trade expansion. That policy was all themore mistaken inasmuch as they presumed that in this way the danger of an armedconflict would be averted. The result of the attempt to sit on many stools atthe same time might have been foreseen. It let us fall to the ground in themidst of them all. And the World War was only the last reckoning presented tothe Reich to pay for the failure of its foreign policy.
The right way that should havebeen taken in those days was the third way I indicated: namely, to increase thestrength of the Reich as a Continental Power by the acquisition of newterritory in Europe. And at the same time a further expansion, through thesubsequent acquisition of colonial territory, might thus be brought within therange of practical politics. Of course, this policy could not have been carriedthrough except in alliance with England, or by devoting such abnormal effortsto the increase of military force and armament that, for forty or fifty years,all cultural undertakings would have to be completely relegated to thebackground. This responsibility might very well have been undertaken. Thecultural importance of a nation is almost always dependent on its politicalfreedom and independence. Political freedom is a prerequisite condition for theexistence, or rather the creation, of great cultural undertakings. Accordinglyno sacrifice can be too great when there is question of securing the politicalfreedom of a nation. What might have to be deducted from the budget expensesfor cultural purposes, in order to meet abnormal demands for increasing the militarypower of the State, can be generously paid back later on. Indeed, it may besaid that after a State has concentrated all its resources in one effort forthe purpose of securing its political independence a certain period of ease andrenewed equilibrium sets in. And it often happens that the cultural spirit ofthe nation, which had been heretofore cramped and confined, now suddenly bloomsforth. Thus Greece experienced the great Periclean era after the miseries ithad suffered during the Persian Wars. And the Roman Republic turned itsenergies to the cultivation of a higher civilization when it was freed from thestress and worry of the Punic Wars.
Of course, it could not beexpected that a parliamentary majority of feckless and stupid people would be capableof deciding on such a resolute policy for the absolute subordination of allother national interests to the one sole task of preparing for a futureconflict of arms which would result in establishing the security of the State.The father of Frederick the Great sacrificed everything in order to be readyfor that conflict; but the fathers of our absurd parliamentarian democracy,with the Jewish hall-mark, could not do it.
That is why, in pre-War times, themilitary preparation necessary to enable us to conquer new territory in Europewas only very mediocre, so that it was difficult to obtain the support ofreally helpful allies.
Those who directed our foreignaffairs would not entertain even the idea of systematically preparing for war.They rejected every plan for the acquisition of territory in Europe. And bypreferring a policy of colonial and trade expansion, they sacrificed thealliance with England, which was then possible. At the same time they neglectedto seek the support of Russia, which would have been a logical proceeding.Finally they stumbled into the World War, abandoned by all except theill-starred Habsburgs.
The characteristic of our presentforeign policy is that it follows no discernible or even intelligible lines ofaction. Whereas before the War a mistake was made in taking the fourth way thatI have mentioned, and this was pursued only in a halfhearted manner, since theRevolution not even the sharpest eye can detect any way that is being followed.Even more than before the War, there is absolutely no such thing as asystematic plan, except the systematic attempts that are made to destroy thelast possibility of a national revival.
If we make an impartialexamination of the situation existing in Europe to-day as far as concerns therelation of the various Powers to one another, we shall arrive at the followingresults:
For the past three hundred yearsthe history of our Continent has been definitely determined by England’sefforts to keep the European States opposed to one another in an equilibrium offorces, thus assuring the necessary protection of her own rear while shepursued the great aims of British world-policy.
The traditional tendency ofBritish diplomacy ever since the reign of Queen Elizabeth has been to employsystematically every possible means to prevent any one Power from attaining apreponderant position over the other European Powers and, if necessary, tobreak that preponderance by means of armed intervention. The only parallel tothis has been the tradition of the Prussian Army. England has made use ofvarious forces to carry out its purpose, choosing them according to the actualsituation or the task to be faced; but the will and determination to use themhas always been the same. The more difficult England’s position became in thecourse of history the more the British Imperial Government considered itnecessary to maintain a condition of political paralysis among the variousEuropean States, as a result of their mutual rivalries. When the North Americancolonies obtained their political independence it became still more necessaryfor England to use every effort to establish and maintain the defence of herflank in Europe. In accordance with this policy she reduced Spain and theNetherlands to the position of inferior naval Powers. Having accomplished this,England concentrated all her forces against the increasing strength of France,until she brought about the downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte and therewithdestroyed the military hegemony of France, which was the most dangerous rivalthat England had to fear.
The change of attitude in Britishstatesmanship towards Germany took place only very slowly, not only because theGerman nation did not represent an obvious danger for England as long as itlacked national unification, but also because public opinion in England, whichhad been directed to other quarters by a system of propaganda that had beencarried out for a long time, could be turned to a new direction only by slowdegrees. In order to reach the proposed ends the calmly reflecting statesmanhad to bow to popular sentiment, which is the most powerful motive-force and isat the same time the most lasting in its energy. When the statesman hasattained one of his ends, he must immediately turn his thoughts to others; butonly by degrees and the slow work of propaganda can the sentiment of the massesbe shaped into an instrument for the attainment of the new aims which theirleaders have decided on.
As early as 1870–71 England haddecided on the new stand it would take. On certain occasions minor oscillationsin that policy were caused by the growing influence of America in thecommercial markets of the world and also by the increasing political power ofRussia; but, unfortunately, Germany did not take advantage of these and,therefore, the original tendency of British diplomacy was only reinforced.
England looked upon Germany as aPower which was of world importance commercially and politically and which,partly because of its enormous industrial development, assumed such threateningproportions that the two countries already contended against one another in thesame sphere and with equal energy. The so-called peaceful conquest of the worldby commercial enterprise, which, in the eyes of those who governed our publicaffairs at that time, represented the highest peak of human wisdom, was justthe thing that led English statesmen to adopt a policy of resistance. That thisresistance assumed the form of an organized aggression on a vast scale was infull conformity with a type of statesmanship which did not aim at themaintenance of a dubious world peace but aimed at the consolidation of Britishworld-hegemony. In carrying out this policy, England allied herself with thosecountries which had a definite military importance. And that was in keepingwith her traditional caution in estimating the power of her adversary and alsoin recognizing her own temporary weakness. That line of conduct cannot becalled unscrupulous; because such a comprehensive organization for war purposesmust not be judged from the heroic point of view but from that of expediency.The object of a diplomatic policy must not be to see that a nation goes downheroically but rather that it survives in a practical way. Hence every roadthat leads to this goal is opportune and the failure to take it must be lookedupon as a criminal neglect of duty.
When the German Revolution tookplace England’s fears of a German world hegemony came to a satisfactory end.
From that time it was not anEnglish interest to see Germany totally cancelled from the geographic map ofEurope. On the contrary, the astounding collapse which took place in November1918 found British diplomacy confronted with a situation which at firstappeared untenable.
For four-and-a-half years theBritish Empire had fought to break the presumed preponderance of a ContinentalPower. A sudden collapse now happened which removed this Power from theforeground of European affairs. That collapse disclosed itself finally in thelack of even the primordial instinct of self-preservation, so that Europeanequilibrium was destroyed within forty-eight hours. Germany was annihilated andFrance became the first political Power on the Continent of Europe.
The tremendous propaganda whichwas carried on during this war for the purpose of encouraging the Britishpublic to stick it out to the end aroused all the primitive instincts andpassions of the populace and was bound eventually to hang as a leaden weight onthe decisions of British statesmen. With the colonial, economical andcommercial destruction of Germany, England’s war aims were attained. Whateverwent beyond those aims was an obstacle to the furtherance of British interests.Only the enemies of England could profit by the disappearance of Germany as a GreatContinental Power in Europe. In November 1918, however, and up to the summer of1919, it was not possible for England to change its diplomatic attitude;because during the long war it had appealed, more than it had ever done before,to the feelings of the populace. In view of the feeling prevalent among its ownpeople, England could not change its foreign policy; and another reason whichmade that impossible was the military strength to which other European Powershad now attained. France had taken the direction of peace negotiations into herown hands and could impose her law upon the others. During those months ofnegotiations and bargaining the only Power that could have altered the coursewhich things were taking was Germany herself; but Germany was torn asunder by acivil war, and her so-called statesmen had declared themselves ready to acceptany and every dictate imposed on them.
Now, in the comity of nations,when one nation loses its instinct for self-preservation and ceases to be anactive member it sinks to the level of an enslaved nation and its territorywill have to suffer the fate of a colony.
To prevent the power of Francefrom becoming too great, the only form which English negotiations could take wasthat of participating in France’s lust for aggrandizement.
As a matter of fact, England didnot attain the ends for which she went to war. Not only did it turn outimpossible to prevent a Continental Power from obtaining a preponderance overthe ratio of strength in the Continental State system of Europe, but a largemeasure of preponderance had been obtained and firmly established.
In 1914 Germany, considered as amilitary State, was wedged in between two countries, one of which had equalmilitary forces at its disposal and the other had greater military resources.Then there was England’s overwhelming supremacy at sea. France and Russia alonehindered and opposed the excessive aggrandizement of Germany. The unfavourablegeographical situation of the Reich, from the military point of view, might belooked upon as another coefficient of security against an exaggerated increaseof German power. From the naval point of view, the configuration of thecoast-line was unfavourable in case of a conflict with England. And though themaritime frontier was short and cramped, the land frontier was widely extendedand open.
France’s position is differentto-day. It is the first military Power without a serious rival on theContinent. It is almost entirely protected by its southern frontier againstSpain and Italy. Against Germany it is safeguarded by the prostrate conditionof our country. A long stretch of its coast-line faces the vital nervous systemof the British Empire. Not only could French aeroplanes and long-rangebatteries attack the vital centres of the British system, but submarines canthreaten the great British commercial routes. A submarine campaign based onFrance’s long Atlantic coast and on the European and North African coasts ofthe Mediterranean would have disastrous consequences for England.
Thus the political results of thewar to prevent the development of German power was the creation of a Frenchhegemony on the Continent. The military result was the consolidation of Franceas the first Continental Power and the recognition of American equality on thesea. The economic result was the cession of great spheres of British intereststo her former allies and associates.
The Balkanization of Europe, up toa certain degree, was desirable and indeed necessary in the light of thetraditional policy of Great Britain, just as France desired the Balkanizationof Germany.
What England has always desired,and will continue to desire, is to prevent any one Continental Power in Europefrom attaining a position of world importance. Therefore England wishes tomaintain a definite equilibrium of forces among the European States – for thisequilibrium seems a necessary condition of England’s world-hegemony.
What France has always desired,and will continue to desire, is to prevent Germany from becoming a homogeneousPower. Therefore France wants to maintain a system of small German States whoseforces would balance one another and over which there should be no centralgovernment. Then, by acquiring possession of the left bank of the Rhine, shewould have fulfilled the pre-requisite conditions for the establishment andsecurity of her hegemony in Europe.
The final aims of French diplomacymust be in perpetual opposition to the final tendencies of British statesmanship.
Taking these considerations as astarting-point, anyone who investigates the possibilities that exist forGermany to find allies must come to the conclusion that there remains no otherway of forming an alliance except to approach England. The consequences ofEngland’s war policy were and are disastrous for Germany. However, we cannotclose our eyes to the fact that, as things stand to-day, the necessaryinterests of England no longer demand the destruction of Germany. On thecontrary, British diplomacy must tend more and more, from year to year, towardscurbing France’s unbridled lust after hegemony. Now, a policy of alliancescannot be pursued by bearing past grievances in mind, but it can be renderedfruitful by taking account of past experiences. Experience should have taughtus that alliances formed for negative purposes suffer from intrinsic weakness.The destinies of nations can be welded together only under the prospect of acommon success, of common gain and conquest, in short, a common extension ofpower for both contracting parties.
The ignorance of our people onquestions of foreign politics is clearly demonstrated by the reports in thedaily Press which talk about "friendship towards Germany" on the partof one or the other foreign statesman, whereby this professed friendship istaken as a special guarantee that such persons will champion a policy that willbe advantageous to our people. That kind of talk is absurd to an incredibledegree. It means speculating on the unparalleled simplicity of the averageGerman philistine when he comes to talking politics. There is not any British,American, or Italian statesman who could ever be described as ‘pro-German’.Every Englishman must naturally be British first of all. The same is true ofevery American. And no Italian statesman would be prepared to adopt a policythat was not pro-Italian. Therefore, anyone who expects to form alliances withforeign nations on the basis of a pro-German feeling among the statesmen ofother countries is either an ass or a deceiver. The necessary condition forlinking together the destinies of nations is never mutual esteem or mutualsympathy, but rather the prospect of advantages accruing to the contractingparties. It is true that a British statesman will always follow a pro-Britishand not a pro-German policy; but it is also true that certain definiteinterests involved in this pro-British policy may coincide on various groundswith German interests. Naturally that can be so only to a certain degree andthe situation may one day be completely reversed. But the art of statesmanshipis shown when at certain periods there is question of reaching a certain endand when allies are found who must take the same road in order to defend theirown interests.
The practical application of theseprinciples at the present time must depend on the answer given to the followingquestions: What States are not vitally interested in the fact that, by thecomplete abolition of a German Central Europe, the economic and military powerof France has reached a position of absolute hegemony? Which are the Statesthat, in consideration of the conditions which are essential to their ownexistence and in view of the tradition that has hitherto been followed inconducting their foreign policy, envisage such a development as a menace totheir own future?
Finally, we must be quite clear onthe following point: France is and will remain the implacable enemy of Germany.It does not matter what Governments have ruled or will rule in France, whetherBourbon or Jacobin, Napoleonic or Bourgeois-Democratic, Clerical Republican orRed Bolshevik, their foreign policy will always be directed towards acquiringpossession of the Rhine frontier and consolidating France’s position on thisriver by disuniting and dismembering Germany.
England did not want Germany to bea world Power. France desired that there should be no Power called Germany.Therefore there was a very essential difference. To-day we are not fighting forour position as a World-Power but only for the existence of our country, fornational unity and the daily bread of our children. Taking this point of viewinto consideration, only two States remain to us as possible allies in Europe –England and Italy.
England is not pleased to see aFrance on whose military power there is no check in Europe, so that one day shemight undertake the support of a policy which in some way or other might comeinto conflict with British interests. Nor can England be pleased to see Francein possession of such enormous coal and iron mines in Western Europe as wouldmake it possible for her one day to play a role in world-commerce which mightthreaten danger to British interests. Moreover, England can never be pleased tosee a France whose political position on the Continent, owing to thedismemberment of the rest of Europe, seems so absolutely assured that she isnot only able to resume a French world-policy on great lines but would evenfind herself compelled to do so. The bombs which were once dropped by theZeppelins might be multiplied by the thousand every night. The militarypredominance of France is a weight that presses heavily on the hearts of theWorld Empire over which Great Britain rules.
Nor can Italy desire, nor will shedesire, any further strengthening of France’s power in Europe. The future ofItaly will be conditioned by the development of events in the Mediterranean andby the political situation in the area surrounding that sea. The reason thatled Italy into the War was not a desire to contribute towards theaggrandizement of France but rather to deal her hated Adriatic rival a mortalblow. Any further increase of France’s power on the Continent would hamper thedevelopment of Italy’s future, and Italy does not deceive herself by thinkingthat racial kindred between the nations will in any way eliminate rivalries.
Serious and impartialconsideration proves that it is these two States, Great Britain and Italy,whose natural interests not only do not contrast with the conditions essentialto the existence of the German nation but are identical with them, to a certainextent.
But when we consider thepossibilities of alliances we must be careful not to lose sight of threefactors. The first factor concerns ourselves; the other two concern the twoStates I have mentioned.
Is it at all possible to concludean alliance with Germany as it is to-day? Can a Power which would enter into analliance for the purpose of securing assistance in an effort to carry out itsown offensive aims – can such a Power form an alliance with a State whoserulers have for years long presented a spectacle of deplorable incompetence andpacifist cowardice and where the majority of the people, blinded by democraticand Marxist teachings, betray the interests of their own people and country ina manner that cries to Heaven for vengeance? As things stand to-day, can anyPower hope to establish useful relations and hope to fight together for thefurtherance of their common interests with this State which manifestly hasneither the will nor the courage to move a finger even in the defence of itsbare existence? Take the case of a Power for which an alliance must be muchmore than a pact to guarantee a state of slow decomposition, such as happenedwith the old and disastrous Triple Alliance. Can such a Power associate itselffor life or death with a State whose most characteristic signs of activityconsist of a rampant servility in external relations and a scandalousrepression of the national spirit at home? Can such a Power be associated witha State in which there is nothing of greatness, because its whole policy doesnot deserve it? Or can alliances be made with Governments which are in thehands of men who are despised by their own fellow-citizens and consequently arenot respected abroad?
No. A self-respecting Power whichexpects something more from alliances than commissions for greedyParliamentarians will not and cannot enter into an alliance with ourpresent-day Germany. Our present inability to form alliances furnishes theprinciple and most solid basis for the combined action of the enemies who arerobbing us. Because Germany does not defend itself in any other way except bythe flamboyant protests of our parliamentarian elect, there is no reason whythe rest of the world should take up the fight in our defence. And God does notfollow the principle of granting freedom to a nation of cowards, despite allthe implications of our ‘patriotic’ associations. Therefore, for those Stateswhich have not a direct interest in our annihilation no other course remainsopen except to participate in France’s campaign of plunder, at least to make itimpossible for the strength of France to be exclusively aggrandized thereby.
In the second place, we must notforget that among the nations which were formerly our enemies mass-propagandahas turned the opinions and feelings of large sections of the population in afixed direction. When for years long a foreign nation has been presented to thepublic as a horde of ‘Huns’, ‘Robbers’, ‘Vandals’, etc., they cannot suddenlybe presented as something different, and the enemy of yesterday cannot berecommended as the ally of tomorrow.
But the third factor deservesgreater attention, since it is of essential importance for establishing futurealliances in Europe.
From the political point of viewit is not in the interests of Great Britain that Germany should be ruined evenstill more, but such a proceeding would be very much in the interests of theinternational money-markets manipulated by the Jew. The cleavage between theofficial, or rather traditional, British statesmanship and the controllinginfluence of the Jew on the money-markets is nowhere so clearly manifested asin the various attitudes taken towards problems of British foreign policy.Contrary to the interests and welfare of the British State, Jewish financedemands not only the absolute economic destruction of Germany but its completepolitical enslavement. The internationalization of our German economic system,that is to say, the transference of our productive forces to the control ofJewish international finance, can be completely carried out only in a Statethat has been politically Bolshevized. But the Marxist fighting forces,commanded by international and Jewish stock-exchange capital, cannot finallysmash the national resistance in Germany without friendly help from outside.For this purpose French armies would first have to invade and overcome theterritory of the German Reich until a state of international chaos would setin, and then the country would have to succumb to Bolshevik storm troops in theservice of Jewish international finance.
Hence it is that at the presenttime the Jew is the great agitator for the complete destruction of Germany.Whenever we read of attacks against Germany taking place in any part of theworld the Jew is always the instigator. In peace-time, as well as during theWar, the Jewish-Marxist stock-exchange Press systematically stirred up hatredagainst Germany, until one State after another abandoned its neutrality andplaced itself at the service of the world coalition, even against the realinterests of its own people.
The Jewish way of reasoning thusbecomes quite clear. The Bolshevization of Germany, that is to say, theextermination of the patriotic and national German intellectuals, thus makingit possible to force German Labour to bear the yoke of international Jewishfinance – that is only the overture to the movement for expanding Jewish poweron a wider scale and finally subjugating the world to its rule. As has so oftenhappened in history, Germany is the chief pivot of this formidable struggle. Ifour people and our State should fall victims to these oppressors of thenations, lusting after blood and money, the whole earth would become the preyof that hydra. Should Germany be freed from its grip, a great menace for thenations of the world would thereby be eliminated.
It is certain that Jewry uses allits subterranean activities not only for the purpose of keeping alive oldnational enmities against Germany but even to spread them farther and renderthem more acute wherever possible. It is no less certain that these activitiesare only very partially in keeping with the true interests of the nations amongwhose people the poison is spread. As a general principle, Jewry carries on itscampaign in the various countries by the use of arguments that are bestcalculated to appeal to the mentality of the respective nations and are mostlikely to produce the desired results; for Jewry knows what the public feelingis in each country. Our national stock has been so much adulterated by themixture of alien elements that, in its fight for power, Jewry can make use ofthe more or less ‘cosmopolitan’ circles which exist among us, inspired by thepacifist and international ideologies. In France they exploit the well-knownand accurately estimated chauvinistic spirit. In England they exploit thecommercial and world-political outlook. In short, they always work upon theessential characteristics that belong to the mentality of each nation. Whenthey have in this way achieved a decisive influence in the political andeconomic spheres they can drop the limitations which their former tacticsnecessitated, now disclosing their real intentions and the ends for which theyare fighting. Their work of destruction now goes ahead more quickly, reducingone State after another to a mass of ruins on which they will erect theeverlasting and sovereign Jewish Empire.
In England, and in Italy, thecontrast between the better kind of solid statesmanship and the policy of theJewish stock-exchange often becomes strikingly evident.
Only in France there exists to-daymore than ever before a profound accord between the views of thestock-exchange, controlled by the Jews, and the chauvinistic policy pursued byFrench statesmen. This identity of views constitutes an immense, danger forGermany. And it is just for this reason that France is and will remain by farthe most dangerous enemy. The French people, who are becoming more and moreobsessed by negroid ideas, represent a threatening menace to the existence ofthe white race in Europe, because they are bound up with the Jewish campaignfor world-domination. For the contamination caused by the influx of negroidblood on the Rhine, in the very heart of Europe, is in accord with the sadistand perverse lust for vengeance on the part of the hereditary enemy of ourpeople, just as it suits the purpose of the cool calculating Jew who would usethis means of introducing a process of bastardization in the very centre of theEuropean Continent and, by infecting the white race with the blood of aninferior stock, would destroy the foundations of its independent existence.
France’s activities in Europeto-day, spurred on by the French lust for vengeance and systematically directedby the Jew, are a criminal attack against the life of the white race and willone day arouse against the French people a spirit of vengeance among ageneration which will have recognized the original sin of mankind in this racialpollution.
As far as concerns Germany, thedanger which France represents involves the duty of relegating all sentiment toa subordinate place and extending the hand to those who are threatened with thesame menace and who are not willing to suffer or tolerate France’s lust forhegemony.
For a long time yet to come therewill be only two Powers in Europe with which it may be possible for Germany toconclude an alliance. These Powers are Great Britain and Italy.
If we take the trouble to cast aglance backwards on the way in which German foreign policy has been conductedsince the Revolution we must, in view of the constant and incomprehensible actsof submission on the part. of our governments, either lose heart or becomefired with rage and take up the cudgels against such a regime. Their way ofacting cannot be attributed to a want of understanding, because what seemed toevery thinking man to be inconceivable was accomplished by the leaders of theNovember parties with their Cyclopean intellects. They bowed to France andbegged her favour. Yes, during all these recent years, with the touchingsimplicity of incorrigible visionaries, they went on their knees to Franceagain and again. They perpetuaily wagged their tails before the Grande Nation.And in each trick-o’-the-loop which the French hangmen performed with his ropethey recognized a visible change of feeling. Our real political wire-pullersnever shared in this absurd credulity. The idea of establishing a friendshipwith France was for them only a means of thwarting every attempt on Germany’spart to adopt a practical policy of alliances. They had no illusions aboutFrench aims or those of the men behind the scenes in France. What induced themto take up such an attitude and to act as if they honestly believed that thefate of Germany could possibly be changed in this way was the cool calculationthat if this did not happen our people might take the reins into their ownhands and choose another road.
Of course it is difficult for usto propose England as our possible ally in the future. Our Jewish Press hasalways been adept in concentrating hatred against England particularly. Andmany of our good German simpletons perch on these branches which the Jews havelimed to capture them. They babble about a restoration of German sea power andprotest against the robbery of our colonies. Thus they furnish material whichthe contriving Jew transmits to his clansmen in England, so that it can be usedthere for purposes of practical propaganda. For our simple-minded bourgeoisiewho indulge in politics can take in only little by little the idea that to-daywe have not to fight for ‘sea-power’ and such things. Even before the War itwas absurd to direct the national energies of Germany towards this end withoutfirst having secured our position in Europe. Such a hope to-day reaches thatpeak of absurdity which may be called criminal in the domain of politics.
Often one becomes really desperateon seeing how the Jewish wire-pullers succeeded in concentrating the attentionof the people on things which are only of secondary importance to-day, Theyincited the people to demonstrations and protests while at the same time Francewas tearing our nation asunder bit by bit and systematically removing the veryfoundations of our national independence.
In this connection I have to thinkof the Wooden Horse in the riding of which the Jew showed extraordinary skillduring these years. I mean South Tyrol.
Yes, South Tyrol. The reason why Itake up this question here is just because I want to call to account thatshameful canaille who relied on the ignorance and short memories of largesections of our people and stimulated a national indignation which is asforeign to the real character of our parliamentary impostors as the idea ofrespect for private property is to a magpie.
I should like to state here that Iwas one of those who, at the time when the fate of South Tyrol was beingdecided – that is to say, from August 1914 to November 1918 – took my placewhere that country also could have been effectively defended, namely, in theArmy. I did my share in the fighting during those years, not merely to saveSouth Tyrol from being lost but also to save every other German province forthe Fatherland.
The parliamentary sharpers did nottake part in that combat. The whole canaille played party politics. On theother hand, we carried on the fight in the belief that a victorious issue ofthe War would enable the German nation to keep South Tyrol also; but theloud-mouthed traitor carried on a seditious agitation against such a victoriousissue, until the fighting Siegfried succumbed to the dagger plunged in hisback. It was only natural that the inflammatory and hypocritical speeches of theelegantly dressed parliamentarians on the Vienna Rathaus Platz or in front ofthe Feldherrnhalle in Munich could not save South Tyrol for Germany. That couldbe done only by the fighting battalions at the Front. Those who broke up thatfighting front betrayed South Tyrol, as well as the other districts of Germany.
Anyone who thinks that the SouthTyrol question can be solved to-day by protests and manifestations andprocessions organized by various associations is either a humbug or merely aGerman philistine.
In this regard it must be quiteclearly understood that we cannot get back the territories we have lost if wedepend on solemn imprecations before the throne of the Almighty God or on pioushopes in a League of Nations, but only by the force of arms.
Therefore the only remainingquestion is: Who is ready to take up arms for the restoration of the lostterritories?
As far as concerns myselfpersonally, I can state with a good conscience that I would have courage enoughto take part in a campaign for the reconquest of South Tyrol, at the head ofparliamentarian storm battalions consisting of parliamentarian gasconaders andall the party leaders, also the various Councillors of State. Only the Devilknows whether I might have the luck of seeing a few shells suddenly burst overthis ‘burning’ demonstration of protest. I think that if a fox were to breakinto a poultry yard his presence would not provoke such a helter-skelter andrush to cover as we should witness in the band of ‘protesters’.
The vilest part of it all is thatthese talkers themselves do not believe that anything can be achieved in thisway. Each one of them knows very well how harmless and ineffective their wholepretence is. They do it only because it is easier now to babble about the restorationof South Tyrol than to fight for its preservation in days gone by.
Each one plays the part that he isbest capable of playing in life. In those days we offered our blood. To-daythese people are engaged in whetting their tusks.
It is particularly interesting tonote to-day how legitimist circles in Vienna preen themselves on their work forthe restoration of South Tyrol. Seven years ago their august and illustriousDynasty helped, by an act of perjury and treason, to make it possible for the victoriousworld-coalition to take away South Tyrol. At that time these circles supportedthe perfidious policy adopted by their Dynasty and did not trouble themselvesin the least about the fate of South Tyrol or any other province. Naturally itis easier to-day to take up the fight for this territory, since the presentstruggle is waged with ‘the weapons of the mind’. Anyhow, it is easier to joinin a ‘meeting of protestation’ and talk yourself hoarse in giving vent to thenoble indignation that fills your breast, or stain your finger with the writingof a newspaper article, than to blow up a bridge, for instance, during theoccupation of the Ruhr.
The reason why certain circleshave made the question of South Tyrol the pivot of German-Italian relations duringthe past few years is quite evident. Jews and Habsburg legitimists are greatlyinterested in preventing Germany from pursuing a policy of alliance which mightlead one day to the resurgence of a free German fatherland. It is not out oflove for South Tyrol that they play this role to-day – for their policy wouldturn out detrimental rather than helpful to the interests of that province –but through fear of an agreement being established between Germany and Italy.
A tendency towards lying andcalumny lies in the nature of these people, and that explains how they cancalmly and brazenly attempt to twist things in such a way as to make it appearthat we have ‘betrayed’ South Tyrol.
There is one clear answer thatmust be given to these gentlemen. It is this: Tyrol has been betrayed, in thefirst place, by every German who was sound in limb and body and did not offerhimself for service at the Front during 1914–1918 to do his duty towards hiscountry.
In the second place, Tyrol wasbetrayed by every man who, during those years did not help to reinforce thenational spirit and the national powers of resistance, so as to enable thecountry to carry through the War and keep up the fight to the very end.
In the third place, South Tyrolwas betrayed by everyone who took part in the November Revolution, eitherdirectly by his act or indirectly by a cowardly toleration of it, and thusbroke the sole weapon that could have saved South Tyrol.
In the fourth place, South Tyrolwas betrayed by those parties and their adherents who put their signatures tothe disgraceful treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.
And so the matter stands, my bravegentlemen, who make your protests only with words.
To-day I am guided by a calm andcool recognition of the fact that the lost territories cannot be won back bythe whetted tongues of parliamentary spouters but only by the whetted sword; inother words, through a fight where blood will have to be shed.
Now, I have no hesitations insaying that to-day, once the die has been cast, it is not only impossible towin back South Tyrol through a war but I should definitely take my standagainst such a movement, because I am convinced that it would not be possibleto arouse the national enthusiasm of the German people and maintain it in sucha way as would be necessary in order to carry through such a war to asuccessful issue. On the contrary, I believe that if we have to shed Germanblood once again it would be criminal to do so for the sake of liberating200,000 Germans, when more than seven million neighbouring Germans aresuffering under foreign domination and a vital artery of the German nation hasbecome a playground for hordes of African niggers.
If the German nation is to put anend to a state of things which threatens to wipe it off the map of Europe itmust not fall into the errors of the pre-War period and make the whole worldits enemy. But it must ascertain who is its most dangerous enemy so that it canconcentrate all its forces in a struggle to beat him. And if, in order to carrythrough this struggle to victory, sacrifices should be made in other quarters,future generations will not condemn us for that. They will take account of themiseries and anxieties which led us to make such a bitter decision, and in thelight of that consideration they will more clearly recognize the brilliancy ofour success.
Again I must say here that we mustalways be guided by the fundamental principle that, as a preliminary to winningback lost provinces, the political independence and strength of the motherlandmust first be restored.
The first task which has to beaccomplished is to make that independence possible and to secure it by a wisepolicy of alliances, which presupposes an energetic management of our publicaffairs.
But it is just on this point thatwe, National Socialists, have to guard against being dragged into the tow ofour ranting bourgeois patriots who take their cue from the Jew. It would be adisaster if, instead of preparing for the coming struggle, our Movement alsowere to busy itself with mere protests by word of mouth.
It was the fantastic idea of aNibelungen alliance with the decomposed body of the Habsburg State that broughtabout Germany’s ruin. Fantastic sentimentality in dealing with the possibilitiesof foreign policy to-day would be the best means of preventing our revival forinnumerable years to come.
Here I must briefly answer theobjections which may be raised in regard to the three questions I have put.
1. Is it possible at all to forman alliance with the present Germany, whose weakness is so visible to all eyes?
2. Can the ex-enemy nations changetheir attitude towards Germany?
3. In other nations is not theinfluence of Jewry stronger than the recognition of their own interests, anddoes not this influence thwart all their good intentions and render all theirplans futile?
I think that I have already dealtadequately with one of the two aspects of the first point. Of course nobodywill enter into an alliance with the present Germany. No Power in the worldwould link its fortunes with a State whose government does not afford groundsfor the slightest confidence. As regards the attempt which has been made bymany of our compatriots to explain the conduct of the Government by referringto the woeful state of public feeling and thus excuse such conduct, I muststrongly object to that way of looking at things.
The lack of character which ourpeople have shown during the last six years is deeply distressing. Theindifference with which they have treated the most urgent necessities of ournation might veritably lead one to despair. Their cowardice is such that itoften cries to heaven for vengeance. But one must never forget that we aredealing with a people who gave to the world, a few years previously, anadmirable example of the highest human qualities. From the first days of August1914 to the end of the tremendous struggle between the nations, no people inthe world gave a better proof of manly courage, tenacity and patient endurance,than this people gave who are so cast down and dispirited to-day. Nobody willdare to assert that the lack of character among our people to-day is typical ofthem. What we have to endure to-day, among us and around us, is due only to theinfluence of the sad and distressing effects that followed the high treasoncommitted on November 9th, 1918. More than ever before the word of the poet istrue: that evil can only give rise to evil. But even in this epoch thosequalities among our people which are fundamentally sound are not entirely lost.They slumber in the depths of the national conscience, and sometimes in theclouded firmament we see certain qualities like shining lights which Germanywill one day remember as the first symptoms of a revival. We often see youngGermans assembling and forming determined resolutions, as they did in 1914,freely and willingly to offer themselves as a sacrifice on the altar of theirbeloved Fatherland. Millions of men have resumed work, whole-heartedly andzealously, as if no revolution had ever affected them. The smith is at hisanvil once again. And the farmer drives his plough. The scientist is in hislaboratory. And everybody is once again attending to his duty with the samezeal and devotion as formerly.
The oppression which we sufferfrom at the hands of our enemies is no longer taken, as it formerly was, as amatter for laughter; but it is resented with bitterness and anger. There can beno doubt that a great change of attitude has taken place.
This evolution has not yet takenthe shape of a conscious intention and movement to restore the political powerand independence of our nation; but the blame for this must be attributed tothose utterly incompetent people who have no natural endowments to qualify themfor statesmanship and yet have been governing our nation since 1918 and leadingit to ruin.
Yes. If anybody accuses our peopleto-day he ought to be asked: What is being done to help them? What are we tosay of the poor support which the people give to any measures introduced by theGovernment? Is it not true that such a thing as a Government hardly exists atall? And must we consider the poor support which it receives as a sign of alack of vitality in the nation itself; or is it not rather a proof of the completefailure of the methods employed in the management of this valuable trust? Whathave our Governments done to re-awaken in the nation a proud spirit ofself-assertion, up-standing manliness, and a spirit of righteous defiancetowards its enemies?
In 1919, when the Peace Treaty wasimposed on the German nation, there were grounds for hoping that thisinstrument of unrestricted oppression would help to reinforce the outcry forthe freedom of Germany. Peace treaties which make demands that fall like a whip-lashon the people turn out not infrequently to be the signal of a future revival.
To what purpose could the Treatyof Versailles have been exploited?
In the hands of a willingGovernment, how could this instrument of unlimited blackmail and shameful humiliationhave been applied for the purpose of arousing national sentiment to its highestpitch? How could a well-directed system of propaganda have utilized the sadistcruelty of that treaty so as to change the indifference of the people to afeeling of indignation and transform that indignation into a spirit ofdauntless resistance?
Each point of that Treaty couldhave been engraved on the minds and hearts of the German people and burned intothem until sixty million men and women would find their souls aflame with afeeling of rage and shame; and a torrent of fire would burst forth as from afurnace, and one common will would be forged from it, like a sword of steel.Then the people would join in the common cry: "To arms again!"
Yes. A treaty of that kind can beused for such a purpose. Its unbounded oppression and its impudent demands werean excellent propaganda weapon to arouse the sluggish spirit of the nation andrestore its vitality.
Then, from the child’s story-bookto the last newspaper in the country, and every theatre and cinema, everypillar where placards are posted and every free space on the hoardings shouldbe utilized in the service of this one great mission, until the faint-heartedcry, "Lord, deliver us," which our patriotic associations send up toHeaven to-day would be transformed into an ardent prayer: "Almighty God,bless our arms when the hour comes. Be just, as Thou hast always been just.Judge now if we deserve our freedom. Lord, bless our struggle."
All opportunities were neglectedand nothing was done.
Who will be surprised now if ourpeople are not such as they should be or might be? The rest of the world looksupon us only as its valet, or as a kindly dog that will lick its master’s handafter he has been whipped.
Of course the possibilities offorming alliances with other nations are hampered by the indifference of ourown people, but much more by our Governments. They have been and are so corruptthat now, after eight years of indescribable oppression, there exists only a faintdesire for liberty.
In order that our nation mayundertake a policy of alliances, it must restore its prestige among othernations, and it must have an authoritative Government that is not a drudge inthe service of foreign States and the taskmaster of its own people, but ratherthe herald of the national will.
If our people had a governmentwhich would look upon this as its mission, six years would not have passedbefore a courageous foreign policy on the part of the Reich would find acorresponding support among the people, whose desire for freedom would beencouraged and intensified thereby.
The third objection referred tothe difficulty of changing the ex-enemy nations into friendly allies. Thatobjection may be answered as follows:
The general anti-German psychosiswhich has developed in other countries through the war propaganda must ofnecessity continue to exist as long as there is not a renaissance of thenational conscience among the German people, so that the German Reich may onceagain become a State which is able to play its part on the chess-board ofEuropean politics and with whom the others feel that they can play. Only whenthe Government and the people feel absolutely certain of being able toundertake a policy of alliances can one Power or another, whose interestscoincide with ours, think of instituting a system of propaganda for the purposeof changing public opinion among its own people. Naturally it will take severalyears of persevering and ably directed work to reach such a result. Justbecause a long period is needed in order to change the public opinion of acountry, it is necessary to reflect calmly before such an enterprise beundertaken. This means that one must not enter upon this kind of work unlessone is absolutely convinced that it is worth the trouble and that it will bringresults which will be valuable in the future. One must not try to change theopinions and feelings of a people by basing one’s actions on the vain cajoleryof a more or less brilliant Foreign Minister, but only if there be a tangibleguarantee that the new orientation will be really useful. Otherwise publicopinion in the country dealt with may be just thrown into a state of completeconfusion. The most reliable guarantee that can be given for the possibility ofsubsequently entering into an alliance with a certain State cannot be found inthe loquacious suavity of some individual member of the Government, but in themanifest stability of a definite and practical policy on the part of theGovernment as a whole, and in the support which is given to that policy by thepublic opinion of the country. The faith of the public in this policy will bestrengthened all the more if the Government organize one active propaganda toexplain its efforts and secure public support for them, and if public opinionfavourably responds to the Government’s policy.
Therefore a nation in such aposition as ours will be looked upon as a possible ally if public opinionsupports the Government’s policy and if both are united in the sameenthusiastic determination to carry through the fight for national freedom.That condition of affairs must be firmly established before any attempt can bemade to change public opinion in other countries which, for the sake ofdefending their most elementary interests, are disposed to take the roadshoulder-to-shoulder with a companion who seems able to play his part indefending those interests. In other words, this means that they will be readyto establish an alliance.
For this purpose, however, onething is necessary. Seeing that the task of bringing about a radical change inthe public opinion of a country calls for hard work, and many do not at firstunderstand what it means, it would be both foolish and criminal to commitmistakes which could be used as weapons in the hands of those who are opposedto such a change.
One must recognize the fact thatit takes a long time for a people to understand completely the inner purposeswhich a Government has in view, because it is not possible to explain theultimate aims of the preparations that are being made to carry through acertain policy. In such cases the Government has to count on the blind faith ofthe masses or the intuitive instinct of the ruling caste that is more developedintellectually. But since many people lack this insight, this political acumenand faculty for seeing into the trend of affairs, and since politicalconsiderations forbid a public explanation of why such and such a course isbeing followed, a certain number of leaders in intellectual circles will alwaysoppose new tendencies which, because they are not easily grasped, can bepointed to as mere experiments. And that attitude arouses opposition amongconservative circles regarding the measures in question.
For this reason a strict dutydevolves upon everybody not to allow any weapon to fall into the hands of thosewho would interfere with the work of bringing about a mutual understanding withother nations. This is specially so in our case, where we have to deal with thepretentions and fantastic talk of our patriotic associations and our smallbourgeoisie who talk politics in the cafes. That the cry for a new war fleet,the restoration of our colonies, etc., has no chance of ever being carried outin practice will not be denied by anyone who thinks over the matter calmly andseriously. These harmless and sometimes half-crazy spouters in the war ofprotests are serving the interests of our mortal enemy, while the manner inwhich their vapourings are exploited for political purposes in England cannotbe considered as advantageous to Germany.
They squander their energies infutile demonstrations against the whole world. These demonstrations are harmfulto our interests and those who indulge in them forget the fundamental principlewhich is a preliminary condition of all success. What thou doest, do itthoroughly. Because we keep on howling against five or ten States we fail toconcentrate all the forces of our national will and our physical strength for ablow at the heart of our bitterest enemy. And in this way we sacrifice thepossibility of securing an alliance which would reinforce our strength for thatdecisive conflict.
Here, too, there is a mission forNational Socialism to fulfil. It must teach our people not to fix their attentionon the little things but rather on the great things, not to exhaust theirenergies on secondary objects, and not to forget that the object we shall haveto fight for one day is the bare existence of our people and that the soleenemy we shall have to strike at is that Power which is robbing us of thisexistence.
It may be that we shall have manya heavy burden to bear. But this is by no means an excuse for refusing tolisten to reason and raise nonsensical outcries against the rest of the world, insteadof concentrating all our forces against the most deadly enemy.
Moreover, the German people willhave no moral right to complain of the manner in which the rest of the worldacts towards them, as long as they themselves have not called to account thosecriminals who sold and betrayed their own country. We cannot hope to be takenvery seriously if we indulge in long-range abuse and protests against Englandand Italy and then allow those scoundrels to circulate undisturbed in our owncountry who were in the pay of the enemy war propaganda, took the weapons outof our hands, broke the backbone of our resistance and bartered away the Reichfor thirty pieces of silver.
The enemy did only what wasexpected. And we ought to learn from the stand he took and the way he acted.
Anyone who cannot rise to thelevel of this outlook must reflect that otherwise there would remain nothingelse than to renounce the idea of adopting any policy of alliances for thefuture. For if we cannot form an alliance with England because she has robbedus of our colonies, or with Italy because she has taken possession of SouthTyrol, or with Poland or Czechoslovakia, then there remains no otherpossibility of an alliance in Europe except with France which, inter alia, hasrobbed us of Alsace and Lorraine.
There can scarcely be any doubt asto whether this last alternative would be advantageous to the interests of theGerman people. But if it be defended by somebody one is always doubtful whetherthat person be merely a simpleton or an astute rogue.
As far as concerns the leaders inthese activities, I think the latter hypothesis is true.
A change in public feeling amongthose nations which have hitherto been enemies and whose true interests willcorrespond in the future with ours could be effected, as far as humancalculation goes, if the internal strength of our State and our manifestdetermination to secure our own existence made it clear that we should bevaluable allies. Moreover, it is necessary that our incompetent way of doingthings and our criminal conduct in some matters should not furnish groundswhich may be utilized for purposes of propaganda by those who would oppose ourprojects of establishing an alliance with one or other of our former enemies.
The answer to the third questionis still more difficult: Is it conceivable that they who represent the trueinterests of those nations which may possibly form an alliance with us couldput their views into practice against the will of the Jew, who is the mortalenemy of national and independent popular States?
For instance, could themotive-forces of Great Britain’s traditional statesmanship smash the disastrousinfluence of the Jew, or could they not?
This question, as I have alreadysaid, is very difficult to answer. The answer depends on so many factors thatit is impossible to form a conclusive judgment. Anyhow, one thing is certain:The power of the Government in a given State and at a definite period may be sofirmly established in the public estimation and so absolutely at the service ofthe country’s interests that the forces of international Jewry could notpossibly organize a real and effective obstruction against measures consideredto be politically necessary.
The fight which Fascist Italywaged against Jewry’s three principal weapons, the profound reasons for whichmay not have been consciously understood (though I do not believe this myself)furnishes the best proof that the poison fangs of that Power which transcendsall State boundaries are being drawn, even though in an indirect way. Theprohibition of Freemasonry and secret societies, the suppression of thesupernational Press and the definite abolition of Marxism, together with thesteadily increasing consolidation of the Fascist concept of the State – all thiswill enable the Italian Government, in the course of some years, to advancemore and more the interests of the Italian people without paying any attentionto the hissing of the Jewish world-hydra.
The English situation is not sofavourable. In that country which has ‘the freest democracy’ the Jew dictateshis will, almost unrestrained but indirectly, through his influence on publicopinion. And yet there is a perpetual struggle in England between those who areentrusted with the defence of State interests and the protagonists of Jewishworld-dictatorship.
After the War it became clear forthe first time how sharp this contrast is, when British statesmanship took onestand on the Japanese problem and the Press took a different stand.
Just after the War had ceased theold mutual antipathy between America and Japan began to reappear. Naturally thegreat European Powers could not remain indifferent to this new war menace. InEngland, despite the ties of kinship, there was a certain amount of jealousy andanxiety over the growing importance of the United States in all spheres ofinternational economics and politics. What was formerly a colonial territory,the daughter of a great mother, seemed about to become the new mistress of theworld. It is quite understandable that to-day England should re-examine her oldalliances and that British statesmanship should look anxiously to the danger ofa coming moment when the cry would no longer be: "Britain rules thewaves", but rather: "The Seas belong to the United States".
The gigantic North American State,with the enormous resources of its virgin soil, is much more invulnerable thanthe encircled German Reich. Should a day come when the die which will finallydecide the destinies of the nations will have to be cast in that country,England would be doomed if she stood alone. Therefore she eagerly reaches outher hand to a member of the yellow race and enters an alliance which, from theracial point of view is perhaps unpardonable; but from the political viewpointit represents the sole possibility of reinforcing Britain’s world position inface of the strenuous developments taking place on the American continent.
Despite the fact that they foughtside by side on the European battlefields, the British Government did notdecide to conclude an alliance with the Asiatic partner, yet the whole JewishPress opposed the idea of a Japanese alliance.
How can we explain the fact thatup to 1918 the Jewish Press championed the policy of the British Governmentagainst the German Reich and then suddenly began to take its own way and showeditself disloyal to the Government?
It was not in the interests ofGreat Britain to have Germany annihilated, but primarily a Jewish interest. Andto-day the destruction of Japan would serve British political interests lessthan it would serve the far-reaching intentions of those who are leading themovement that hopes to establish a Jewish world-empire. While England is usingall her endeavours to maintain her position in the world, the Jew is organizinghis aggressive plans for the conquest of it.
He already sees the presentEuropean States as pliant instruments in his hands, whether indirectly throughthe power of so-called Western Democracy or in the form of a direct dominationthrough Russian Bolshevism. But it is not only the old world that he holds inhis snare; for a like fate threatens the new world. Jews control the financialforces of America on the stock exchange. Year after year the Jew increases hishold on Labour in a nation of 120 million souls. But a very small section stillremains quite independent and is thus the cause of chagrin to the Jew.
The Jews show consummate skill inmanipulating public opinion and using it as an instrument in fighting for theirown future.
The great leaders of Jewry areconfident that the day is near at hand when the command given in the OldTestament will be carried out and the Jews will devour the other nations of theearth.
Among this great mass ofdenationalized countries which have become Jewish colonies one independentState could bring about the ruin of the whole structure at the last moment. Thereason for doing this would be that Bolshevism as a world-system cannotcontinue to exist unless it encompasses the whole earth. Should one State preserveits national strength and its national greatness the empire of the Jewishsatrapy, like every other tyranny, would have to succumb to the force of thenational idea.
As a result of his millennialexperience in accommodating himself to surrounding circumstances, the Jew knowsvery well that he can undermine the existence of European nations by a processof racial bastardization, but that he could hardly do the same to a nationalAsiatic State like Japan. To-day he can ape the ways of the German and theEnglishman, the American and the Frenchman, but he has no means of approach tothe yellow Asiatic. Therefore he seeks to destroy the Japanese national Stateby using other national States as his instruments, so that he may rid himselfof a dangerous opponent before he takes over supreme control of the lastnational State and transforms that control into a tyranny for the oppression ofthe defenceless.
He does not want to see a nationalJapanese State in existence when he founds his millennial empire of the future,and therefore he wants to destroy it before establishing his own dictatorship.
And so he is busy to-day instirring up antipathy towards Japan among the other nations, as he stirred itup against Germany. Thus it may happen that while British statesmanship isstill endeavouring to ground its policy in the alliance with Japan, the JewishPress in Great Britain may be at the same time leading a hostile movementagainst that ally and preparing for a war of destruction by pretending that itis for the triumph of democracy and at the same time raising the war-cry: Downwith Japanese militarism and imperialism.
Thus in England to-day the Jewopposes the policy of the State. And for this reason the struggle against theJewish world-danger will one day begin also in that country.
And here again the NationalSocialist Movement has a tremendous task before it.
It must open the eyes of ourpeople in regard to foreign nations and it must continually remind them of thereal enemy who menaces the world to-day. In place of preaching hatred againstAryans from whom we may be separated on almost every other ground but with whomthe bond of kindred blood and the main features of a common civilization uniteus, we must devote ourselves to arousing general indignation against themaleficent enemy of humanity and the real author of all our sufferings.
The National Socialist Movementmust see to it that at least in our own country the mortal enemy is recognizedand that the fight against him may be a beacon light pointing to a new andbetter period for other nations as well as showing the way of salvation forAryan humanity in the struggle for its existence.
Finally, may reason be our guideand will-power our strength. And may the sacred duty of directing our conductas I have pointed out give us perseverance and tenacity; and may our faith beour supreme protection.
CHAPTERXIV
GERMANY’S POLICY IN EASTERN EUROPE
There are two considerations whichinduce me to make a special analysis of Germany’s position in regard to Russia.These are:
(1) This may prove to be the mostdecisive point in determining Germany’s foreign policy.
(2) The problem which has to besolved in this connection is also a touchstone to test the political capacityof the young National Socialist Movement for clear thinking and acting alongthe right lines.
I must confess that the secondconsideration has often been a source of great anxiety to me. The members ofour movement are not recruited from circles which are habitually indifferent topublic affairs, but mostly from among men who hold more or less extreme views.Such being the case, it is only natural that their understanding of foreignpolitics should suffer from the prejudice and inadequate knowledge of thosecircles to which they were formerly attached by political and ideological ties.And this is true not merely of the men who come to us from the Left. On thecontrary, however subversive may have been the kind of teaching they formerlyreceived in regard to these problems, in very many cases this was at leastpartly counterbalanced by the residue of sound and natural instincts whichremained. In such cases it is only necessary to substitute a better teaching inplace of the earlier influences, in order to transform the instinct of self-preservationand other sound instincts into valuable assets.
On the other hand, it is much moredifficult to impress definite political ideas on the minds of men whose earlierpolitical education was not less nonsensical and illogical than that given tothe partisans of the Left. These men have sacrificed the last residue of theirnatural instincts to the worship of some abstract and entirely objectivetheory. It is particularly difficult to induce these representatives of ourso-called intellectual circles to take a realistic and logical view of theirown interests and the interests of their nation in its relations with foreigncountries. Their minds are overladen with a huge burden of prejudices andabsurd ideas and they have lost or renounced every instinct ofself-preservation. With those men also the National Socialist Movement has tofight a hard battle. And the struggle is all the harder because, though veryoften they are utterly incompetent, they are so self-conceited that, withoutthe slightest justification, they look down with disdain on ordinarycommonsense people. These arrogant snobs who pretend to know better than otherpeople, are wholly incapable of calmly and coolly analysing a problem andweighing its pros and cons, which are the necessary preliminaries of anydecision or action in the field of foreign politics.
It is just this circle which isbeginning to-day to divert our foreign policy into most disastrous directionsand turn it away from the task of promoting the real interests of the nation.Seeing that they do this in order to serve their own fantastic ideologies, Ifeel myself obliged to take the greatest pains in laying before my owncolleagues a clear exposition of the most important problem in our foreignpolicy, namely, our position in relation to Russia. I shall deal with it,asthoroughly as may be necessary to make it generally understood and as far asthe limits of this book permit. Let me begin by laying down the followingpostulate:
When we speak of foreign politicswe understand that domain of government which has set before it the task ofmanaging the affairs of a nation in its relations with the rest of the world.Now the guiding principles which must be followed in managing these affairsmust be based on the definite facts that are at hand. Moreover, as NationalSocialists, we must lay down the following axiom regarding the manner in whichthe foreign policy of a People’s State should be conducted:
The foreign policy of a People’sState must first of all bear in mind the duty of securing the existence of therace which is incorporated in this State. And this must be done by establishinga healthy and natural proportion between the number and growth of thepopulation on the one hand and the extent and resources of the territory theyinhabit, on the other. That balance must be such that it accords with the vitalnecessities of the people.
What I call a healthy proportionis that in which the support of a people is guaranteed by the resources of itsown soil and sub-soil. Any situation which falls short of this condition isnone the less unhealthy even though it may endure for centuries or even athousand years. Sooner or later, this lack of proportion must of necessity leadto the decline or even annihilation of the people concerned.
Only a sufficiently large space onthis earth can assure the independent existence of a people.
The extent of the territorialexpansion that may be necessary for the settlement of the national populationmust not be estimated by present exigencies nor even by the magnitude of itsagricultural productivity in relation to the number of the population. In thefirst volume of this book, under the heading "Germany’s Policy ofAlliances before the War," I have already explained that the geometrical dimensionsof a State are of importance not only as the source of the nation’s foodstuffsand raw materials, but also from the political and military standpoints. Once apeople is assured of being able to maintain itself from the resources of thenational territory, it must think of how this national territory can bedefended. National security depends on the political strength of a State, andthis strength, in its turn, depends on the military possibilities inherent inthe geographical situation.
Thus the German nation couldassure its own future only by being a World Power. For nearly two thousandyears the defence of our national interests was a matter of world history, ascan be seen from our more or less successful activities in the field of foreignpolitics. We ourselves have been witnesses to this, seeing that the giganticstruggle that went on from 1914 to 1918 was only the struggle of the Germanpeople for their existence on this earth, and it was carried out in such a waythat it has become known in history as the World War.
When Germany entered this struggleit was presumed that she was a World Power. I say presumed, because in realityshe was no such thing. In 1914, if there had been a different proportionbetween the German population and its territorial area, Germany would have beenreally a World Power and, if we leave other factors out of count, the War wouldhave ended in our favour.
It is not my task nor my intentionhere to discuss what would have happened if certain conditions had been fulfilled.But I feel it absolutely incumbent on me to show the present conditions intheir bare and unadorned reality, insisting on the weakness inherent in them,so that at least in the ranks of the National Socialist Movement they shouldreceive the necessary recognition.
Germany is not at all a WorldPower to-day. Even though our present military weakness could be overcome, westill would have no claim to be called a World Power. What importance on earthhas a State in which the proportion between the size of the population and theterritorial area is so miserable as in the present German Reich? At an epoch inwhich the world is being gradually portioned out among States many of whomalmost embrace whole continents one cannot speak of a World Power in the caseof a State whose political motherland is confined to a territorial area ofbarely five-hundred-thousand square kilometres.
Looked at purely from theterritorial point of view, the area comprised in the German Reich isinsignificant in comparison with the other States that are called World Powers.England must not be cited here as an example to contradict this statement; forthe English motherland is in reality the great metropolis of the British WorldEmpire, which owns almost a fourth of the earth’s surface. Next to this we mustconsider the American Union as one of the foremost among the colossal States,also Russia and China. These are enormous spaces, some of which are more thanten times greater in territorial extent than the present German Reich. Francemust also be ranked among these colossal States. Not only because she is addingto the strength of her army in a constantly increasing measure by recruitingcoloured troops from the population of her gigantic empire, but also becauseFrance is racially becoming more and more negroid, so much so that now one canactually speak of the creation of an African State on European soil. Thecontemporary colonial policy of France cannot be compared with that of Germanyin the past. If France develops along the lines it has taken in our day, andshould that development continue for the next three hundred years, all tracesof French blood will finally be submerged in the formation of a Euro-AfricanMulatto State. This would represent a formidable and compact colonial territorystretching from the Rhine to the Congo, inhabited by an inferior race which haddeveloped through a slow and steady process of bastardization.
That process distinguishes Frenchcolonial policy from the policy followed by the old Germany.
The former German colonial policywas carried out by half-measures, as was almost everything they did at thattime. They did not gain an expanse of territory for the settlement of Germannationals nor did they attempt to reinforce the power of the Reich through theenlistment of black troops, which would have been a criminal undertaking. TheAskari in German East Africa represented a small and hesitant step along thisroad; but in reality they served only for the defence of the colony itself. Theidea of importing black troops to a European theatre of war – apart entirelyfrom the practical impossibility of this in the World War – was neverentertained as a proposal to be carried out under favourable circumstances;whereas, on the contrary, the French always looked on such an idea asfundamental in their colonial activities.
Thus we find in the world to-daynot only a number of States that are much greater than the German in the merenumerical size of their populations, but also possess a greater support fortheir political power. The proportion between the territorial dimensions of theGerman Reich and the numerical size of its population was never so unfavourablein comparison with the other world States as at the beginning of our historytwo thousand years ago and again to-day. At the former juncture we were a youngpeople and we stormed a world which was made up of great States that werealready in a decadent condition, of which the last giant was Rome, to whoseoverthrow we contributed. To-day we find ourselves in a world of great andpowerful States, among which the importance of our own Reich is constantlydeclining more and more.
We must always face this bittertruth with clear and calm minds. We must study the area and population of theGerman Reich in relation to the other States and compare them down through thecenturies. Then we shall find that, as I have said, Germany is not a WorldPower whether its military strength be great or not.
There is no proportion between ourposition and that of the other States throughout the world. And this lack ofproportion is to be attributed to the fact that our foreign policy never had adefinite aim to attain, and also to the fact that we lost every sound impulseand instinct for self-preservation.
If the historians who are to writeour national history at some future date are to give the National SocialistMovement the credit of having devoted itself to a sacred duty in the service ofour people, this movement will have to recognize the real truth of oursituation in regard to the rest of the world. However painful this recognitionmay be, the movement must draw courage from it and a sense of practicalrealities in fighting against the aimlessness and incompetence which hashitherto been shown by our people in the conduct of their foreign policy.Without respect for ‘tradition,’ and without any preconceived notions, themovement must find the courage to organize our national forces and set them onthe path which will lead them away from that territorial restriction which isthe bane of our national life to-day, and win new territory for them. Thus themovement will save the German people from the danger of perishing or of beingslaves in the service of any other people.
Our movement must seek to abolishthe present disastrous proportion between our population and the area of ournational territory, considering national territory as the source of ourmaintenance or as a basis of political power. And it ought to strive to abolishthe contrast between past history and the hopelessly powerless situation inwhich we are to-day. In striving for this it must bear in mind the fact that weare members of the highest species of humanity on this earth, that we have acorrespondingly high duty, and that we shall fulfil this duty only if weinspire the German people with the racial idea, so that they will occupythemselves not merely with the breeding of good dogs and horses and cats, butalso care for the purity of their own blood.
When I say that the foreign policyhitherto followed by Germany has been without aim and ineffectual, the proof ofmy statement will be found in the actual failures of this policy. Were ourpeople intellectually backward, or if they lacked courage, the final results oftheir efforts could not have been worse than what we see to-day. What happenedduring the last decades before the War does not permit of any illusions on thispoint; because we must not measure the strength of a State taken by itself, butin comparison with other States. Now, this comparison shows that the otherStates increased their strength in such a measure that not only did it balancethat of Germany but turned out in the end to be greater; so that, contrary toappearances, when compared with the other States Germany declined more and morein power until there was a large margin in her disfavour. Yes, even in the sizeof our population we remained far behind, and kept on losing ground. Though itis true that the courage of our people was not surpassed by that of any otherin the world and that they poured out more blood than any other nation indefence of their existence, their failure was due only to the erroneous way inwhich that courage was turned to practical purposes.
In this connection, if we examinethe chain of political vicissitudes through which our people have passed duringmore than a thousand years, recalling the innumerable struggles and wars andscrutinizing it all in the light of the results that are before our eyesto-day, we must confess that from the ocean of blood only three phenomena haveemerged which we must consider as lasting fruits of political happeningsdefinitely determined by our foreign policy.
(1) The colonization of theEastern Mark, which was mostly the work of the Bajuvari.
(2) The conquest and settlement ofthe territory east of the Elbe.
(3) The organization of theBrandenburg-Prussian State, which was the work of the Hohenzollerns and whichbecame the model for the crystallization of a new Reich.
An instructive lesson for thefuture.
These first two great successes ofour foreign policy turned out to be the most enduring. Without them our peoplewould play no role in the world to-day. These achievements were the first andunfortunately the only successful attempts to establish a harmony between ourincreasing population and the territory from which it drew its livelihood. Andwe must look upon it as of really fatal import that our German historians havenever correctly appreciated these formidable facts which were so full of importancefor the following generations. In contradistinction to this, they wrotepanegyrics on many other things, fantastic heroism, innumerable adventures andwars, without understanding that these latter had no significance whatsoeverfor the main line of our national development.
The third great success achievedby our political activity was the establishment of the Prussian State and thedevelopment of a particular State concept which grew out of this. To the samesource we are to attribute the organization of the instinct of nationalself-preservation and self-defence in the German Army, an achievement whichsuited the modern world. The transformation of the idea of self-defence on thepart of the individual into the duty of national defence is derived from thePrussian State and the new statal concept which it introduced. It would beimpossible to over-estimate the importance of this historical process.Disrupted by excessive individualism, the German nation became disciplinedunder the organization of the Prussian Army and in this way recovered at leastsome of the capacity to form a national community, which in the case of otherpeople had originally arisen through the constructive urge of the herdinstinct. Consequently the abolition of compulsory national military service –which may have no meaning for dozens of other nations – had fatal consequencesfor us. Ten generations of Germans left without the corrective and educativeeffect of military training and delivered over to the evil effects of those dissensionsand divisions the roots of which lie in their blood and display their forcealso in a disunity of world-outlook – these ten generations would be sufficientto allow our people to lose the last relics of an independent existence on thisearth.
The German spirit could then makeits contribution to civilization only through individuals living under the ruleof foreign nations and the origin of those individuals would remain unknown.They would remain as the fertilizing manure of civilization, until the lastresidue of Nordic-Aryan blood would become corrupted or drained out.
It is a remarkable fact that thereal political successes achieved by our people during their millennialstruggles are better appreciated and understood among our adversaries thanamong ourselves. Even still to-day we grow enthusiastic about a heroism whichrobbed our people of millions of their best racial stock and turned outcompletely fruitless in the end.
The distinction between the realpolitical successes which our people achieved in the course of their longhistory and the futile ends for which the blood of the nation has been shed isof supreme importance for the determination of our policy now and in thefuture.
We, National Socialists, mustnever allow ourselves to re-echo the hurrah patriotism of our contemporarybourgeois circles. It would be a fatal danger for us to look on the immediatedevelopments before the War as constituting a precedent which we should beobliged to take into account, even though only to the very smallest degree, inchoosing our own way. We can recognize no obligation devolving on us which mayhave its historical roots in any part of the nineteenth century. Incontradistinction to the policy of those who represented that period, we musttake our stand on the principles already mentioned in regard to foreign policy:namely, the necessity of bringing our territorial area into just proportionwith the number of our population. From the past we can learn only one lesson.And this is that the aim which is to be pursued in our political conduct mustbe twofold: namely (1) the acquisition of territory as the objective of ourforeign policy and (2) the establishment of a new and uniform foundation.as theobjective of our political activities at home, in accordance with our doctrineof nationhood.
I shall briefly deal with thequestion of how far our territorial aims are justified according to ethical andmoral principles. This is all the more necessary here because, in our so-callednationalist circles, there are all kinds of plausible phrase-mongers who try topersuade the German people that the great aim of their foreign policy ought tobe to right the wrongs of 1918, while at the same time they consider itincumbent on them to assure the whole world of the brotherly spirit andsympathy of the German people towards all other nations.
In regard to this point I shouldlike to make the following statement: To demand that the 1914 frontiers shouldbe restored is a glaring political absurdity that is fraught with suchconsequences as to make the claim itself appear criminal. The confines of theReich as they existed in 1914 were thoroughly illogical; because they were notreally complete, in the sense of including all the members of the Germannation. Nor were they reasonable, in view of the geographical exigencies ofmilitary defence. They were not the consequence of a political plan which hadbeen well considered and carried out. But they were temporary frontiersestablished in virtue of a political struggle that had not been brought to afinish; and indeed they were partly the chance result of circumstances. Onewould have just as good a right, and in many cases a better right, to choosesome other outstanding year than 1914 in the course of our history and demandthat the objective of our foreign policy should be the re-establishment of theconditions then existing. The demands I have mentioned are quite characteristicof our bourgeois compatriots, who in such matters take no political thought ofthe future, They live only in the past and indeed only in the immediate past;for their retrospect does not go back beyond their own times. The law ofinertia binds them to the present order of things, leading them to oppose everyattempt to change this. Their opposition, however, never passes over into anykind of active defence. It is only mere passive obstinacy. Therefore, we mustregard it as quite natural that the political horizon of such people should notreach beyond 1914. In proclaiming that the aim of their political activities isto have the frontiers of that time restored, they only help to close up therifts that are already becoming apparent in the league which our enemies haveformed against us. Only on these grounds can we explain the fact that eight yearsafter a world conflagration in which a number of Allied belligerents hadaspirations and aims that were partly in conflict with one another, thecoalition of the victors still remains more or less solid.
Each of those States in its turnprofited by the German collapse. In the fear which they all felt before theproof of strength that we had given, the Great Powers maintained a mutualsilence about their individual feelings of envy and enmity towards one another.They felt that the best guarantee against a resurgence of our strength in thefuture would be to break up and dismember our Reich as thoroughly as possible.A bad conscience and fear of the strength of our people made up the durablecement which has held the members of that league together, even up to thepresent moment.
And our conduct does not tend tochange this state of affairs. Inasmuch as our bourgeoisie sets up therestoration of the 1914 frontiers as the aim of Germany’s political programme,each member of the enemy coalition who otherwise might be inclined to withdrawfrom the combination sticks to it, out of fear lest he might be attacked by usif he isolated himself and in that case would not have the support of hisallies. Each individual State feels itself aimed at and threatened by thisprogramme. And the programme is absurd, for the following two reasons:
(1) Because there are no availablemeans of extricating it from the twilight atmosphere of political soirees andtransforming it into reality.
(2) Even if it could be reallycarried into effect the result would be so miserable that, surely to God, itwould not be worth while to risk the blood of our people once again for such apurpose.
For there can be scarcely anydoubt whatsoever that only through bloodshed could we achieve the restorationof the 1914 frontiers. One must have the simple mind of a child to believe thatthe revision of the Versailles Treaty can be obtained by indirect means and bybeseeching the clemency of the victors; without taking into account the factthat for this we should need somebody who had the character of a Talleyrand,andthere is no Talleyrand among us. Fifty percent of our politicians consists ofartful dodgers who have no character and are quite hostile to the sympathies ofour people, while the other fifty per cent is made up of well-meaning,harmless, and complaisant incompetents. Times have changed since the Congressof Vienna. It is no longer princes or their courtesans who contend and bargainabout State frontiers, but the inexorable cosmopolitan Jew who is fighting forhis own dominion over the nations. The sword is the only means whereby a nationcan thrust that clutch from its throat. Only when national sentiment isorganized and concentrated into an effective force can it defy that internationalmenace which tends towards an enslavement of the nations. But this road is andwill always be marked with bloodshed.
If we are once convinced that thefuture of Germany calls for the sacrifice, in one way or another, of all thatwe have and are, then we must set aside considerations of political prudenceand devote ourselves wholly to the struggle for a future that will be worthy ofour country.
For the future of the Germannation the 1914 frontiers are of no significance. They did not serve to protectus in the past, nor do they offer any guarantee for our defence in the future.With these frontiers the German people cannot maintain themselves as a compactunit, nor can they be assured of their maintenance. From the military viewpointthese frontiers are not advantageous or even such as not to cause anxiety. Andwhile we are bound to such frontiers it will not be possible for us to improveour present position in relation to the other World Powers, or rather inrelation to the real World Powers. We shall not lessen the discrepancy betweenour territory and that of Great Britain, nor shall we reach the magnitude ofthe United States of America. Not only that, but we cannot substantially lessenthe importance of France in international politics.
One thing alone is certain: Theattempt to restore the frontiers of 1914, even if it turned out successful,would demand so much bloodshed on the part of our people that no futuresacrifice would be possible to carry out effectively such measures as would benecessary to assure the future existence of the nation. On the contrary, underthe intoxication of such a superficial success further aims would be renounced,all the more so because the so-called ‘national honour’ would seem to berevindicated and new ports would be opened, at least for a certain time, to ourcommercial development.
Against all this we, NationalSocialists, must stick firmly to the aim that we have set for our foreignpolicy; namely, that the German people must be assured the territorial area whichis necessary for it to exist on this earth. And only for such action as isundertaken to secure those ends can it be lawful in the eyes of God and ourGerman posterity to allow the blood of our people to be shed once again. BeforeGod, because we are sent into this world with the commission to struggle forour daily bread, as creatures to whom nothing is donated and who must be ableto win and hold their position as lords of the earth only through their ownintelligence and courage. And this justification must be established alsobefore our German posterity, on the grounds that for each one who has shed hisblood the life of a thousand others will be guaranteed to posterity. Theterritory on which one day our German peasants will be able to bring forth andnourish their sturdy sons will justify the blood of the sons of the peasantsthat has to be shed to-day. And the statesmen who will have decreed thissacrifice may be persecuted by their contemporaries, but posterity will absolvethem from all guilt for having demanded this offering from their people.
Here I must protest as sharply aspossible against those nationalist scribes who pretend that such territorialextension would be a "violation of the sacred rights of man" andaccordingly pour out their literary effusions against it. One never knows whatare the hidden forces behind the activities of such persons. But it is certainthat the confusion which they provoke suits the game our enemies are playingagainst our nation and is in accordance with their wishes. By taking such anattitude these scribes contribute criminally to weaken from the inside and todestroy the will of our people to promote their own vital interests by the onlyeffective means that can be used for that purpose. For no nation on earthpossesses a square yard of ground and soil by decree of a higher Will and invirtue of a higher Right. The German frontiers are the outcome of chance, andare only temporary frontiers that have been established as the result ofpolitical struggles which took place at various times. The same is also true ofthe frontiers which demarcate the territories on which other nations live. Andjust as only an imbecile could look on the physical geography of the globe asfixed and unchangeable – for in reality it represents a definite stage in agiven evolutionary epoch which is due to the formidable forces of Nature andmay be altered to-morrow by more powerful forces of destruction and change –so, too, in the lives of the nations the confines which are necessary for theirsustenance are subject to change.
State frontiers are established byhuman beings and may be changed by human beings.
The fact that a nation hasacquired an enormous territorial area is no reason why it should hold thatterritory perpetually. At most, the possession of such territory is a proof ofthe strength of the conqueror and the weakness of those who submit to him. Andin this strength alone lives the right of possession. If the German people areimprisoned within an impossible territorial area and for that reason are faceto face with a miserable future, this is not by the command of Destiny, and therefusal to accept such a situation is by no means a violation of Destiny’slaws. For just as no Higher Power has promised more territory to other nationsthan to the German, so it cannot be blamed for an unjust distribution of thesoil. The soil on which we now live was not a gift bestowed by Heaven on ourforefathers. But they had to conquer it by risking their lives. So also in thefuture our people will not obtain territory, and therewith the means ofexistence, as a favour from any other people, but will have to win it by thepower of a triumphant sword.
To-day we are all convinced of thenecessity of regulating our situation in regard to France; but our success herewill be ineffective in its broad results if the general aims of our foreignpolicy will have to stop at that. It can have significance for us only if itserves to cover our flank in the struggle for that extension of territory whichis necessary for the existence of our people in Europe. For colonialacquisitions will not solve that question. It can be solved only by the winningof such territory for the settlement of our people as will extend the area ofthe motherland and thereby will not only keep the new settlers in the closestcommunion with the land of their origin, but will guarantee to this territorialensemble the advantages which arise from the fact that in their expansion overgreater territory the people remain united as a political unit.
The National Movement must not bethe advocate for other nations, but the protagonist for its own nation.Otherwise it would be something superfluous and, above all, it would have no rightto clamour against the action of the past; for then it would be repeating theaction of the past. The old German policy suffered from the mistake of havingbeen determined by dynastic considerations. The new German policy must notfollow the sentimentality of cosmopolitan patriotism. Above all, we must notform a police guard for the famous ‘poor small nations’; but we must be thesoldiers of the German nation.
We National Socialists have to gostill further. The right to territory may become a duty when a great nationseems destined to go under unless its territory be extended. And that isparticularly true when the nation in question is not some little group of negropeople but the Germanic mother of all the life which has given cultural shapeto the modern world. Germany will either become a World Power or will notcontinue to exist at all. But in order to become a World Power it needs thatterritorial magnitude which gives it the necessary importance to-day andassures the existence of its citizens.
Therefore we National Socialistshave purposely drawn a line through the line of conduct followed by pre-WarGermany in foreign policy. We put an end to the perpetual Germanic marchtowards the South and West of Europe and turn our eyes towards the lands of theEast. We finally put a stop to the colonial and trade policy of pre-War timesand pass over to the territorial policy of the future.
But when we speak of new territoryin Europe to-day we must principally think of Russia and the border States subjectto her.
Destiny itself seems to wish topoint out the way for us here. In delivering Russia over to Bolshevism, Faterobbed the Russian people of that intellectual class which had once created theRussian State and were the guarantee of its existence. For the Russian Statewas not organized by the constructive political talent of the Slav element inRussia, but was much more a marvellous exemplification of the capacity forState-building possessed by the Germanic element in a race of inferior worth. Thuswere many powerful Empires created all over the earth. More often than onceinferior races with Germanic organizers and rulers as their leaders becameformidable States and continued to exist as long as the racial nucleus remainedwhich had originally created each respective State. For centuries Russia owedthe source of its livelihood as a State to the Germanic nucleus of itsgoverning class. But this nucleus is now almost wholly broken up and abolished.The Jew has taken its place. Just as it is impossible for the Russian to shakeoff the Jewish yoke by exerting his own powers, so, too, it is impossible forthe Jew to keep this formidable State in existence for any long period of time.He himself is by no means an organizing element, but rather a ferment ofdecomposition. This colossal Empire in the East is ripe for dissolution. Andthe end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as aState. We are chosen by Destiny to be the witnesses of a catastrophe which willafford the strongest confirmation of the nationalist theory of race.
But it is our task, and it is themission of the National Socialist Movement, to develop in our people thatpolitical mentality which will enable them to realize that the aim which theymust set to themselves for the fulfilment of their future must not be somewildly enthusiastic adventure in the footsteps of Alexander the Great butindustrious labour with the German plough, for which the German sword willprovide the soil.
That the Jew should declarehimself bitterly hostile to such a policy is only quite natural. For the Jewsknow better than any others what the adoption of this line of conduct must meanfor their own future. That fact alone ought to teach all genuine nationaliststhat this new orientation is the right and just one. But, unfortunately, theopposite is the case. Not only among the members of the German-National Partybut also in purely nationalist circles violent opposition is raised againstthis Eastern policy. And in connection with that opposition, as in all suchcases, the authority of great names is appealed to. The spirit of Bismarck isevoked in defence of a policy which is as stupid as it is impossible, and is inthe highest degree detrimental to the interests of the German people. They saythat Bismarck laid great importance on the value of good relations with Russia.To a certain extent, that is true. But they quite forget to add that he laidequal stress on the importance of good relations with Italy, for example.Indeed, the same Herr von Bismarck once concluded an alliance with Italy sothat he might more easily settle accounts with Austria. Why is not this policynow advocated? They will reply that the Italy of to-day is not the Italy ofthat time. Good. But then, honourable sirs, permit me to remind you that theRussia of to-day is no longer the Russia of that time. Bismarck never laid downa policy which would be permanently binding under all circumstances and shouldbe adhered to on principle. He was too much the master of the moment to burdenhimself with that kind of obligation. Therefore, the question ought not to bewhat Bismarck then did, but rather what he would do to-day. And that questionis very easy to answer. His political sagacity would never allow him to ally himselfwith a State that is doomed to disappear.
Moreover, Bismarck looked upon thecolonial and trade policy of his time with mixed feelings, because what he mostdesired was to assure the best possibilities of consolidating and internallystrengthening the state system which he himself had created. That was the soleground on which he then welcomed the Russian defence in his rear, so as to givehim a free hand for his activities in the West. But what was advantageous thento Germany would now be detrimental.
As early as 1920–21, when theyoung movement began slowly to appear on the political horizon and movementsfor the liberation of the German nation were formed here and there, the Partywas approached from various quarters in an attempt to bring it into definiteconnection with the liberationist movements in other countries. This was inline with the plans of the ‘League of Oppressed Nations’, which had beenadvertised in many quarters and was composed principally of representatives ofsome of the Balkan States and also of Egypt and India. These always impressedme as charlatans who gave themselves big airs but had no real background atall. Not a few Germans, however, especially in the nationalist camp, allowedthemselves to be taken in by these pompous Orientals, and in the person of somewandering Indian or Egyptian student they believed at once that they were faceto face with a ‘representative’ of India or Egypt. They did not realize that inmost cases they were dealing with persons who had no backing whatsoever, whowere not authorized by anybody to conclude any sort of agreement whatsoever; sothat the practical result of every negotiation with such individuals wasnegative and the time spent in such dealings had to be reckoned as utterlylost. I was always on my guard against these attempts. Not only that I hadsomething better to do than to waste weeks in such sterile ‘discussions’, butalso because I believed that even if one were dealing with genuinerepresentatives that whole affair would be bound to turn out futile, if notpositively harmful.
In peace-time it was alreadylamentable enough that the policy of alliances, because it had no active andaggressive aims in view, ended in a defensive association with antiquatedStates that had been pensioned off by the history of the world. The alliancewith Austria, as well as that with Turkey, was not much to be joyful about.While the great military and industrial States of the earth had come togetherin a league for purposes of active aggression, a few old and effete States werecollected, and with this antique bric-à-brac an attempt was made to face anactive world coalition. Germany had to pay dearly for that mistaken foreignpolicy and yet not dearly enough to prevent our incorrigible visionaries fromfalling back into the same error again. For the attempt to make possible thedisarmament of the all-powerful victorious States through a ‘League ofOppressed Nations’ is not only ridiculous but disastrous. It is disastrousbecause in that way the German people are again being diverted from realpossibilities, which they abandon for the sake of fruitless hopes andillusions. In reality the German of to-day is like a drowning man that clutchesat any straw which may float beside him. And one finds people doing this whoare otherwise highly educated. Wherever some will-o’-the-wisp of a fantastichope appears these people set off immediately to chase it. Let this be a Leagueof Oppressed Nations, a League of Nations, or some other fantastic invention,thousands of ingenuous souls will always be found to believe in it.
I remember well the childish andincomprehensible hopes which arose suddenly in nationalist circles in the years1920–21 to the effect that England was just nearing its downfall in India. A fewAsiatic mountebanks, who put themselves forward as "the champions ofIndian Freedom", then began to peregrinate throughout Europe and succeededin inspiring otherwise quite reasonable people with the fixed notion that theBritish World Empire, which had its pivot in India, was just about to collapsethere. They never realized that their own wish was the father of all theseideas. Nor did they stop to think how absurd their wishes were. For inasmuch asthey expected the end of the British Empire and of England’s power to followthe collapse of its dominion over India, they themselves admitted that Indiawas of the most outstanding importance for England.
Now in all likelihood the deepmysteries of this most important problem must have been known not only to theGerman-National prophets but also to those who had the direction of Britishhistory in their hands. It is right down puerile to suppose that in Englanditself the importance of India for the British Empire was not adequatelyappreciated. And it is a proof of having learned nothing from the world war andof thoroughly misunderstanding or knowing nothing about Anglo-Saxondetermination, when they imagine that England could lose India without firsthaving put forth the last ounce of her strength in the struggle to hold it.Moreover, it shows how complete is the ignorance prevailing in Germany as tothe manner in which the spirit of England permeates and administers her Empire.England will never lose India unless she admits racial disruption in the machineryof her administration (which at present is entirely out of the question inIndia) or unless she is overcome by the sword of some powerful enemy. ButIndian risings will never bring this about. We Germans have had sufficientexperience to know how hard it is to coerce England. And, apart from all this,I as a German would far rather see India under British domination than underthat of any other nation.
The hopes of an epic rising inEgypt were just as chimerical. The ‘Holy War’ may bring the pleasing illusionto our German nincompoops that others are now ready to shed their blood forthem. Indeed, this cowardly speculation is almost always the father of suchhopes. But in reality the illusion would soon be brought to an end under thefusillade from a few companies of British machine-guns and a hail of Britishbombs.
A coalition of cripples cannotattack a powerful State which is determined, if necessary, to shed the lastdrop of its blood to maintain its existence. To me, as a nationalist whoappreciates the worth of the racial basis of humanity, I must recognize theracial inferiority of the so-called ‘Oppressed Nations’, and that is enough toprevent me from linking the destiny of my people with the destiny of thoseinferior races.
To-day we must take up the samesort of attitude also towards Russia. The Russia of to-day, deprived of itsGermanic ruling class, is not a possible ally in the struggle for Germanliberty, setting aside entirely the inner designs of its new rulers. From thepurely military viewpoint a Russo-German coalition waging war against WesternEurope, and probably against the whole world on that account, would becatastrophic for us. The struggle would have to be fought out, not on Russianbut on German territory, without Germany being able to receive from Russia theslightest effective support. The means of power at the disposal of the presentGerman Reich are so miserable and so inadequate to the waging of a foreign warthat it would be impossible to defend our frontiers against Western Europe,England included. And the industrial area of Germany would have to be abandonedundefended to the concentrated attack of our adversaries. It must be added thatbetween Germany and Russia there is the Polish State, completely in the handsof the French. In case Germany and Russia together should wage war againstWestern Europe, Russia would have to overthrow Poland before the first Russiansoldier could arrive on the German front. But it is not so much a question ofsoldiers as of technical equipment. In this regard we should have our situationin the world war repeated, but in a more terrible manner. At that time Germanindustry had to be drained to help our glorious allies, and from the technicalside Germany had to carry on the war almost alone. In this new hypothetical warRussia, as a technical factor, would count for nothing. We should havepractically nothing to oppose to the general motorization of the world, whichin the next war will make its appearance in an overwhelming and decisive form.In this important field Germany has not only shamefully lagged behind, but withthe little it has it would have to reinforce Russia, which at the presentmoment does not possess a single factory capable of producing a motorgun-wagon. Under such conditions the presupposed coming struggle would assumethe character of sheer slaughter. The German youth would have to shed more ofits blood than it did even in the world war; for, as always, the honour offighting will fall on us alone, and the result would be an inevitablecatastrophe. But even admitting that a miracle were produced and that this wardid not end in the total annihilation of Germany, the final result would bethat the German nation would be bled white, and, surrounded by great militaryStates, its real situation would be in no way ameliorated.
It is useless to object here thatin case of an alliance with Russia we should not think of an immediate war orthat, anyhow, we should have means of making thorough preparations for war. No.An alliance which is not for the purpose of waging war has no meaning and novalue. Even though at the moment when an alliance is concluded the prospect ofwar is a distant one, still the idea of the situation developing towards war isthe profound reason for entering into an alliance. It is out of the question tothink that the other Powers would be deceived as to the purpose of such analliance. A Russo-German coalition would remain either a matter of so muchpaper – and in this case it would have no meaning for us – or the letter of thetreaty would be put into practice visibly, and in that case the rest of theworld would be warned. It would be childish to think that in such circumstancesEngland and France would wait for ten years to give the Russo-German alliancetime to complete its technical preparations. No. The storm would break overGermany immediately.
Therefore the fact of forming analliance with Russia would be the signal for a new war. And the result of thatwould be the end of Germany.
To these considerations thefollowing must be added:
(1) Those who are in power inRussia to-day have no idea of forming an honourable alliance or of remainingtrue to it, if they did.
It must never be forgotten thatthe present rulers of Russia are blood-stained criminals, that here we have thedregs of humanity which, favoured by the circumstances of a tragic moment,overran a great State, degraded and extirpated millions of educated people outof sheer blood-lust, and that now for nearly ten years they have ruled withsuch a savage tyranny as was never known before. It must not be forgotten thatthese rulers belong to a people in whom the most bestial cruelty is allied witha capacity for artful mendacity and believes itself to-day more than evercalled to impose its sanguinary despotism on the rest of the world. It must notbe forgotten that the international Jew, who is to-day the absolute master ofRussia, does not look upon Germany as an ally but as a State condemned to thesame doom as Russia. One does not form an alliance with a partner whose onlyaim is the destruction of his fellow-partner. Above all, one does not enterinto alliances with people for whom no treaty is sacred; because they do notmove about this earth as men of honour and sincerity but as the representativesof lies and deception, thievery and plunder and robbery. The man who thinksthat he can bind himself by treaty with parasites is like the tree thatbelieves it can form a profitable bargain with the ivy that surrounds it.
(2) The menace to which Russiaonce succumbed is hanging steadily over Germany. Only a bourgeois simpletoncould imagine that Bolshevism can be tamed. In his superficial way of thinkinghe does not suspect that here we are dealing with a phenomenon that is due toan urge of the blood: namely, the aspiration of the Jewish people to become thedespots of the world. That aspiration is quite as natural as the impulse of theAnglo-Saxon to sit in the seats of rulership all over the earth. And as theAnglo-Saxon chooses his own way of reaching those ends and fights for them withhis characteristic weapons, so also does the Jew. The Jew wriggles his way inamong the body of the nations and bores them hollow from inside. The weaponswith which he works are lies and calumny, poisonous infection anddisintegration, until he has ruined his hated adversary. In Russian Bolshevismwe ought to recognize the kind of attempt which is being made by the Jew in thetwentieth century to secure dominion over the world. In other epochs he workedtowards the same goal but with different, though at bottom similar, means. Thekind of effort which the Jew puts forth springs from the deepest roots in thenature of his being. A people does not of itself renounce the impulse toincrease its stock and power. Only external circumstances or senile impotencecan force them to renounce this urge. In the same way the Jew will neverspontaneously give up his march towards the goal of world dictatorship orrepress his external urge. He can be thrown back on his road only by forcesthat are exterior to him, for his instinct towards world domination will dieout only with himself. The impotence of nations and their extinction throughsenility can come only when their blood has remained no longer pure. And theJewish people preserve the purity of their blood better than any other nationon earth. Therefore the Jew follows his destined road until he is opposed by aforce superior to him. And then a desperate struggle takes place to send backto Lucifer him who would assault the heavens.
To-day Germany is the nextbattlefield for Russian Bolshevism. All the force of a fresh missionary idea isneeded to raise up our nation once more, to rescue it from the coils of theinternational serpent and stop the process of corruption which is taking placein the internal constitution of our blood; so that the forces of our nation,once liberated, may be employed to preserve our nationality and prevent therepetition of the recent catastrophe from taking place even in the most distantfuture. If this be the goal we set to ourselves it would be folly to allyourselves with a country whose master is the mortal enemy of our future. Howcan we release our people from this poisonous grip if we accept the same gripourselves? How can we teach the German worker that Bolshevism is an infamouscrime against humanity if we ally ourselves with this infernal abortion andrecognize its existence as legitimate. With what right shall we condemn themembers of the broad masses whose sympathies lie with a certain Weltanschhauungif the rulers of our State choose the representatives of that Weltanschhauungas their allies? The struggle against the Jewish Bolshevization of the worlddemands that we should declare our position towards Soviet Russia. We cannot castout the Devil through Beelzebub. If nationalist circles to-day growenthusiastic about the idea of an alliance with Bolshevism, then let them lookaround only in Germany and recognize from what quarter they are beingsupported. Do these nationalists believe that a policy which is recommended andacclaimed by the Marxist international Press can be beneficial for the Germanpeople? Since when has the Jew acted as shield-bearer for the militantnationalist?
One special reproach which couldbe made against the old German Reich with regard to its policy of alliances wasthat it spoiled its relations towards all others by continually swinging nowthis way and now that way and by its weakness in trying to preserve world peaceat all costs. But one reproach which cannot be made against it is that it didnot continue to maintain good relations with Russia.
I admit frankly that before theWar I thought it would have been better if Germany had abandoned her senselesscolonial policy and her naval policy and had joined England in an allianceagainst Russia, therewith renouncing her weak world policy for a determinedEuropean policy, with the idea of acquiring new territory on the Continent. Ido not forget the constant insolent threats which Pan-Slavist Russia madeagainst Germany. I do not forget the continual trial mobilizations, the soleobject of which was to irritate Germany. I cannot forget the tone of publicopinion in Russia which in pre-War days excelled itself in hate-inspiredoutbursts against our nation and Reich. Nor can I forget the big Russian Presswhich was always more favourable to France than to us.
But, in spite of everything, therewas still a second way possible before the War. We might have won the supportof Russia and turned against England. Circumstances are entirely differentto-day. If, before the War, throwing all sentiment to the winds, we could havemarched by the side of Russia, that is no longer possible for us to-day. Sincethen the hand of the world-clock has moved forward. The hour has struck andstruck loudly, when the destiny of our people must be decided one way oranother.
The present consolidation of thegreat States of the world is the last warning signal for us to look toourselves and bring our people back from their land of visions to the land ofhard truth and point the way into the future, on which alone the old Reich canmarch triumphantly once again.
If, in view of this great and mostimportant task placed before it, the National Socialist Movement sets aside allillusions and takes reason as its sole effective guide the catastrophe of 1918may turn out to be an infinite blessing for the future of our nation. From thelesson of that collapse it may formulate an entirely new orientation for theconduct of its foreign policy. Internally reinforced through its new Weltanschhauung,the German nation may reach a final stabilization of its policy towards theoutside world. It may end by gaining what England has, what even Russia had,and what France again and again utilized as the ultimate grounds on which shewas able to base correct decisions for her own interests: namely, A PoliticalTestament. Political Testament of the German Nation ought to lay down thefollowing rules, which will be always valid for its conduct towards the outsideworld:
Never permit two ContinentalPowers to arise in Europe. Should any attempt be made to organize a secondmilitary Power on the German frontier by the creation of a State which maybecome a Military Power, with the prospect of an aggression against Germany inview, such an event confers on Germany not only the right but the duty toprevent by every means, including military means, the creation of such a Stateand to crush it if created. See to it that the strength of our nation does notrest on colonial foundations but on those of our own native territory inEurope. Never consider the Reich secure unless, for centuries to come, it is ina position to give every descendant of our race a piece of ground and soil thathe can call his own. Never forget that the most sacred of all rights in thisworld is man’s right to the earth which he wishes to cultivate for himself andthat the holiest of all sacrifices is that of the blood poured out for it.
I should not like to close thischapter without referring once again to the one sole possibility of alliancesthat exists for us in Europe at the present moment. In speaking of the Germanalliance problem in the present chapter I mentioned England and Italy as theonly countries with which it would be worth while for us to strive to form aclose alliance and that this alliance would be advantageous. I should like hereto underline again the military importance of such an alliance.
The military consequences of formingthis alliance would be the direct opposite of the consequences of an alliancewith Russia. Most important of all is the fact that a rapprochement withEngland and Italy would in no way involve a danger of war. The only Power thatcould oppose such an arrangement would be France; and France would not be in aposition to make war. But the alliance should allow to Germany the possibilityof making those preparations in all tranquillity which, within the framework ofsuch a coalition, might in one way or another be requisite in view of aregulation of accounts with France. For the full significance of such analliance lies in the fact that on its conclusion Germany would no longer besubject to the threat of a sudden invasion. The coalition against her woulddisappear automatically; that is to say, the Entente which brought suchdisaster to us. Thus France, the mortal enemy of our people, would be isolated.And even though at first this success would have only a moral effect, it wouldbe sufficient to give Germany such liberty of action as we cannot now imagine.For the new Anglo-German-Italian alliance would hold the political initiativeand no longer France.
A further success would be that atone stroke Germany would be delivered from her unfavourable strategicalsituation. On the one side her flank would be strongly protected; and, on theother, the assurance of being able to import her foodstuffs and raw materialswould be a beneficial result of this new alignment of States. But almost ofgreater importance would be the fact that this new League would include Statesthat possess technical qualities which mutually supplement each other. For thefirst time Germany would have allies who would not be as vampires on hereconomic body but would contribute their part to complete our technicalequipment. And we must not forget a final fact: namely, that in this case weshould not have allies resembling Turkey and Russia to-day. The greatest WorldPower on this earth and a young national State would supply far other elementsfor a struggle in Europe than the putrescent carcasses of the States with whichGermany was allied in the last war.
As I have already said, greatdifficulties would naturally be made to hinder the conclusion of such analliance. But was not the formation of the Entente somewhat more difficult?Where King Edward VII succeeded partly against interests that were of theirnature opposed to his work we must and will succeed, if the recognition of thenecessity of such a development so inspires us that we shall be able to actwith skill and conquer our own feelings in carrying the policy through. Thiswill be possible when, incited to action by the miseries of our situation, weshall adopt a definite purpose and follow it out systematically instead of thedefective foreign policy of the last decades, which never had a fixed purposein view.
The future goal of our foreignpolicy ought not to involve an orientation to the East or the West, but itought to be an Eastern policy which will have in view the acquisition of suchterritory as is necessary for our German people. To carry out this policy weneed that force which the mortal enemy of our nation, France, now deprives usof by holding us in her grip and pitilessly robbing us of our strength. Thereforewe must stop at no sacrifice in our effort to destroy the French strivingtowards hegemony over Europe. As our natural ally to-day we have every Power onthe Continent that feels France’s lust for hegemony in Europe unbearable. Noattempt to approach those Powers ought to appear too difficult for us, and nosacrifice should be considered too heavy, if the final outcome would be to makeit possible for us to overthrow our bitterest enemy. The minor wounds will becured by the beneficent influence of time, once the ground wounds have beencauterized and closed.
Naturally the internal enemies ofour people will howl with rage. But this will not succeed in forcing us asNational Socialists to cease our preaching in favour of that which our mostprofound conviction tells us to be necessary. We must oppose the current ofpublic opinion which will be driven mad by Jewish cunning in exploiting ourGerman thoughtlessness. The waves of this public opinion often rage and roaragainst us; but the man who swims with the current attracts less attention thanhe who buffets it. To-day we are but a rock in the river. In a few years Fatemay raise us up as a dam against which the general current will be broken, onlyto flow forward in a new bed. Therefore it is necessary that in the eyes of therest of the world our movement should be recognized as representing a definiteand determined political programme. We ought to bear on our visors thedistinguishing sign of that task which Heaven expects us to fulfil.
When we ourselves are fully awareof the ineluctable necessity which determines our external policy thisknowledge will fill us with the grit which we need in order to stand up withequanimity under the bombardment launched against us by the enemy Press and tohold firm when some insinuating voice whispers that we ought to give groundhere and there in order not to have all against us and that we might sometimeshowl with the wolves.
CHAPTER XV
THE RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENCE
After we had laid down our arms,in November 1918, a policy was adopted which in all human probability was boundto lead gradually to our complete subjugation. Analogous examples from historyshow that those nations which lay down their arms without being absolutelyforced to do so subsequently prefer to submit to the greatest humiliations andexactions rather than try to change their fate by resorting to arms again.
That is intelligible on purelyhuman grounds. A shrewd conqueror will always enforce his exactions on theconquered only by stages, as far as that is possible. Then he may expect that apeople who have lost all strength of character – which is always the case withevery nation that voluntarily submits to the threats of an opponent – will notfind in any of these acts of oppression, if one be enforced apart from theother, sufficient grounds for taking up arms again. The more numerous theextortions thus passively accepted so much the less will resistance appearjustified in the eyes of other people, if the vanquished nation should end by revoltingagainst the last act of oppression in a long series. And that is specially soif the nation has already patiently and silently accepted impositions whichwere much more exacting.
The fall of Carthage is a terribleexample of the slow agony of a people which ended in destruction and which wasthe fault of the people themselves.
In his Three Articles of FaithClausewitz expressed this idea admirably and gave it a definite form when hesaid: "The stigma of shame incurred by a cowardly submission can never beeffaced. The drop of poison which thus enters the blood of a nation will betransmitted to posterity. It will undermine and paralyse the strength of latergenerations." But, on the contrary, he added: "Even the loss of itsliberty after a sanguinary and honourable struggle assures the resurgence ofthe nation and is the vital nucleus from which one day a new tree can draw firmroots.
Naturally a nation which has lostall sense of honour and all strength of character will not feel the force ofsuch a doctrine. But any nation that takes it to heart will never fall verylow. Only those who forget it or do not wish to acknowledge it will collapse.Hence those responsible for a cowardly submission cannot be expected suddenlyto take thought with themselves, for the purpose of changing their formerconduct and directing it in the way pointed out by human reason and experience.On the contrary, they will repudiate such a doctrine, until the people eitherbecome permanently habituated to the yoke of slavery or the better elements ofthe nation push their way into the foreground and forcibly take power away fromthe hands of an infamous and corrupt regime. In the first case those who holdpower will be pleased with the state of affairs, because the conquerors oftenentrust them with the task of supervising the slaves. And these utterlycharacterless beings then exercise that power to the detriment of their ownpeople, more cruelly than the most cruel-hearted stranger that might benominated by the enemy himself.
The events which happenedsubsequent to 1918 in Germany prove how the hope of securing the clemency ofthe victor by making a voluntary submission had the most disastrous influenceon the political views and conduct of the broad masses. I say the broad massesexplicitly, because I cannot persuade myself that the things which were done orleft undone by the leaders of the people are to be attributed to a similardisastrous illusion. Seeing that the direction of our historical destiny afterthe war was now openly controlled by the Jews, it is impossible to admit that adefective knowledge of the state of affairs was the sole cause of ourmisfortunes. On the contrary, the conclusion that must be drawn from the factsis that our people were intentionally driven to ruin. If we examine it fromthis point of view we shall find that the direction of the nation’s foreignpolicy was not so foolish as it appeared; for on scrutinizing the matterclosely we see clearly that this conduct was a procedure which had been calmlycalculated, shrewdly defined and logically carried out in the service of theJewish idea and the Jewish endeavour to secure the mastery of the world.
From 1806 to 1813 Prussia was in astate of collapse. But that period sufficed to renew the vital energies of thenation and inspire it once more with a resolute determination to fight. Anequal period of time has passed over our heads from 1918 until to-day, and noadvantage has been derived from it. On the contrary, the vital strength of ourState has been steadily sapped.
Seven years after November 1918the Locarno Treaty was signed.
Thus the development which tookplace was what I have indicated above. Once the shameful Armistice had beensigned our people were unable to pluck up sufficient courage and energy to calla halt suddenly to the conduct of our adversary as the oppressive measures werebeing constantly renewed. The enemy was too shrewd to put forward all hisdemands at once. He confined his duress always to those exactions which, in hisopinion and that of our German Government, could be submitted to for themoment: so that in this way they did not risk causing an explosion of publicfeeling. But according as the single impositions were increasingly subscribedto and tolerated it appeared less justifiable to do now in the case of one soleimposition or act of duress what had not been previously done in the case of somany others, namely, to oppose it. That is the ‘drop of poison’ of whichClausewitz speaks. Once this lack of character is manifested the resultantcondition becomes steadily aggravated and weighs like an evil inheritance onall future decisions. It may become as a leaden weight around the nation’sneck, which cannot be shaken off but which forces it to drag out its existencein slavery.
Thus, in Germany, edicts fordisarmament and oppression and economic plunder followed one after the other,making us politically helpless. The result of all this was to create that moodwhich made so many look upon the Dawes Plan as a blessing and the LocarnoTreaty as a success. From a higher point of view we may speak of one soleblessing in the midst of so much misery. This blessing is that, though men maybe fooled, Heaven can’t be bribed. For Heaven withheld its blessing. Since thattime Misery and Anxiety have been the constant companions of our people, andDistress is the one Ally that has remained loyal to us. In this case alsoDestiny has made no exceptions. It has given us our deserts. Since we did notknow how to value honour any more, it has taught us to value the liberty toseek for bread. Now that the nation has learned to cry for bread, it may oneday learn to pray for freedom.
The collapse of our nation in theyears following 1918 was bitter and manifest. And yet that was the time chosento persecute us in the most malicious way our enemies could devise, so thatwhat happened afterwards could have been foretold by anybody then. Thegovernment to which our people submitted was as hopelessly incompetent as itwas conceited, and this was especially shown in repudiating those who gave anywarning that disturbed or displeased. Then we saw – and to-day also – thegreatest parliamentary nincompoops, really common saddlers and glove-makers –not merely by trade, for that would signify very little – suddenly raised tothe rank of statesmen and sermonizing to humble mortals from that pedestal. Itdid not matter, and it still does not matter, that such a ‘statesman’, afterhaving displayed his talents for six months or so as a mere windbag, is shownup for what he is and becomes the object of public raillery and sarcasm. Itdoes not matter that he has given the most evident proof of completeincompetency. No. That does not matter at all. On the contrary, the less realservice the parliamentary statesmen of this Republic render the country, themore savagely they persecute all who expect that parliamentary deputies shouldshow some positive results of their activities. And they persecute everybodywho dares to point to the failure of these activities and predict similarfailures for the future. If one finally succeeds in nailing down one of theseparliamentarians to hard facts, so that this political artist can no longerdeny the real failure of his whole action and its results, then he will find thousandsof grounds for excuse, but will in no way admit that he himself is the chiefcause of the evil.
In the winter of 1922–23, at thelatest, it ought to have been generally recognized that, even after theconclusion of peace, France was still endeavouring with iron consistency toattain those ends which had been originally envisaged as the final purpose ofthe War. For nobody could think of believing that for four and a half yearsFrance continued to pour out the not abundant supply of her national blood inthe most decisive struggle throughout all her history in order subsequently toobtain compensation through reparations for the damages sustained. Even Alsaceand Lorraine, taken by themselves, would not account for the energy with whichthe French conducted the War, if Alsace-Lorraine were not already considered asa part of the really vast programme which French foreign policy had envisagedfor the future. The aim of that programme was: Disintegration of Germany into acollection of small states. It was for this that Chauvinist France waged war;and in doing so she was in reality selling her people to be the serfs of theinternational Jew.
French war aims would have beenobtained through the World War if, as was originally hoped in Paris, the strugglehad been carried out on German soil. Let us imagine the bloody battles of theWorld War not as having taken place on the Somme, in Flanders, in Artois, infront of Warsaw, Nizhni-Novogorod, Kowno, and Riga but in Germany, in the Ruhror on the Maine, on the Elbe, in front of Hanover, Leipzig, Nürnberg, etc. Ifsuch happened, then we must admit that the destruction of Germany might havebeen accomplished. It is very much open to question if our young federal Statecould have borne the hard struggle for four and a half years, as it was borneby a France that had been centralized for centuries, with the whole nationalimagination focused on Paris. If this titanic conflict between the nationsdeveloped outside the frontiers of our fatherland, not only is all the meritdue to the immortal service rendered by our old army but it was also veryfortunate for the future of Germany. I am fully convinced that if things hadtaken a different course there would no longer be a German Reich to-day butonly ‘German States’. And that is the only reason why the blood which was shedby our friends and brothers in the War was at least not shed in vain.
The course which events took wasotherwise. In November 1918 Germany did indeed collapse with lightningsuddenness. But when the catastrophe took place at home the armies under theCommander-in-Chief were still deep in the enemy’s country. At that timeFrance’s first preoccupation was not the dismemberment of Germany but theproblem of how to get the German armies out of France and Belgium as quickly aspossible. And so, in order to put an end to the War, the first thing that hadto be done by the Paris Government was to disarm the German armies and pushthem back into Germany if possible. Until this was done the French could notdevote their attention to carrying out their own particular and original waraims. As far as concerned England, the War was really won when Germany wasdestroyed as a colonial and commercial Power and was reduced to the rank of asecond-class State. It was not in England’s interest to wipe out the GermanState altogether. In fact, on many grounds it was desirable for her to have afuture rival against France in Europe. Therefore French policy was forced tocarry on by peaceful means the work for which the War had opened the way; andClemenceau’s statement, that for him Peace was merely a continuation of theWar, thus acquired an enhanced significance.
Persistently and on everyopportunity that arose, the effort to dislocate the framework of the Reich wasto have been carried on. By perpetually sending new notes that demandeddisarmament, on the one hand, and by the imposition of economic levies which,on the other hand, could be carried out as the process of disarmamentprogressed, it was hoped in Paris that the framework of the Reich wouldgradually fall to pieces. The more the Germans lost their sense of nationalhonour the more could economic pressure and continued economic distress beeffective as factors of political destruction. Such a policy of politicaloppression and economic exploitation, carried out for ten or twenty years, mustin the long run steadily ruin the most compact national body and, under certaincircumstances, dismember it. Then the French war aims would have beendefinitely attained.
By the winter of 1922–23 theintentions of the French must already have been known for a long time back.There remained only two possible ways of confronting the situation. If theGerman national body showed itself sufficiently tough-skinned, it might graduallyblunt the will of the French or it might do – once and for all – what was boundto become inevitable one day: that is to say, under the provocation of someparticularly brutal act of oppression it could put the helm of the German shipof state to roundabout and ram the enemy. That would naturally involve alife-and-death-struggle. And the prospect of coming through the struggle alivedepended on whether France could be so far isolated that in this second battleGermany would not have to fight against the whole world but in defence ofGermany against a France that was persistently disturbing the peace of theworld.
I insist on this point, and I amprofoundly convinced of it, namely, that this second alternative will one day bechosen and will have to be chosen and carried out in one way or another. Ishall never believe that France will of herself alter her intentions towardsus, because, in the last analysis, they are only the expression of the Frenchinstinct for self-preservation. Were I a Frenchman and were the greatness ofFrance so dear to me as that of Germany actually is, in the final reckoning Icould not and would not act otherwise than a Clemenceau. The French nation,which is slowly dying out, not so much through depopulation as through theprogressive disappearance of the best elements of the race, can continue toplay an important role in the world only if Germany be destroyed. French policymay make a thousand detours on the march towards its fixed goal, but the destructionof Germany is the end which it always has in view as the fulfilment of the mostprofound yearning and ultimate intentions of the French. Now it is a mistake tobelieve that if the will on one side should remain only passive and intent onits own self-preservation it can hold out permanently against another willwhich is not less forceful but is active. As long as the eternal conflictbetween France and Germany is waged only in the form of a German defenceagainst the French attack, that conflict can never be decided; and from centuryto century Germany will lose one position after another. If we study thechanges that have taken place, from the twelfth century up to our day, in thefrontiers within which the German language is spoken, we can hardly hope for asuccessful issue to result from the acceptance and development of a line ofconduct which has hitherto been so detrimental for us.
Only when the Germans have takenall this fully into account will they cease from allowing the national will-to-lifeto wear itself out in merely passive defence, but they will rally together fora last decisive contest with France. And in this contest the essentialobjective of the German nation will be fought for. Only then will it bepossible to put an end to the eternal Franco-German conflict which has hithertoproved so sterile. Of course it is here presumed that Germany sees in thesuppression of France nothing more than a means which will make it possible forour people finally to expand in another quarter. To-day there are eightymillion Germans in Europe. And our foreign policy will be recognized as rightlyconducted only when, after barely a hundred years, there will be 250 millionGermans living on this Continent, not packed together as the coolies in thefactories of another Continent but as tillers of the soil and workers whoselabour will be a mutual assurance for their existence.
In December 1922 the situationbetween Germany and France assumed a particularly threatening aspect. Francehad new and vast oppressive measures in view and needed sanctions for herconduct. Political pressure had to precede the economic plunder, and the Frenchbelieved that only by making a violent attack against the central nervoussystem of German life would they be able to make our ‘recalcitrant’ people bowto their galling yoke. By the occupation of the Ruhr District, it was hoped inFrance that not only would the moral backbone of Germany be broken finally butthat we should be reduced to such a grave economic condition that we should beforced, for weal or woe, to subscribe to the heaviest possible obligations.
It was a question of bending andbreaking Germany. At first Germany bent and subsequently broke in piecescompletely.
Through the occupation of theRuhr, Fate once more reached out its hand to the German people and bade themarise. For what at first appeared as a heavy stroke of misfortune was found, oncloser examination, to contain extremely encouraging possibilities of bringingGermany’s sufferings to an end.
As regards foreign politics, theaction of France in occupying the Ruhr really estranged England for the firsttime in quite a profound way. Indeed it estranged not merely British diplomaticcircles, which had concluded the French alliance and had upheld it from motivesof calm and objective calculation, but it also estranged large sections of theEnglish nation. The English business world in particular scarcely concealed thedispleasure it felt at this incredible forward step in strengthening the powerof France on the Continent. From the military standpoint alone France nowassumed a position in Europe such as Germany herself had not held previously.Moreover, France thus obtained control over economic resources whichpractically gave her a monopoly that consolidated her political and commercialstrength against all competition. The most important iron and coal mines ofEurope were now united in the hand of one nation which, in contrast to Germany,had hitherto defended her vital interests in an active and resolute fashion andwhose military efficiency in the Great War was still fresh in the memories ofthe whole world. The French occupation of the Ruhr coal field deprived Englandof all the successes she had gained in the War. And the victors were now MarshalFoch and the France he represented, no longer the calm and painstaking Britishstatesmen.
In Italy also the attitude towardsFrance, which had not been very favourable since the end of the War, now becamepositively hostile. The great historic moment had come when the Allies ofyesterday might become the enemies of to-morrow. If things happened otherwiseand if the Allies did not suddenly come into conflict with one another, as inthe Second Balkan War, that was due to the fact that Germany had no Enver Pashabut merely a Cuno as Chancellor of the Reich.
Nevertheless, the French invasionof the Ruhr opened up great possibilities for the future not only in Germany’sforeign politics but also in her internal politics. A considerable section ofour people who, thanks to the persistent influence of a mendacious Press, hadlooked upon France as the champion of progress and liberty, were suddenly curedof this illusion. In 1914 the dream of international solidarity suddenlyvanished from the brain of our German working class. They were brought backinto the world of everlasting struggle, where one creature feeds on the otherand where the death of the weaker implies the life of the stronger. The samething happened in the spring of 1923.
When the French put their threatsinto effect and penetrated, at first hesitatingly and cautiously, into thecoal-basin of Lower Germany the hour of destiny had struck for Germany. It wasa great and decisive moment. If at that moment our people had changed not onlytheir frame of mind but also their conduct the German Ruhr District could havebeen made for France what Moscow turned out to be for Napoleon. Indeed, therewere only two possibilities: either to leave this move also to take its courseand do nothing or to turn to the German people in that region of swelteringforges and flaming furnaces. An effort might have been made to set their willsafire with determination to put an end to this persistent disgrace and to facea momentary terror rather than submit to a terror that was endless.
Cuno, who was then Chancellor ofthe Reich, can claim the immortal merit of having discovered a third way; andour German bourgeois political parties merit the still more glorious honour ofhaving admired him and collaborated with him.
Here I shall deal with the secondway as briefly as possible.
By occupying the Ruhr Francecommitted a glaring violation of the Versailles Treaty. Her action brought herinto conflict with several of the guarantor Powers, especially with England andItaly. She could no longer hope that those States would back her up in heregotistic act of brigandage. She could count only on her own forces to reapanything like a positive result from that adventure, for such it was at thestart. For a German National Government there was only one possible way leftopen. And this was the way which honour prescribed. Certainly at the beginningwe could not have opposed France with an active armed resistance. But it shouldhave been clearly recognized that any negotiations which did not have theargument of force to back them up would turn out futile and ridiculous. If itwere not possible to organize an active resistance, then it was absurd to takeup the standpoint: "We shall not enter into any negotiations." But itwas still more absurd finally to enter into negotiations without havingorganized the necessary force as a support.
Not that it was possible for us bymilitary means to prevent the occupation of the Ruhr. Only a madman could haverecommended such a decision. But under the impression produced by the actionwhich France had taken, and during the time that it was being carried out,measures could have been, and should have been, undertaken without any regardto the Versailles Treaty, which France herself had violated, to provide thosemilitary resources which would serve as a collateral argument to back up thenegotiations later on. For it was quite clear from the beginning that the fateof this district occupied by the French would one day be decided at someconference table or other. But it also must have been quite to everybody thateven the best negotiators could have little success as long as the ground onwhich they themselves stood and the chair on which they sat were not under thearmed protection of their own people. A weak pigmy cannot contend againstathletes, and a negotiator without any armed defence at his back must alwaysbow in obeisance when a Brennus throws the sword into the scales on the enemy’sside, unless an equally strong sword can be thrown into the scales at the otherend and thus maintain the balance. It was really distressing to have to observethe comedy of negotiations which, ever since 1918, regularly preceded eacharbitrary dictate that the enemy imposed upon us. We offered a sorry spectacleto the eyes of the whole world when we were invited, for the sake of derision,to attend conference tables simply to be presented with decisions andprogrammes which had already been drawn up and passed a long time before, andwhich we were permitted to discuss, but from the beginning had to be consideredas unalterable. It is true that in scarcely a single instance were ournegotiators men of more than mediocre abilities. For the most part theyjustified only too well the insolent observation made by Lloyd George when hesarcastically remarked, in the presence of a former Chancellor of the Reich,Herr Simon, that the Germans were not able to choose men of intelligence astheir leaders and representatives. But in face of the resolute determinationand the power which the enemy held in his hands, on the one side, and thelamentable impotence of Germany on the other, even a body of geniuses couldhave obtained only very little for Germany.
In the spring of 1923, however,anyone who might have thought of seizing the opportunity of the French invasionof the Ruhr to reconstruct the military power of Germany would first have hadto restore to the nation its moral weapons, to reinforce its will-power, and toextirpate those who had destroyed this most valuable element of nationalstrength.
Just as in 1918 we had to pay withour blood for the failure to crush the Marxist serpent underfoot once and forall in 1914 and 1915, now we have to suffer retribution for the fact that inthe spring of 1923 we did not seize the opportunity then offered us for finallywiping out the handiwork done by the Marxists who betrayed their country andwere responsible for the murder of our people.
Any idea of opposing Frenchaggression with an efficacious resistance was only pure folly as long as thefight had not been taken up against those forces which, five years previously,had broken the German resistance on the battlefields by the influences whichthey exercised at home. Only bourgeois minds could have arrived at theincredible belief that Marxism had probably become quite a different thing nowand that the canaille of ringleaders in 1918, who callously used the bodies ofour two million dead as stepping-stones on which they climbed into the variousGovernment positions, would now, in the year 1923, suddenly show themselvesready to pay their tribute to the national conscience. It was veritably a pieceof incredible folly to expect that those traitors would suddenly appear as thechampions of German freedom. They had no intention of doing it. Just as a hyenawill not leave its carrion, a Marxist will not give up indulging in thebetrayal of his country. It is out of the question to put forward the stupidretort here, that so many of the workers gave their blood for Germany. Germanworkers, yes, but no longer international Marxists. If the German workingclass, in 1914, consisted of real Marxists the War would have ended withinthree weeks. Germany would have collapsed before the first soldier had put afoot beyond the frontiers. No. The fact that the German people carried on theWar proved that the Marxist folly had not yet been able to penetrate deeply.But as the War was prolonged German soldiers and workers gradually fell backinto the hands of the Marxist leaders, and the number of those who thusrelapsed became lost to their country. At the beginning of the War, or evenduring the War, if twelve or fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corruptingthe nation had been forced to submit to poison-gas, just as hundreds ofthousands of our best German workers from every social stratum and from everytrade and calling had to face it in the field, then the millions of sacrificesmade at the front would not have been in vain. On the contrary: If twelvethousand of these malefactors had been eliminated in proper time probably thelives of a million decent men, who would be of value to Germany in the future,might have been saved. But it was in accordance with bourgeois ‘statesmanship’to hand over, without the twitch of an eyelid, millions of human beings to beslaughtered on the battlefields, while they looked upon ten or twelve thousandpublic traitors, profiteers, usurers and swindlers, as the dearest and mostsacred national treasure and proclaimed their persons to be inviolable. Indeedit would be hard to say what is the most outstanding feature of these bourgeoiscircles: mental debility, moral weakness and cowardice, or a mere down-at-heelmentality. It is a class that is certainly doomed to go under but, unhappily,it drags down the whole nation with it into the abyss.
The situation in 1923 was quitesimilar to that of 1918. No matter what form of resistance was decided upon,the first prerequisite for taking action was the elimination of the Marxistpoison from the body of the nation. And I was convinced that the first taskthen of a really National Government was to seek and find those forces thatwere determined to wage a war of destruction against Marxism and to give theseforces a free hand. It was their duty not to bow down before the fetish of‘order and tranquillity’ at a moment when the enemy from outside was dealingthe Fatherland a death-blow and when high treason was lurking behind everystreet corner at home. No. A really National Government ought then to havewelcomed disorder and unrest if this turmoil would afford an opportunity offinally settling with the Marxists, who are the mortal enemies of our people.If this precaution were neglected, then it was sheer folly to think ofresisting, no matter what form that resistance might take.
Of course, such a settlement ofaccounts with the Marxists as would be of real historical importance could notbe effected along lines laid down by some secret council or according to someplan concocted by the shrivelled mind of some cabinet minister. It would haveto be in accordance with the eternal laws of life on this Earth which are andwill remain those of a ceaseless struggle for existence. It must always beremembered that in many instances a hardy and healthy nation has emerged from theordeal of the most bloody civil wars, while from peace conditions which hadbeen artificially maintained there often resulted a state of nationalputrescence that reeked to the skies. The fate of a nation cannot be changed inkid gloves. And so in the year 1923 brutal action should have been taken tostamp out the vipers that battened on the body of the nation. If this weredone, then the first prerequisite for an active opposition would have beenfulfilled.
At that time I often talked myselfhoarse in trying to make it clear, at least to the so-called national circles,what was then at stake and that by repeating the errors committed in 1914 andthe following years we must necessarily come to the same kind of catastrophe asin 1918. I frequently implored of them to let Fate have a free hand and to makeit possible for our Movement to settle with the Marxists. But I preached todeaf ears. They all thought they knew better, including the Chief of theDefence Force, until finally they found themselves forced to subscribe to thevilest capitulation that history records.
I then became profoundly convincedthat the German bourgeoisie had come to the end of its mission and was notcapable of fulfilling any further function. And then also I recognized the factthat all the bourgeois parties had been fighting Marxism merely from the spiritof competition without sincerely wishing to destroy it. For a long time theyhad been accustomed to assist in the destruction of their country, and theirone great care was to secure good seats at the funeral banquet. It was for thisalone that they kept on ‘fighting’.
At that time – I admit it openly –I conceived a profound admiration for the great man beyond the Alps, whoseardent love for his people inspired him not to bargain with Italy’s internalenemies but to use all possible ways and means in an effort to wipe them out.What places Mussolini in the ranks of the world’s great men is his decision notto share Italy with the Marxists but to redeem his country from Marxism bydestroying internationalism.
What miserable pigmies our shamstatesmen in Germany appear by comparison with him. And how nauseating it is towitness the conceit and effrontery of these nonentities in criticizing a manwho is a thousand times greater than them. And how painful it is to think thatthis takes place in a country which could point to a Bismarck as its leader asrecently as fifty years ago.
The attitude adopted by thebourgeoisie in 1923 and the way in which they dealt kindly with Marxism decidedfrom the outset the fate of any attempt at active resistance in the Ruhr. Withthat deadly enemy in our own ranks it was sheer folly to think of fightingFrance. The most that could then be done was to stage a sham fight in order tosatisfy the German national element to some extent, to tranquillize the‘boiling state of the public mind’, or dope it, which was what was reallyintended. Had they really believed in what they did, they ought to haverecognized that the strength of a nation lies, first of all, not in its armsbut in its will, and that before conquering the external enemy the enemy athome would have to be eliminated. If not, then disaster must result if victorybe not achieved on the very first day of the fight. The shadow of one defeat issufficient to break up the resistance of a nation that has not been liberatedfrom its internal enemies, and give the adversary a decisive victory.
In the spring of 1923 all thismight have been predicted. It is useless to ask whether it was then possible tocount on a military success against France. For if the result of the Germanaction in regard to the French invasion of the Ruhr had been only thedestruction of Marxism at home, success would have been on our side. Onceliberated from the deadly enemies of her present and future existence, Germanywould possess forces which no power in the world could strangle again. On theday when Marxism is broken in Germany the chains that bind Germany will besmashed for ever. For never in our history have we been conquered by thestrength of our outside enemies but only through our own failings and the enemyin our own camp.
Since it was not able to decide onsuch heroic action at that time, the Government could have chosen the firstway: namely, to allow things to take their course and do nothing at all.
But at that great moment Heavenmade Germany a present of a great man. This was Herr Cuno. He was neither astatesman nor a politician by profession, still less a politician by birth. Buthe belonged to that type of politician who is merely used for liquidating somedefinite question. Apart from that, he had business experience. It was a cursefor Germany that, in the practice of politics, this business man looked uponpolitics also as a business undertaking and regulated his conduct accordingly.
"France occupies the Ruhr.What is there in the Ruhr? Coal. And so France occupies the Ruhr for the sakeof its coal?" What could come more naturally to the mind of Herr Cuno thanthe idea of a strike, which would prevent the French from obtaining any coal?And therefore, in the opinion of Herr Cuno, one day or other they wouldcertainly have to get out of the Ruhr again if the occupation did not prove tobe a paying business. Such were approximately the lines along which thatoutstanding national statesman reasoned. At Stuttgart and other places he spoketo ‘his people’ and this people became lost in admiration for him. Of coursethey needed the Marxists for the strike, because the workers would have to bethe first to go on strike. Now, in the brain of a bourgeois statesman such asCuno, a Marxist and a worker are one and the same thing. Therefore it wasnecessary to bring the worker into line with all the other Germans in a unitedfront. One should have seen how the countenances of these party politiciansbeamed with the light of their moth-eaten bourgeois culture when the greatgenius spoke the word of revelation to them. Here was a nationalist and also aman of genius. At last they had discovered what they had so long sought. Fornow the abyss between Marxism and themselves could be bridged over. And thus itbecame possible for the pseudo-nationalist to ape the German manner and adoptnationalist phraseology in reaching out the ingenuous hand of friendship to theinternationalist traitors of their country. The traitor readily grasped thathand, because, just as Herr Cuno had need of the Marxist chiefs for his ‘unitedfront’, the Marxist chiefs needed Herr Cuno’s money. So that both partiesmutually benefited by the transaction. Cuno obtained his united front,constituted of nationalist charlatans and international swindlers. And now,with the help of the money paid to them by the State, these people were able topursue their glorious mission, which was to destroy the national economicsystem. It was an immortal thought, that of saving a nation by means of ageneral strike in which the strikers were paid by the State. It was a commandthat could be enthusiastically obeyed by the most indifferent of loafers.
Everybody knows that prayers willnot make a nation free. But that it is possible to liberate a nation by givingup work has yet to be proved by historical experience. Instead of promoting apaid general strike at that time, and making this the basis of his ‘unitedfront’, if Herr Cuno had demanded two hours more work from every German, thenthe swindle of the ‘united front’ would have been disposed of within threedays. Nations do not obtain their freedom by refusing to work but by makingsacrifices.
Anyhow, the so-called passiveresistance could not last long. Nobody but a man entirely ignorant of war couldimagine that an army of occupation might be frightened and driven out by suchridiculous means. And yet this could have been the only purpose of an actionfor which the country had to pay out milliards and which contributed seriouslyto devaluate the national currency.
Of course the French were able tomake themselves almost at home in the Ruhr basin the moment they saw that such ridiculousmeasures were being adopted against them. They had received the prescriptiondirectly from ourselves of the best way to bring a recalcitrant civilpopulation to a sense of reason if its conduct implied a serious danger for theofficials which the army of occupation had placed in authority. Nine yearspreviously we wiped out with lightning rapidity bands of Belgian francs-tireursand made the civil population clearly understand the seriousness of thesituation, when the activities of these bands threatened grave danger for theGerman army. In like manner if the passive resistance of the Ruhr became reallydangerous for the French, the armies of occupation would have needed no morethan eight days to bring the whole piece of childish nonsense to a gruesomeend. For we must always go back to the original question in all this business:What were we to do if the passive resistance came to the point where it reallygot on the nerves of our opponents and they proceeded to suppress it with forceand bloodshed? Would we still continue to resist? If so, then, for weal or woe,we would have to submit to a severe and bloody persecution. And in that case weshould be faced with the same situation as would have faced us in the case ofan active resistance. In other words, we should have to fight. Therefore theso-called passive resistance would be logical only if supported by thedetermination to come out and wage an open fight in case of necessity or adopta kind of guerilla warfare. Generally speaking, one undertakes such a strugglewhen there is a possibility of success. The moment a besieged fortress is takenby assault there is no practical alternative left to the defenders except tosurrender, if instead of probable death they are assured that their lives willbe spared. Let the garrison of a citadel which has been completely encircled bythe enemy once lose all hope of being delivered by their friends, then thestrength of the defence collapses totally.
That is why passive resistance inthe Ruhr, when one considers the final consequences which it might and mustnecessarily have if it were to turn out really successful, had no practicalmeaning unless an active front had been organized to support it. Then one mighthave demanded immense efforts from our people. If each of these Westphalians inthe Ruhr could have been assured that the home country had mobilized an army ofeighty or a hundred divisions to support them, the French would have foundthemselves treading on thorns. Surely a greater number of courageous men couldbe found to sacrifice themselves for a successful enterprise than for anenterprise that was manifestly futile.
This was the classic occasion thatinduced us National Socialists to take up a resolute stand against theso-called national word of command. And that is what we did. During thosemonths I was attacked by people whose patriotism was a mixture of stupidity andhumbug and who took part in the general hue and cry because of the pleasantsensation they felt at being suddenly enabled to show themselves asnationalists, without running any danger thereby. In my estimation, thisdespicable ‘united front’ was one of the most ridiculous things that could beimagined. And events proved that I was right.
As soon as the Trades Unions hadnearly filled their treasuries with Cuno’s contributions, and the moment hadcome when it would be necessary to transform the passive resistance from a mereinert defence into active aggression, the Red hyenas suddenly broke out of thenational sheepfold and returned to be what they always had been. Withoutsounding any drums or trumpets, Herr Cuno returned to his ships. Germany wasricher by one experience and poorer by the loss of one great hope.
Up to midsummer of that yearseveral officers, who certainly were not the least brave and honourable oftheir kind, had not really believed that the course of things could take a turnthat was so humiliating. They had all hoped that – if not openly, then at leastsecretly – the necessary measures would be taken to make this insolent Frenchinvasion a turning-point in German history. In our ranks also there were manywho counted at least on the intervention of the Reichswehr. That conviction wasso ardent that it decisively influenced the conduct and especially the trainingof innumerable young men.
But when the disgraceful collapseset in and the most humiliating kind of capitulation was made, indignationagainst such a betrayal of our unhappy country broke out into a blaze. Millionsof German money had been spent in vain and thousands of young Germans had beensacrificed, who were foolish enough to trust in the promises made by the rulersof the Reich. Millions of people now became clearly convinced that Germanycould be saved only if the whole prevailing system were destroyed root andbranch.
There never had been a morepropitious moment for such a solution. On the one side an act of high treasonhad been committed against the country, openly and shamelessly. On the otherside a nation found itself delivered over to die slowly of hunger. Since theState itself had trodden down all the precepts of faith and loyalty, made amockery of the rights of its citizens, rendered the sacrifices of millions ofits most loyal sons fruitless and robbed other millions of their last penny,such a State could no longer expect anything but hatred from its subjects. Thishatred against those who had ruined the people and the country was bound tofind an outlet in one form or another. In this connection I shall quote herethe concluding sentence of a speech which I delivered at the great court trialthat took place in the spring of 1924.
"The judges of this State maytranquilly condemn us for our conduct at that time, but History, the goddess ofa higher truth and a better legal code, will smile as she tears up this verdictand will acquit us all of the crime for which this verdict demandspunishment."
But History will then also summonbefore its own tribunal those who, invested with power to-day, have trampled onlaw and justice, condemning our people to misery and ruin, and who, in the hourof their country’s misfortune, took more account of their own ego than of thelife of the community.
Here I shall not relate the courseof events which led to November 8th, 1923, and closed with that date. I shallnot do so because I cannot see that this would serve any beneficial purpose inthe future and also because no good could come of opening old sores that havebeen just only closed. Moreover, it would be out of place to talk about theguilt of men who perhaps in the depths of their hearts have as much love fortheir people as I myself, and who merely did not follow the same road as I tookor failed to recognize it as the right one to take.
In the face of the greatmisfortune which has befallen our fatherland and affects all us, I must abstainfrom offending and perhaps disuniting those men who must at some future dateform one great united front which will be made up of true and loyal Germans andwhich will have to withstand the common front presented by the enemy of ourpeople. For I know that a time will come when those who then treated us asenemies will venerate the men who trod the bitter way of death for the sake oftheir people.
I have dedicated the first volumeof this book to our eighteen fallen heroes. Here at the end of this secondvolume let me again bring those men to the memory of the adherents andchampions of our ideals, as heroes who, in the full consciousness of what theywere doing, sacrificed their lives for us all. We must never fail to recallthose names in order to encourage the weak and wavering among us when dutycalls, that duty which they fulfilled with absolute faith, even to its extremeconsequences. Together with those, and as one of the best of all, I should liketo mention the name of a man who devoted his life to reawakening his and ourpeople, through his writing and his ideas and finally through positive action.
On November 9th, 1923, four and ahalf years after its foundation, the German National Socialist Labour Party wasdissolved and forbidden throughout the whole of the Reich. To-day, in November1926, it is again established throughout the Reich, enjoying full liberty,stronger and internally more compact than ever before.
All persecutions of the Movementand the individuals at its head, all the imputations and calumnies, have notbeen able to prevail against it. Thanks to the justice of its ideas, theintegrity of its intentions and the spirit of self-denial that animates itsmembers, it has overcome all oppression and increased its strength through theordeal. If, in our contemporary world of parliamentary corruption, our Movementremains always conscious of the profound nature of its struggle and feels thatit personifies the values of individual personality and race, and orders itsaction accordingly – then it may count with mathematical certainty on achievingvictory some day in the future. And Germany must necessarily win the positionwhich belongs to it on this Earth if it is led and organized according to theseprinciples.
A State which, in an epoch ofracial adulteration, devotes itself to the duty of preserving the best elementsof its racial stock must one day become ruler of the Earth.
The adherents of our Movementsmust always remember this, whenever they may have misgivings lest the greatnessof the sacrifices demanded of them may not be justified by the possibilities ofsuccess.